As spring edges into summer and snow melts in the high country, I think about camping among aspen trees. Another way to experience the forest is to leave the tent at home and rent a historic cabin from the U.S. Forest Service via www/recreation.gov.
I treasure days without driving, and from a forest service cabin, hiking trails are often close. These historic log cabins, with pine tree motifs on shutters, gates and doors, are intimate, cozy spaces with fly-specked windows, several beds, propane stoves, refrigerators and lighting. Most have no electricity. Forget computers. Try a little digital detox. Leave the cellphone at home and instead bring books, good friends, beer and wine, sourdough bread, binoculars and hiking boots.
The U.S. Forest Service evolved with available labor during the 1930s Great Depression. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt conceived of the extremely popular Civilian Conservation Corps. The CCC “boys,” who were out-of-work young men often from urban areas, built many forest ranger cabins that became known as “guard stations” because forest rangers stayed there to be closer to the natural resources they protected and to be available in fire season. Some guard stations had nearby barns for horses and tack or saddle gear. Almost all ranger stations had adjacent horse pastures.
Ranger stations became standardized with a bedroom, bathroom, well-lit kitchen and garage. Most of the garages were converted into an additional bedroom or sometimes bunkroom for seasonal staff. Kitchen-front doors open onto small stone porches and woodwork, and hinges and kitchen tables all demonstrate the excellent craftsmanship of the CCC.
My favorite cabin on the San Juan National Forest is the Aspen Guard Station on the Dolores Ranger District. Across the West, these historic log buildings are now available for seasonal rental including the Aspen Guard Station, the Glade Guard Station and the Jersey Jim Fire Tower, all maintained by dedicated volunteers working with the Jersey Jim Foundation. At the Aspen Guard Station, forest service employees stack firewood safe and dry outside in a “ranger manger.”
I’ve stayed in the Aspen Guard Station as an historian-in-residence for the USFS as well as a paying visitor with my wife. We enjoyed daily hikes, including a short walk on the Big Al Trail, which is graded and perfect for wheelchairs with stunning views of the west side of the La Plata Mountains, including Hesperus, Sharkstooth and Centennial peaks.
The Glade Guard Station is not log but instead has a white clapboard exterior, a tall hipped roof and a lovely corner porch. Retired smokejumpers refurbished the building 15 years ago. Volunteers put in 10-hour days on the structure that replaced the original log cabin ranger station built in 1906 when the USFS was only a year old.
Other forests have fine cabins for rent, too, including the Lone Cone Ranger Cabin on the Grand Mesa Uncompahgre Gunnison National Forest (known affectionately as the GMUG). Twenty-four miles from Norwood and deep among aspen trees, the Lone Cone cabin has a stone front porch with a long distance view of Lone Cone Mountain to the west. I slept there with an archaeological survey crew when we spent three days searching for sheepherder arboglyphs or carved aspen trees, a valuable but increasingly scarce cultural resource.
Other cabins available on the GMUG are all above 9,000 feet, including Moose Manor, Aspen Leaf, Jackson Guard Station, Black Bear, Oak Cabin and the Silesca Ranger Station. These cabins have bedrooms but also sofa sleepers and twin beds. In some cabins you must bring your own lanterns. Kerosene lamps are not allowed. Cleaning supplies are provided. Hint, hint: Clean up before you leave.
In Utah above Moab, an available cabin is the Warner Lake Guard Station on the Manti La Sal National Forest. In New Mexico, what is exciting is Mi Casita at Tres Piedras on the Carson National Forest will be available for the public. A craftsman style bungalow with a wide, wood front porch that faces east to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, this is the house that Aldo Leopold built for his young wife Estella Luna Otero Bergere in 1912. Coming from a wealthy New Mexican family and always having had servants, she named it Mi Casita or “My Little House.” Leopold graduated as a forester from Yale University and was among the first generation of foresters in the American Southwest. A dedicated conservationist, his life and career bridges the environmental movement.
His book, “A Sand County Almanac,” published in 1949 is one of the major works on American conservation and environmental philosophy. Put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1993 and restored to its original appearance in 2005-06, the Forest Service management plan says Mi Casita “will function as a retreat for persons interested in modern conservation issues and as an interpretive site. … The Forest Service will offer the house to the public as a place of reflection and scholarly pursuits.”
The Leopold Writing Program, based in Albuquerque, began a writers-in-residence opportunity in the house in 2012. I was honored to be there in July 2016. The isolation at Tres Piedras allowed me to dive into my historical research, write, walk and keep writing. I pulled a small, covered utility trailer with all my gear, food and writing supplies. I ran out of beer, cheese, salami and Triscuits, but I had plenty of canned soup. No fresh vegetables. The drive to resupply is about the same either to Taos or Antonito, Colorado. I tried both and enjoyed the route north along what is now Rio Grande National Monument.
Buy a copy of the Carson National Forest map and take some hikes but always have a full tank of gas. In that part of northern New Mexico, roads lead on to roads and some are mapped and some are not. Strangers are rare. Practice your Spanish. Get to know the staff members in the USFS office two blocks away. Find the Tres Piedras themselves – three large boulder outcroppings – and hike around them.
To be at Mi Casita is to affirm the happy marriage of Leopold and his wife. Their children were yet to come. He almost died at the house from severe storm exposure in April 1913 after being on range patrol near the Jicarilla Apache Nation. Leopold started to suffer kidney failure while his beloved was in Santa Fe in confinement for their first child. Luckily, he took the train to Santa Fe and received lengthy medical care, but how ironic – he never came back to enjoy his house. They lived in Mi Casita less than a year.
Now Leopold’s bungalow also contains a sizable and valuable conservation library with donations from former writers in residence and environmental-history professors, as well as original 1903-1907 “Primers of Forestry” and “The Use Book.” There are over 175 books on Leopold scholarship, New Mexico nature and culture, and Forest Service history as well as deep leather chairs in true arts and crafts style.
On 8 acres, Mi Casita and its associated structures, including corrals and a barn, are listed as the “Old Tres Piedras Administrative Site … a perfectly preserved and classic representative of the early history of the National Forest Service.” Public access has been restricted, but under the leadership of retired physician Dr. Richard Rubin, of Arroyo Seco, and with Friends of Mi Casita volunteer help, rental accomodations are now available. As many as eight people can stay and study from two to five days.
How fortunate to be able to visit, to absorb Leopold’s environmental thinking and to hike on ground that he surely traversed. Mi Casita would make for a great Southwest staycation. What a superb opportunity for family and friends. There’s nothing quite like watching summer thunderstorms roll across the Sangres from the snug safety of Leopold’s expansive front porch.
Andrew Gulliford, an award-winning author and editor, is professor of history at Fort Lewis College. Reach him at [email protected].