The Box Car Cabin - Kathleen Goodwin and Richard Blair’s fine adventure.

We were making our way to Death Valley from Owens Valley, wondering where we would camp. Richard was driving and he spotted a small cabin a few hundred feet off the road. Our curiosity aroused, we drove up a little side road to investigate it. It seemed like it would be a great relic to photograph. It was!

No one awas round but us. To our surprise the door was unlocked. It was simply furnished inside. It took a few minutes to realize that it was a historic cabin for travelers exploring the area.

We looked around and decided to stay. We made a fire in the ring outside to cook our dinner and settled in for the night.

Later that evening it got cold so we lit the wood stove in the cabin with wood thoughtfully left by the people who maintain the cabin. It could not have been cozier. We had a blowup mattress and sleeping bags - more comfortable than the iron spring beds in the cabin. At dusk, two SUVs pulled up, but when the drivers realized it was oppupied, they left immediately. Our fears of outlaws were unfounded!

We imagined the cabin’s history; its prospector era. It was also a flashback to our hippie past; when magic would happen on one’s journeys. We were living the life of grizzled desert rats!

The Box Car Cabin is filled with interesting relics. There is beautiful calligraphy, sketches, and messages on the walls. We left some of our signed books to add to the library, firewood and some snacks for our contribution.

Death Valley attracts crazy travelers. The next morning a family from the deep south showed up in a packed station wagon. A father and a young couple extricated themselves from the car and looked around. The combat-clad father said he was looking for a gold claim and wanted to know the legal status of the national park. We solemnly suggested that he consult a ranger.

For more than a decade now, the Box Car Cabin – also know as Buckhorn cabin – has been maintained by volunteers. Before its life in the “Adopt-a-Cabin” program, this two-room cabin was a train boxcar used by miners. Mining prospects were first worked here in the 1930s. In 1958, a prospector named William Carpenter filed the Buckhorn claims. The cabin probably dates from that time. How it got out there remains a mystery.

The BLM’s “Adopt-a-Cabin” program is now defunct but most of the volunteers continue to do their work, regardless. The program was a combined effort by the BLM and volunteer citizens to protect and maintain these historic cabins. This cabin, like many others, is available on a first-come, first served basis. You are only asked to keep the place clean and leave it better than you found it. Please do not spend more than a few days here.

Thoughtless vandals occasionally damage these places. It takes hard work and materials to maintain these cabins; no one is paid to do it. Please be careful and respect them or they will be gone forever.

To get there, go south of the town of Lone Pine on Highway 395. Take highway 190, which is a main route to Death Valley. Then take Saline Valley Road about 5 miles which is unpaved. Look on the left for a small cabin about 200 yards up a small hill.

We were there on November 18-19, 2018 and stayed one night. All photogaphs by Richard Blair.