Nugget Creek Hide-a-way
“Nugget Creek Cabin” pen and ink drawing by Gail Niebrugge, collection of the artist.
One of the few trails accessible by ATV in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, is Nugget Creek. It crosses quite a few streams as it follows the Kuskulana River about 15 miles to the public use cabin at Nugget Creek. We loaded a week’s worth of gear onto the front and rear racks of our two four-wheel drive all terrain vehicles and headed down the trail. The stream crossings were fairly easy, only one was so deep that our wheels lost touch with the river bed and the ungainly vehicles floated downstream with the current. Fortunately our tires touched ground before we were swept past the trail on opposite shore. The cabin is well built and protected from bears with stout window coverings and a solid wood door. I sat on the seat and used handlebars of my ATV as an outdoor easel creating plein air pen and ink drawings and pencil sketches for use as reference for future paintings to be completed at my studio. We traveled further up the trail to spectacular views of the Kuskulana Glacier and Mt. Blackburn, finally reaching our destination at an incredible privately owned cabin perched at the top of a steep outcropping in a canyon with access only from one direction. An amazing place.
More tomorrow,
Gail Niebrugge, Artist of Alaska
