The Alaska Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has been running their remote recreational cabin staking program for the past few years. In a nutshell, each year DNR selects parcels of state-owned land in each region of the state (northern, interior, southcentral, southeast, and southwest) and opens them up to residents via a lottery system. Winners get to stake parcels of state land for purchase at fair market value. It's $25 to throw your name in the hat for a particular area (residents only, sorry lower-48ers) and, for the last few years, I've been throwing mine in for various areas. This year, both Jon and I were drawn for the same area!
We were both selected to go out and stake anywhere from 5 to 20 acres apiece in the Ridgeview area, just west of Glenallen. Oh yeah. Imagine the Beverly Hillbillies theme song playing as we loaded up the truck and headed to Glenallen... Just how much stuff can you fit in a Tacoma? lots.
Camped in the arctic oven, the greatest wall tent ever! Much to Jon's irritation, the stove was a bit finicky and wouldn't light (it's a little drip stove, kind of like a portable toyo stove). But, no worries, we brought our warm bags just in case and once you started cooking the place heated right up. Luxury!
We spent a day hiking all over the staking area before deciding on our spot. Everyone who had already been out there had marked up their areas, and it was really neat to see the different areas people chose. Some were obviously for ease of access: adjacent to a platted but not yet built subdivision, off of an ATV trail, or near a big lake (maybe they have a float plane?). Other lots were obviously for the surroundings - there were some pretty phenomenal views out there! From high points you could see Mount Drum and Sanford, Tazlina Lake, and a good chunk of the Chugach Range!
We went for views. Ease of access played a minor role, but really, we went for views. A lot of sweet spots were already taken but we still got a great little spot, no more than 1 1/2 miles from the road, with beautiful views!
Jon has pics of our views, but they look way better in person. for now, just imagine snowcovered mountains, giant glacial lakes... I'll give you directions if you want to see for yourself.
So once we picked a spot, it was time to get to work. First order of business: make nameplates for corner posts. OK, so you could actually pay someone in town to engrave metal plates to put on your corner posts, but we thought that making our own could be way more fun. Here's the process - drink one PBR. Cut open can with tin snips. Scratch info in with nail. Repeat.
Here's what one of our finished corner posts looked like. You lop a tree off ~4' high, remove all branches, square up the sides, and attach your PBR nameplate. voila.
Once the corners are set, you need to brush and flag the lines between them. Thankfully, Jon comes from a long line of chainsaw operators. It would have been much, much harder to do all of this by hand. Props to those that do.
Packing out the chainsaw at the end of the day.
Give us a few years to get a cabin up, then we'll have just the spot for some adventures!
