The dusty dirt road tracking along the Hungry Horse Reservoir and its timbered high country leads back in time, to the days of fur trapping, hardtack and brutal winters that could stagger a team of horses.
That’s precisely what happened to Jerry and Tex, two freight horses working the Montana oil rush in the winter of 1900-01, when they wandered from camp and didn’t turn up for a month, when they were found belly-deep in the snow and skinny as lodgepole pines. They were nursed back to health and eventually went to work pulling fire wagons in Kalispell, but the name Hungry Horse stuck.
The wash-boarded road along Hungry Horse Reservoir requires patience and stoicism to navigate. There’s no power, no phone, no cell tower.
But there’s plenty of natural wonder and cultural history, including the Anna Creek Work Station, a 60-year-old building the U.S. Forest Service recently proposed refurbishing and adding it to the agency’s growing roster of backwoods getaways.
The Hungry Horse Ranger District of the Flathead National Forest is proposing to add the Anna Creek Work Station to its popular cabin rental program for a fee of $75 per night.
The Anna Creek Work Station is located on the west shore of the Hungry Horse Reservoir, where recreation opportunities abound – hiking, biking, OHV riding, swimming, fishing, boating, huckleberry picking, hunting, snowmobiling and firewood gathering.
After the public comment period and an agency analysis, the Anna Creek cabin would be added to the program and available for rent in June.
It would join 14 other wilderness cabins and fire lookouts for rent on the Flathead National Forest. Nine of them are in the Hungry Horse and Glacier View ranger districts, while others, like the historic Wurtz Cabin, are in the North Fork Flathead River drainage, a wild expanse stretching north of Columbia Falls to the Canadian border, along the western edge of Glacier National Park.
Because of the popularity of the cabin rental program, cabins are often booked out months in advance, and the Forest Service has an eye toward decommissioning other buildings like Anna Creek to add to the catalogue of rentals.
“They have been popular for so long because they offer a really unique opportunity in our forest, so adding an additional opportunity gives more people the chance to experience that,” said Chris Prew of the Hungry Horse Ranger District.
While some of the rentals are decommissioned administrative buildings or fire lookouts owned by the agency, others, like the North Fork’s Wurtz Cabin, are historic homesteads that the Forest Service bought from families.
Prew said the cabins are great for families and friends to gather in an outdoor setting without having to tent camp.
“The system is starting to draw a demographic that wants to go out and stay overnight but doesn’t want to camp,” he said. “I have a young daughter and it’s a lot easier to go rent a cabin than it is to go tent camping.”
Prew said the cabins in the North Fork are among the most popular, as well as Mission Lookout in the Swan Range.
For anywhere from $20 to $75 a night, groups can rent the historic structures, each of which comes with a roof and a bed. Most have a cookstove of some sort, but many don’t have refrigeration. Some have lights and stocked firewood.
The 1,400-square-foot Anna Creek cabin would have three rooms and sleep 10 to 15 people. It will have propane lights, heat, stove and refrigerator, as well as basic dishes, utensils and cooking pots and pans. Visitors will need to provide bedding, water and other personal effects.
The cabin would have two separate seasons: June 1 to Oct. 31 and Dec. 1 to March 31, although the winter season would not be available during the first year it’s added to the program.
While the Hungry Horse Reservoir Road will not be plowed in the winter, people can access by snowmobile, snowshoes or cross-country skis. There is also potential for the cabin to be used during a portion of the fall hunting season. Options would be provided for storage of game meat in a bear-resistant manner and all garbage would be required to be packed out.
Submit comments about the fee proposal by Jan. 15. Email comments to [email protected] and include “Anna Creek Cabin” in the subject line; or mail comments to 10 Hungry Horse Drive, Hungry Horse, MT 59919, attention Chris Prew.
For more information, contact Chris Prew at 406-387-3800.