Agency-listedBLM Eastern Interior Field Office · dispersedFree
Ptarmigan Creek Shelter Cabin (Pinnell Mountain Trail)
Hike-in · Bureau of Land Management · AK · 65.50292, -145.62936
Ask an AI about this campsiteOpens Grok already loaded with this site. It reads the same records this page is built from, and links whatever it tells you.
Ask about this camp →Bureau of Land Management lists this site. Someone from the agency inventoried it, so it is a real camp — not a spot we guessed at. What changes is conditions — roads, gates, closures, fire rules. Check those with the unit before you commit to the drive.
USGS topo — contours & terrain
Aerial — USGS / NAIP
Weather outlook — at Ptarmigan Creek Shelter Cabin (Pinnell Mountain Trail)
Loading the latest forecast…
Live NWS area forecast (~2.5 km grid, not elevation-corrected). Camp sits at 4,395 ft.
Fire & smoke — around Ptarmigan Creek Shelter Cabin (Pinnell Mountain Trail)NIFC · AirNow
Checking active fires & air quality…
Active wildfires from NIFC (within ~50 mi); air quality from AirNow. Always confirm current fire restrictions with the managing office before you go.
Everything you need — measured from Ptarmigan Creek Shelter Cabin (Pinnell Mountain Trail) · Bureau of Land Management · AK
▲ your camp. Rings are 15, 30 and 60 straight-line miles; bearings are approximate and roads run longer.
Nearest of each
- @Mail24 mi
- WWater38 mi
- EVEV fast charger75 mi
≤30 mi30–4545+water
The read: water is a real 38-mi drive, the nearest EV fast charger is a 75-mi run (and back).
Not within 60 mi: Dump, Propane, Fuel, Grocery. Plan those before you head up.
One dot per need — the nearest of each kind, straight-line from camp. Places from OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors); the EV fast charger from the US DOE station locator. Open in Google Maps ↗
The site — Ptarmigan Creek Shelter Cabin (Pinnell Mountain Trail)
Access
Hike-in
Land
Bureau of Land Management · dispersed
Elevation
4,395 ft
Ground slope
10.4% · noticeable
State
AK
Coordinates
65.50292, -145.62936
Cost
Free
Nearby & resupply — around Ptarmigan Creek Shelter Cabin (Pinnell Mountain Trail) · Bureau of Land Management · AK (OpenStreetMap)
- Resupply lookup unavailable — try the map links below.
EV charging — from Ptarmigan Creek Shelter Cabin (Pinnell Mountain Trail) · Bureau of Land Management · AK — nearest public DC fast & Level 2 (US DOE station data)
- Nearest public DC fast charger75.4 mi straight-line SW — Golden Valley Electric Fairbanks · FLO · CHAdeMO, CCS · 2 fast ports listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-09-16 · hours: 24 hours daily · directions
- Public DC fast stations within reachnone within 25 mi · none within 50 · 2 within 100 · 4 within 150
- Nearest listing NACS (Tesla)78.4 mi — Fairbanks, AK - Tesla Supercharger, Fairbanks
- Nearest public Level 2 (J1772)none listed within 150 mi
- Pricing at the fast chargernot listed
- Power (kW)not listed by AFDC — “DC fast” spans roughly 24 to 350 kW, so ask the network.
- Read this honestlyStraight-line miles, like every distance on this site. Roads run longer than this, and you have to get back. We know where a charger is listed. We don’t know if it works today, how fast it is, or the road miles. Check the network before you commit.
Snapshot 2026-09-16 · AFDC record 200475 · US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center
Nearby restrooms — around Ptarmigan Creek Shelter Cabin (Pinnell Mountain Trail) · Bureau of Land Management · AK — pit toilets, restrooms & rest areas (government data)
- Vault / pit toiletEagle Summit Wayside Vault Toilet · ~6.3 mi E · BLM
- Vault / pit toiletUpper Birch Creek Wayside Vault Toilet · ~8.2 mi S · BLM
- Vault / pit toiletTwelvemile Summit Wayside Vault Toilet · ~12.2 mi SW · BLM
- Vault / pit toiletMt Prindle Campground Vault Toilet #3--By Site #6 At End Of Loop · ~29.1 mi W · BLM
Coming out here — Ptarmigan Creek Shelter Cabin (Pinnell Mountain Trail) · Bureau of Land Management · AK
- No named surface water mapped within 1 mi of the pin in USGS's National Hydrography Dataset (data refreshed October 2022), and none within about a mile and a half in our OpenStreetMap pull — which is not proof there is none, only that neither map has one. Plan to carry washing water as well as drinking water.
