Miscellaneous Information
How to use the site.
Take an example of Patching Lake Cabin which is in the Ketchikan area in the Tongass National Forest.
By clicking on the pointer next to Ketchican you get a list of the different cabins in that area.
Click on Ketchikan and you can see a chart and map of all the cabins in the Ketchikan area. Chart includes lat/long, altitude, lake length, and rating.
If the cabin you are interested in has it's name listed under Ketchikan that means it is a cabin on a lake which can be accessed by float planes. I have photos and other information you can see by clicking on the name, in this case Patching Lake. Each Tongass cabin has two other sources of information linked in. The Tongass National Forest web site and the Recreation.gov site.
If you want the full list of cabins go to Planning Resources and you can get a printout or file in PDF or Excel format.
Resources also include web sites of interest, Garmin way points and a copy of my Alaska cheat sheets which include aviation information and various phone numbers. There is also a tab for equipment options and trade offs.
I find the best way to check out an area is to load my Garmin way-points into MapSource, which is the program from Garmin used to manage way-points and routes. In most areas except in the Tongass there is an overlap of State, Forest Service and National Wild Life Refuge Cabins. By seeing them all in MapSource and then looking them up on the website you can do a great job of planning.
If you find errors please notify me at tmbass@gmail.com
Notes on site content.
This web site includes every cabin in Alaska which is on a lake, owned by a government entity and rented to the public either through Recreation.gov or by calling the controlling agency directly. It does not include cabins on tidal areas, private cabins owned by for profit companies or cabins where it is not legal for aircraft to land. There are several very nice cabins in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge which are on lakes where aircraft are not allowed to land. All lake cabins are included without consideration to lake length. The length of lakes are noted on my spread sheets with anything less than 4000 feet highlighted.
The National Forest Service uses a Lat/Long format of degrees followed by minutes and seconds in a decimal format. Juneau is displayed as N58.35491 W134.57634. The State Parks and the National Wildlife Refuge areas use a wide variety of formats. In this site I have converted Lat/Longs to the Forest Service format. In a Garmin GPS this format type is selected under settings, under locations as format type hddd.ddddd. All of my spread sheets show Forest Service and and the format used by aviation. If you download my Garmin way point list it will be in the format you have in your GPS or what you have in Garmin MapSource. You can change MapSource format by going to edit, select preferences, select position and then select the format you want. I find the Forest Service format easy to use and the least prone to errors. Both formats are in my Excel download along with other data I collect. The Excel format is mainly by other non profit data bases to show my way points in there systems. All data is copy write protected, and may be used only by individuals. Agencies or businesses must request permission.
The maps shown for individual cabins are from Garmin MapSource . If you down load my way-points to your MapSource they will show the same way. If you load them to most Garmin handhelds units from 296 to 496 the symbols I use will appear. Some of the new model Garmin units do not support the full range of symbols and your unit will show them as a gray square.
I have gone to great lengths to insure I have every public cabin in Alaska which is on a lake legal to land on. I have also tried to get my way-points where the cabins are. Please notify me on any errors you may find. If the Lat/Long shown by the controlling agency is different than mine, mine is probably correct.
See tabs below for information on other information needed for a trip.