Fifty Places to Camp Before You Die

Chris Santella

• Publisher: Stewart, Tabori & Chang
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781613129401
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Travel

In Fifty Places to Camp Before You Die, Chris Santella illuminates the best destinations for exploring the great outdoors. The book features the world's top spots for sleeping under the stars and enjoying a host of outdoor recreational activities that make camping such a time-honored tradition. Featuring favorite US National Parks destinations—as well as more exotic locales in Italy, Chile, France, Botswana, Germany, and more—Santella provides helpful information and tips that will appeal to novice campers and seasoned outdoorsmen alike. Interviews with camping experts and beautiful, vibrant photography bring each location to life. Fifty Places to Camp Before You Die makes camping trips more accessible with easy-to-follow advice, enthralling anecdotes, and tips and plans for creating your own amazing outdoor memories.

Mist lifts from an Adirondack lake on a crisp fall morning.

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The Destinations

Campers at Point Amargura will want to keep their eyes and ears open for humpback whales, which will approach quite close to the cabin.

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Alaska—Craig

POINT AMARGURA CABIN

RECOMMENDED BY Ellen Hannan

There are many fine ways to experience the wonderful wildlife and scenic grandeur of Southeast Alaska. More than a dozen cruise-ship lines offer tours of the Inside Passage and (in the case of smaller ships) its thousands of miles of nooks and crannies. A number of lodges host anglers and wildlife watchers, providing a mix of sport-fishing outings and flightseeing excursions. Still others choose to explore segments of the five-hundred-mile passage by kayak, paddling their way from fjord to fjord and camping along the way.

One of the most economical—yet still adventurous—ways to experience the dramatic beauty of Southeast Alaska and the Tongass National Forest is to rent one of the forest cabins operated by the U.S. Forest Service.

“I grew up in Anchorage and have lived on Prince of Wales Island for thirty years,” Ellen Hannan began. “During the summer, I work as a commercial fisherwoman in the waters around the region, but I also love to recreate here. The Forest Service cabin at Point Amargura is one of my favorite spots to make a base camp. It has great access to lots of areas to fish and explore. Having the cabin is great, given the kind of weather we have in Southeast. There used to be an old A-frame cabin on the site, but now it’s been upgraded. It’s larger and more weathertight. You can go out there in May or October—often the only time I have off in the warmer months because of our fishing schedule—throw up a tarp outside for a cooking area, and be very comfortable.”

The Tongass National Forest occupies 16.8 million acres, stretching 500 miles from the Dixon Entrance at the border with British Columbia north to the town of Yakutat. Often referred to as the panhandle of Alaska, this region—larger than Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont combined—includes rugged mountains, ice fields, and glaciers, and more than 11,000 miles of coastline, spread over more than 1,000 islands. (When many think of Alaska, this is the terrain they’re envisioning.) Given the breadth of the landscape and the fact that there are only 70,000 residents in Southeast Alaska—and very few roads—it’s not hard to find a bit of solitude in the wilderness. Such forays are facilitated by the presence of more than 180 cabins scattered around the region. A number of cabins and three-sided shelters were constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the 1930s, both to provide employment for out-of-work Alaskans and to create accessible, economical recreational outlets; the 1960s saw another uptick of cabin construction. The Southeast Alaska climate is not easy on structures; annual rainfall in sections of this temperate rain forest can exceed 120 inches! But the Forest Service is diligent about maintaining—and when necessary, rebuilding—the cabins for visitor use.

Point Amargura Cabin rests on the southern tip of San Fernando Island, which is eight miles west of Craig, the largest settlement on nearby Prince of Wales Island. Ample by Forest Service cabin standards, the 255-square-foot cabin boasts a loft area and can sleep up to six visitors. It comes equipped with a wood stove for heating purposes, an axe and wedges for splitting firewood, and an outhouse a convenient distance away. If you’re lucky, previous visitors may have laid in some firewood for your use. “We have a group of friends who usually head out to Amargura around Memorial Day each year,” Ellen continued. “Part of the trip is fun, but we also do some work to neaten things up around the cabin. We clear away debris to improve access to the beach, and we cut a bunch of firewood. The unofficial rule is that you leave more firewood than you use.” While you may find wood at Point Amargura (or the other Forest Service cabin of your choice), you’ll have to bring everything else—drinking water, sleeping bags and pads, cooking stove, lantern, kitchen supplies, toilet paper, etc.

Perhaps the greatest feature of the Point Amargura Cabin is its proximity to the water that supports so much life here. The Ursua Channel ebbs and floods outside the cabin, occasionally bringing seaborne visitors almost to your door. “There have been several occasions where friends and I have been sitting around the fire outside, and it’s very quiet,” Ellen recalled. “It could be in the evening or the morning. Suddenly we’ll hear the sound of a whale blowing water, very close, and soon there’s a humpback whale right at the point, by the kelp beds. They can really sneak up.” Reduced to a population of fewer than 1,500 whales by the mid-60s, the North Pacific population of humpbacks has rebounded to more than 20,000 individuals.

