The Kings Hill Cabin Montana
Last week we spent two nights and three lovely days at the Kings Hill Cabin, a Forest Service cabin on the Lewis and Clark National Forest. If you don’t know about renting Forest Service cabins you can read more about it here.
The short story is that the Forest Service rents no-longer-used ranger cabins to the public. We are the public. We rented a cabin.
The Kings Hill cabin is in central Montana about 28 miles north of White Sulfur Springs. I’m sure everyone knows where White Sulfur is, right? The cabin is on Kings Hill Pass, the highest pass that remains open in Montana in winter. At least that’s what I read somewhere.
We originally wanted to get the cabin on a weekend so I wouldn’t have to take any time off work, but when I tried to get a reservation in October, it was booked every weekend of the winter. It turned out to be a good thing we didn’t go on a weekend because there are a lot of snowmobiles up there on the weekends. I like snowmobiles as much as the next person who doesn’t like snowmobiles, but man they are loud en masse. Wednesday and Thursday were peaceful, tranquil and wilderness-y. It started getting louder on Friday.
We drove up after story-time at the library and lunch on Wednesday. My grand plan was for both of the boys to fall asleep in the truck and stay that way for the 1.5 hour drive to White Sulfur Springs. Finn complied. Anders waited until we were about 15 minutes out to fall asleep.
You might want to check out the photos from our September 08 trip to White Sulfur Springs–partly to see how much the boys have grown and to note the new murals at the pool.
Insider Tip: There are a lot of great hot springs in Montana.
After the swim we drove up to the Kings Hill cabin. The log cabin is in the Little Belt Mountains in the Lewis and Clark National Forest. The cabin is about 300 feet below the 7,393-foot pass and across the canyon from Showdown Montana. It was dark when we arrived, but we spied the cabin through the trees.
Our first order of business was turning on the electricity and starting a fire. The cabin is heated by a wood stove and it was COLD in there. See-your-breath-cold. Keep-your-down-jacket-on cold.
Insider Tip: If you are going to get there late in the day, bring a space heater to warm the cabin. The wood stove takes a long time to heat the whole cabin, especially the room with the bunks. There used to be a space heater in the cabin, but it was gone when we visited.
The thing that most worried me about this trip was the thought of putting the boys to sleep in the same room. At home we STILL put Finn to bed in our room and then move him in with Anders when they are both asleep. It used to be that Anders was a real challenge to get to sleep. Now it’s Finn.
Of course, what I think is going to be hard never is. Anders asked to go to bed at 7:30. We put Finn down at the same time and they both went right to sleep. What? Who are those kids?
Since it was so freakin’ cold in the cabin we were a little worried about Finn. He doesn’t stay under covers. His little hands were freezing. H kept waking up throughout the night and putting him back under his covers. I kept getting up to add wood to the stove. Finn survived.
Well, there is a lot more to share, but I got a little chatty here and I need to leave the house by 7 tomorrow to get to work. I’m taking an equitation class (that’s horseback riding) so I’ve been going in early and taking a long lunch on horseback.
I’m picturing you in Montana surrounded by hot springs within driving distance. Hot springs in every direction. Hot springs on every corner like Starbucks (although many of those are closing by the way). I just checked and there is one measly hot springs in Illinois, way far away from us, and absolutely no hot springs in Wisconsin. Drats. I had no idea I was such a hot springs fan until jealously reading your blog.
Karyn- We pretty much just skip from hot spring to hot spring out here! You should come visit and we’ll show you a few.
Melynda! This is fabulous. Thanks so much. Like I say, I grew up skiing Showdown and have been wanting to take my kids there. We drove by last week and decided we need to do it. But where to STAY???!!! Thank you for laying it out for us. We will definitely be doing this before spring. Great story + pix!!!
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