Kenai National Wildlife Refuge Cabins

We had a wonderful time at the Kelly Lake cabin. It was a short hike from the parking area. The cabin was spotless and the outhouse was clean. Our grandkids enjoyed the experience and asked to go again. We hiked, fished, and sat around the campfire. We had a wonderful family time and the grandkids are asking to go again.

Abin was clean, no poachers, quiet solitude and plenty of firewood available. Could use a new saw blade😁

The cabin is well maintained and in good condition

Double bunk beds were helpful. The windows have wood covers for summer nights.

Great cabin, beautiful views, plenty of space for a family. It’s the perfect quick escape from Anchorage. We loved having the choice of two canoes or a rowboat to explore the lake and fish. This cabin is a 5 star cabin, minus one thing: it’s not tight enough to keep mosquitoes out. The number of mosquitoes inside increased over night, despite burning a citronella candle. Bring a thermacell!

Honestly, I hate your website. I use it to reserve cabins all the time. Often times I can’t find the calendar. It’s not just my issue. When I call, customer service always says they can see it. Others I know have the same issue. Make it pop up on the cabin’s initial page.

Very windy but also nice. Saw and axe are dull.

Great cabin couldn't have a wished for a better stay.

Really great experience. Weather was kinda nuts but we felt safe a cozy in the cabin.

It is so wonderful to have the public able to use remote cabins in our Great land. And I am always impressed by how nice our facilities are kept up by prior users.

So glad to have this cabin accessible. Love coming out there. Plenty of room, firewood availability, hiking, berries, wildlife observing, views. Almost like coming home. Great base for kayak exploring.

Beautiful and secluded. This cabin is a wonderful canoe destination, and we are looking forward to skiing out for another visit once the lake freezes over.

Nice cabin with beautiful views

Awesome cabin with Awesome views !!

Cabin is everything that you would expect and then some. We enjoyed our time there would be very cautious of the wind there especially if your plans include use of the boat. Winds tend to pick up and die down very quickly here. Based on journal entries it is a common occurrence. You will not be disappointed!!

We love this cabin. Great cabin to canoe out to, wildflowers and berries all about.

The cabin was absolutely amazing! Definitely sporty to get there driving, but amazing nonetheless!

We had perfect weather during our stay, which hasn’t always been the case while camping at Dolly Varden Lake. However, the cabin is well built, cozy yet not too small, on a beautiful lake. This year, the grasses surrounding the cabin got tall, which is a bit discomforting when making the early morning jaunt to the outhouse, but we always bring bear spray! That however has not deterred us from signing up to return to this cabin in October as our final camping trip of the summer.

Trail had lots of overgrow into the trail but the cabin was very nice

Amazing and wonderful place. I look forward to going back to this little piece of wild land every year

Great cabin, we've stayed there many times, and will again. Wind was constant; couldn't use the rowboat, so had to bring everything on the trail.

Love the cabin always clean and area well kept by KNWR staff. Thanks

Upper Ohmer Cabin was wonderful. Had a great time on the row boat and on the local hikes around d skilak. Two sharp saws and two splitters at the cabin. Picnic table with fire pit all available. Short graveled walk from the parking perfect to haul kids stuff with a wagon. Had a great stay and would go again if we can ever book it in time.

What a beautiful cabin and site! The boat was nice the view was perfect, and the peaceful setting was priceless!

Awesome cabin and very easy to access from the parking lot. Spent 2 days at the Kelly Lake campground and 1 night at the cabin. Most of the time was spent windsurfing on the lake. Lots of consistent wind across the whole lake. Beware of the loons... I got chased by one of them twice

This cabin is fantastic! Between the double-paned windows, the construction from 12" round logs, the great wood stove, and unseasonably warm temps for this time of year, the cabin stayed quite warm (in fact too warm if we weren't careful). There was plenty of firewood in the woodshed and 2 awls and an axe. The ice fishing was good (also safe as the ice was 2 feet thick!). I will definitely be back to this cabin.

The KNWR staff keeps these Cabins in superb shape.

Great time!

Definitely bring some of your own dry wood from home.

Ice skating in was magical! So fun.

Nice cabin, convenient location and beautiful setting.

We had an amazing time at the Dolly Varden Lake cabin. The first day we kayaked there in the rain and set up camp. The cabin was left very clean by the previous guests. Our second day was a nice sunny day full of paddling and fishing. We highly recommend staying here and will be back in the future.

Very nice cabin, we could hardly hear the wind howling(& it was)and the rain on the roof! The trail is a little overgrown in areas but definitely doable. Overall awesome trip!!