Humpbacks may be the most dramatic surface performers among Alaska’s cetaceans, breaching, tail and pectoral fin slapping, and spy hopping (where the whale keeps its head out of the water to observe goings-on), and pods are present year-round. “We’ve also had some nice killer-whale experiences around Point Amargura,” Ellen added. “We were in the boat in a very shallow area among some kelp beds. The water wasn’t much more than six feet deep. A pod of forty or fifty orcas came through. It took a while for them to pass; they were strung out quite a distance.”

Some of the sea life you’ll encounter around Point Amargura will most likely be at the end of a fishing line. If you’ve traveled to San Fernando Island with a boat or kayak, you’ll be near fertile fishing grounds. Halibut, lingcod, and four salmon species—pink, chum, silver, and Chinook (king)—can all be found here. Bring strong gear, as kings can grow to more than fifty pounds and halibut to more than two hundred!

The tides of Southeast Alaska are extreme and can vary more than twenty feet. During high tide (the only time you can bring a floatplane or boat to shore at Point Amargura), plan on being in your boat or cabin . . . the cabin backs up against a cliff, and there are no maintained trails through the thick forest of Sitka spruce and western hemlock. But when the tide is out, beachcombing opportunities abound. “When enrollment in the Craig schools (on Prince of Wales Island) was smaller, I’d take our high school students out to Point Amargura,” Ellen shared. “We’d go on the big minus tides and do beach exploration. It was the culmination of our science studies.”

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ELLEN HANNAN is a former schoolteacher, commercial fisherwoman, and technology educator based in Craig, Alaska. An Alaskan since age two, she is a member of the Nanook Hall of Fame, in recognition for her outstanding achievements as a collegiate basketball player for the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

If You Go

Getting There: Point Amargura can be reached by boat or floatplane from the town of Craig on Prince of Wales Island, or by floatplane from Ketchikan. Ketchikan is served by Alaska Airlines (800-252-7522; www.alaskaair.com); Island Air Express (888-387-8989;

https://islandairx.com) provides service from Ketchikan to Craig. A number of boat charter services are available in Craig.

Best Time to Visit: Point Amargura Cabin is open year-round, though peak season is considered May through September.

Campgrounds: Point Amargura Cabin is among more than 180 U.S. Forest Service cabins available in the Tongass National Forest. It comes equipped with a table, benches, a wood stove for heat, and an outside toilet; a fire extinguisher, an axe, and a broom are also provided. You’ll have to bring everything else, including water. Rentals are $35 in peak season, $25 during off-season, and can be reserved through ReserveAmerica (877-444-6777; www.reserveamerica.com).

Activities: Wildlife viewing, fishing, hunting, beachcombing, boating.

Note: There are very few black bears and no grizzly bears on San Fernando Island.

Denali—“the High One”—is the tallest mountain in North America at 20,310 feet.

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Alaska—Healy

DENALI NATIONAL PARK

RECOMMENDED BY Kris Fister

At 20,320 feet, Mount McKinley towers high above the Alaskan tundra. On clear days, the great massif can be spied from downtown Anchorage, some two hundred miles away. Yet it’s a special thrill to gaze upon McKinley—now more recognized as Denali, or “the High One” in the Athabascan language—from a more immediate perspective. That’s but one of the appeals of a visit to Denali National Park.

“Denali has facilities like a park in the Lower 48, but it’s also a very wild place,” began Kris Fister. “There’s little in the way of hiking trails, but the park road cuts through the vast wilderness and provides many chances to see Alaska’s iconic animals. The landscape here is a great introduction to Alaska. It’s on a whole different scale.”

Denali National Park and Preserve (originally Mount McKinley National Park) was dedicated in 1917; it now extends to more than six million acres in interior Alaska. Denali has the distinction of being the first park set aside specifically for the preservation of its animal life and owes its existence to the vision of a gentleman hunter named Charles Sheldon and an outdoorsman named Harry Karstens. After spending the winter of 1907 in a cabin near the Toklat River, the two hatched the idea for the park. It took ten years for their idea to find purchase, but since that time, animals within the park’s boundaries have thrived. High on many visitor “must-see” lists are the “Denali Big Five”—grizzly bear, Dall’s sheep, caribou, moose, and wolf. “I’ve had a number of days when I’ll see one or more of the big five on my drive into work,” Kris continued. “If you take the bus all the way to Wonder Lake and pay close attention, you have a decent chance of coming into contact with all five.”

There is only one road in Denali—a distinctive feature among national parks—and the National Park Service has created a system to ensure that it’s a first-class wildlife viewing highway. “The road is ninety-two miles long and goes from the park entrance to the historic mining district of Kantishna,” Kris explained. “It parallels the Alaska Range, and there are several spots along the way where you can see Mount McKinley if the skies are clear, though this is generally not the case. Private vehicles are allowed on the first fifteen miles of road to the Savage River. Beyond this point, travel is restricted to buses operated by the park concessionaire, private lodges in Kantishna, and private vehicles with administrative road permits. You might come upon animals in that first fifteen miles, especially early in the season, but your odds are far greater once you’re past milepost fifteen.” There are several bus options: Shuttle busses run to different destinations along the length of the road and will stop to let passengers view wildlife, snap photos of striking scenery, and disembark to hike. If you have a shut...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword
• Introduction
• The Destinations
• Copyright Page