Cabin Life: Final Thoughts
Someone’s Colorado cabin –definitely not small, rustic or rude
This is a backcountry cabin somewhere in Montana.
This rest of this post features drawings of Wilsonia cabins, where I spent 4 summers learning about that cabin community and discovering many common themes to the Mineral King community.
There are three distinct parts to cabin-ness:
- The building itself – small, rustic, basic, simple, often without electronic amenities. (But wait! What about the cabin pictured above?)
- The setting – rural, semi-secluded, in the mountains, taking an effort to get to (But wait! Have you ever been up Highway 180 to Wilsonia? And do these cabins look semi-secluded to you?)
A Wilsonia road
A Wilsonia neighborhood
The culture—slower, focused on people instead of technology; a place to play, recreate and relax, mostly outside; a place where meals and fireplaces become events in and of themselves; returning to nostalgic pastimes either of our youth or of some idealized youth of our parents and grandparents.
Outdoor dining is a big part of cabin life.
Napping is a regular method of relaxing at a cabin.
See? Outdoor dining area
Even outdoor cooking!
Fireplaces are a huge part of cabin culture.
Eat and run??
It seems that the culture part is the strongest determining factor of cabin life. Some of our cabin neighbors gathered in another location for several summers, due to illness of one of their group. One of them told me, “We do Mineral King things in Seattle, and Mineral King is present with us there.” (I probably paraphrased it beyond all recognition – Forgive me, Sawtooth Six!)
Thus, we conclude our 2023 series on Cabin Life. (unless I think of something else)
P.S. Most of the drawings in this post are part of the book The Cabins of Wilsonia, available here.
P.P.S. I can draw your cabin because. . .
. . . using pencils, oil paints, and murals, I make art you can understand, of places and things you love, for prices that won’t scare you.
Mineral King cabin folks come from cities, suburbs, small towns and out in the country; we live in mansions, estates, apartments, and even a few normal houses. We are (or were) artists, bankers, equipment operators, janitors, teachers, farmers, administrative assistants, engineers, retirees, dental hygienists, sheriffs, lawyers, doctors, cowboys, builders, day care workers, musicians, optometrists, veterinary assistants, physical therapists, moms, Park employees, physician’s assistants, and those are just the first ones that come to mind. We come from Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Virginia, New York, Hawaii, Florida, South Dakota, and Egypt. (And more places that I can’t remember. . .)
Our Mineral King cabins, AKA “small, poorly constructed huts in the woods”, are great equalizers.
Every single cabin user has to figure out how to deal with unreliable water, peculiar propane appliances, old stuff that may or may not work, and the definite lack of a maintenance department, hardware or grocery store. There is a terrible road to get there, rodents, spiders and other wildlife that may or may not be appreciated, and all sorts of unexpected situations. (Who left this chair and what happened to my flashlight?? Does anyone have any birthday candles? What’s wrong with this place that has no outlets? Are you serious that I cannot blow-dry my hair?)
Whether folks have complicated lives in fancy places or plainer lives in simpler places, all view a cabin as a mixed blessing: a family tradition, a repository of memories, and a bit of an inconvenience, but still a huge treat, their own treasured shabby shack in the mountains.
We have looked at propane refrigerators and woodstoves for cooking. Many cabins have propane stoves with ovens, or perhaps a combination of wood/propane. Our oven would take half the forest, all day, and cook us right out of the kitchen while we tended to something inside, rotating every 5 or 10 minutes, and occasionally blowing ashes off the food.