Tusty was at extreme high water level due to glacier melt from recent heat and rains on top of that. There was ZERO shore all around the lake from the Kasilof River entry to the cabin. At the cabin it was a 6" step up out of the boat and onto grass...no shore at all where the boat could pull up. So Tusty was a huge body of water surrounded by swamp from knee to waist deep along most of the usually exposed shorelines. Boating to the cabin if the winds are over 15 mph is probably something to consider carefully depending on your boat and experience....winds over 10 mph and it begins to get tad rough. The cabin was in good shape...but the door needs to have the latch adjusted so that it can be secured against animal/bird entry. When we arrived someone had used a foot long cord with a hook to close the door since they evidently could not operate the faulty latch. This left the door open over 6"....totally unsat. We saw a martin that lives around/under the cabin...an open door not a good thing. The latch can be closed...and we did close it properly when we departed....but it takes a stronger person and some determination to get it over the latch hoop. It needs to be repaired soonest. All else was good....the Dutch Door Outhouse is cute...and it was even stocked with feminine hygiene product...go figure. Plenty of firewood was there on our visit....but someone had spilled it all out of the shed probably looking for smaller birch they could split...we loaded it back into the wood shed prior to leaving. We didn't need the wood burning stove which looked quite good or the fire ring with grill but it would certainly work for grilling steaks. Very nice facility....hence the 5 stars. Cell service was excellent with zero dropped connection with ATT as long as you walked 30 yds out of the cabin to the shore and faced south....zero service in cabin....go figure why 30 yds makes a diff??? So calling out no issue....getting calls in to you probably a problem???

Don’t go

We had a great time at the Kelly Lake Cabin - we hiked the half mile to the cabin and then took the rowboat back to the parking lot to load up and bring over the rest of our stuff. Good to know: There are several life jackets at the cabin of varying sizes. The place was clean and well laid out. There is enough room between the bunks to put a queen size air mattress on the floor. We appreciated having the counter next to the wood stove to prepare food. The table and benches are large and were perfect for our family of 5. Two things I wish we would have brought: eye masks or a couple of blankets to hang over the windows and a bug zapper to get the pesky mosquitos in the middle of the night. Otherwise, awesome stay!

We loved this cabin, boat and swing. The atmosphere and space were so peaceful. A perfect family spot to camp in comfort 😊

The Cabin was in excellent shape with the Cabin Crew having done significant maintenance work since my last visit though the Cabin always has been in good shape. Guests frequently do not replace the firewood that they use often burning much of what has been cut by prior guests up in the fire pit.

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The cabin was excellent! It's 0.4 miles of easy trail along the lake. We used cross country skis. The thick log walls and quality windows kept us toasty warm for several hours even after the fire went out. This cabin is well made compared to older cabins. As usual the wood stove pipe needs minor repair. The damper would close on it's own if you opened the door creating a strong draft resulting in very smokey air. We hung the steel dustpan from the damper handle to prevent this and that worked well. Also there are some pin holes in the stove pipe. Everything else worked great. Plenty of downed Black Spruce trees to harvest in the area due to the Swan Lake fire but the hand saw is dull so I recommend bringing a quality saw and a small hatchet for kindling. All they had was two heavy splitting mauls. This area can be very windy as there are no leaves on the trees anymore so dress warm.

Have stayed at this cabin 2-3x. Appeared that door was repaired from visit in Jan 2023, and that windows may have been replaced. Everything appeared to be in good order. We found and left in the cabin a pine green ripstop stuff sack. Will do it again sometime.

This was the perfect winter get away. The cabin is well built and stayed very warm. I never felt a draft of cold air during -15 degree temps and the wood stove kept up perfectly. I love how people continue to respect this cabin as it was clean when I arrived and I left it even cleaner when I left. It was extremely quiet except I could hear the ice making noises the while time. Plenty of room for 3 vehicles in winter, 4 in the summer. Definitely going back!

One of my favorite cabins to stay at in the winter! Easy to access, and great skiing opportunities.

PLEASE BE CAREFUL on Miller Creek in winters when you come here via snowmachine! Our snow machine fell through the ice on the creek, and we actually thought that we might die out there. After we turned to Miller Creek from the Pipeline Trail, we took the right side of Miller Creek to get to the cabin. However, we believe that we should have taken the left side of the creek (the left side seems to have more firm surfaces between the creek and the treeline) and then cross Vogel Lake to get to the cabin. We learned later that the creek never really freezes. The cabin itself is beautiful and cozy with a nice stove.

Nice cabin, and it was clean.

Great time

Great

Great

Skied out to Nurses on the Pollard horse trail this past weekend. Cabin in good condition, but trail is not good for skiing, pulling sleds, or snowmachining currently - at least 130 downed trees are on the trail, and 3-4+ feet of snow are needed to cover the majority of them. No ice on Tustumena yet near the cabin. The flooded muskeg that flows out of Trail Lake is still thawing during the day into icy slush - need xtra tuffs to get through, and daytime highs below 20 for another week or more for it to freeze up hard. Took 8.5 hours to ski the 7.2 miles pulling our gear in pulks. Would only recommend attempting by snowshoe with backpacks for quite a while yet.

The Cabin is in great shape. There is not much to do there although in my case there was it being a good year for mushrooms. Hiking is very limited owing to the shoreline being generally marshy and dead-falls plus the lake was very high. Visits are much better during winter.