Secret Love Shack

"Love Shack, baby, Love Shack... "

SECRET. A few years ago a friend told us about a cabin called the "Tin Shack" here on the Kenai Peninsula, easily reached by trail from the road and offering access to fun hiking and skiing terrain. We'd never heard of it.

"Ooooh, is it a Forest Service cabin?"

"No."

"National Wildlife Refuge cabin?"

"Nope."

"Non-profit hut to hut?"

"Nuuuuuuu."

"Private VRBO sort of thing?"

"Nuh-uh." 

"???"

"It's not rentable. It's not on a map. It's secret." 

 "Whooooooooa..."

Honestly, it felt great to know that in this world of Google and GPS, a secret cabin could still be a thing! But of course we wanted to find it. With a line of questions involving pull outs, gates, power lines and old mining roads, J pieced together a sense of things and successfully found the Tin Shack on a solo mission last year. Yes! Then, this past weekend, with snow flurries forecasted in the mountains and no real plans on the calendar, we decided to make it a day-trip adventure for the whole fam and one of Indigo's heartier friends.

LOVE SHACK. The hearty friend choice was a good one, because at first J couldn't remember quite which pull out was the right pull out... and then the promised 1/2 hour hike up to the cabin turned into an 1 1/2 hike up to the cabin. Did we mention it was 15 degrees? Indigo was not impressed. Upon arrival, she declared, "we hiked all this way, for this?" Unlike the newly build rentable cabins we usually visit, this was far more rustic. Built in 1929 by a local miner, the cabin was pretty bare bones with holes in the floor, aluminum foil stuffed in cracks of the 55 gallon drum wood stove, 2 benches that doubled as bunk beds, and a lot of graffiti. What's more, she did not like that there were no reservations; her friend noted, "but someone could pop in at any time! You could be sound asleep at 11 PM and a party of 10 could arrive and you'd have to share!" Apparently the spontaneous communal fun of that is completely lost on eleven year olds.

However, as many parents know from experience, hot food and sweet treats can turn a shack into a mansion for a few minutes, so that's what we did. While J lit the stove with the kindle and wood he'd hauled up in a sled, I broke out the thermoses of noodle soup, mugs of cocoa, and chocolate chip cookies. Within a few minutes, Indigo and her friend were smiling, and even laughing when I found the B-52's "Love Shack" on YouTube (for better or for worse, the Tin Shack has excellent cell service). They especially liked the "Tiiiiiiiiin Roof! Rusted" pause in the song and giggled their way out into the winter wonderland.

"Wearin' next to nothing 'cause it's hot as an oven..."

 "Everybody's groovin' baby!"

A little later, with everyone warmed up and fed, J and I were able to climb the meadows above the cabin and make some turns while the girls built snow forts and played UNO below. Yee ha!

(I spy the Tin Shack!)

And by the time we left, the girls were all smiles. But despite their fun, Indigo insisted she didn't want to come back, her original sentiment flooding her brain.

"Oh Indigo, we have a feeling when you're a teenager you're going to decide the Tin Shack is a fantastic place to come with your friends. You'll climb up here and have a blast, and then, when we ask about it, you'll claim you slept over at a friend's house... but we'll wink at each other, and say: Tiiiiiiiin Roof!! BUSTED." 

"Love rules, at the love shack"

And with that final wave of giggles, we scratched our initials into the metal siding, packed up, and began our slide and ski down (which, for the record, does take about a 1/2 hour!).

"A funky old shack [but] I gotta get back..."