- Ground slope around the pin: about 10.4% — noticeable. Measured on USGS's 3DEP elevation model (5 m data here), sampled every 10 metres around the point. That is the hillside, not the ground under your wheels — a graded pullout or a bench a few metres across is too small to show up at that spacing, and nobody has checked this one for you.
- No rail line and no interstate or US route is mapped within 10 mi of the pin. Checked against the FRA/BTS North American Rail Network (data updated Jul 21, 2026) and the Census's TIGER/Line primary roads (TIGER/Line 2025, released Oct 2025). Both are national files and both are maps of what is built, not counts of what moves on it.
- Assume no services at all. Most dispersed camping in a national forest has none: no tap, no power, no dump, often no toilet. Everything you need, you bring.
- Power: Dave carries his own — batteries or solar. A generator will run your rig and it is also the thing everybody camped near you can hear.
- Getting online: Dave recommends Starlink. He has had it since SpaceX introduced it, used it for four years living on the road, and it delivers as promised — several hundred nights out, and he can count on one hand the places he could not connect. The cable on his unit runs 150 feet, which is usually all it takes to find enough sky. Starlink → Referral link — Starlink pays Dave $100 in cash if you sign up through it, and that money funds this site and the next trip. It costs you nothing and does not change the recommendation.
Open Ptarmigan Creek Shelter Cabin (Pinnell Mountain Trail) elsewhere
Other camps near Ptarmigan Creek Shelter Cabin (Pinnell Mountain Trail)
If this one is full, gated or washed out.
- North Fork Trail Shelter (Pinnell Mountain Trail)~5.6 mi
- Steese National Conservation Area~6.3 mi
- Birch Creek Wild And Scenic River~8.0 mi
The unit that manages Ptarmigan Creek Shelter Cabin (Pinnell Mountain Trail)
Ptarmigan Creek Shelter Cabin (Pinnell Mountain Trail) is in the Eastern Interior Field Office, Fairbanks District, Bureau of Land Management. Stay limits, permits, road closures and fire restrictions are set there, not at the campsite — check before you go. Its page maps every camp in it.
How we know this — Ptarmigan Creek Shelter Cabin (Pinnell Mountain Trail)
Source
public land records
Confidence
Agency-confirmed — The managing agency's own record names this as a campsite and puts it at these coordinates. About as good as it gets short of standing here.
How it was placed
https://www.blm.gov/visit/ptarmigan-creek-trail-shelter (read 2026-08-17). CAVEAT: the Fees field on this page reads "N/A", NOT "No fee". BLM does not publish a charge for it and describes it as first-come, first-served, so it is entered here as free -- but a reviewer should treat the fee as inferred, not stated. Small cabin about 10 trail miles (6.2 km) from Eagle Summit (Steese Highway milepost 107) on the Pinnell Mountain National Recreation Trail, in a saddle just below Pinnell Mountain. BLM says it is PRIMARILY INTENDED AS AN EMERGENCY SHELTER. Nearest town/services per the page: Central / Fairbanks; trailhead is Eagle Summit, Steese Hwy milepost 107. | auto:agency-trust 2026-08-18: state agency GIS record with a source URL and coordinates, confidence not low. Fee value is the agency's own, not field-checked. Not field-verified -- confirm access, road conditions and fire rules before you go.
EV chargers
US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center station locator, snapshot 2026-09-16. Straight-line miles to the nearest public, open, unrestricted station; restricted and planned units are shown but never counted.
Field check
On the agency's books. The land manager inventoried this site, so its existence is not in question — current conditions are. Nobody from here has camped it recently.
What we don’t know about Ptarmigan Creek Shelter Cabin (Pinnell Mountain Trail)
A land record can put you within a few meters of a spot. It cannot tell you any of this — so check it yourself, and treat anything below as the open question it is.
- Road surface & last-mile access
- How many rigs actually fit
- Cell coverage by carrier
- Seasonal & winter access
- Current fire restrictions
- Whether any water here is drinkable
- Shade & wind exposure
- Noise and who else shows up
- Whether a listed EV charger works today, or the road miles to it
Before you go — Ptarmigan Creek Shelter Cabin (Pinnell Mountain Trail)
Finding water out here →Dumping grey & black →Cold-weather camping →Reading your camp page →All field notes →