Club members work long hours to restore cabin
The Forestry club is in the process of renovating Doc’s Cabin, built up Logan Canyon in the 1950s by USU students and professors.
The cabin was originally built for students to stay in during the summer while they were working on the school forest said James Long, USU Department of Wildland Resources professor.
The school forest is now called T.W. Daniel Experimental Forest.
Ray Moore and T.W. Daniel, both late natural resources professors, supervised the construction of the cabin by students, Long said.
For years the cabin was used as a research station and was well kept, said Donovan Birch, last year’s USU Forestry club president and undergraduate forestry major. Birch has been a leader in the restoration of Doc’s Cabin.
“As roads got better, the commute time to town became short enough that students no longer stayed in the forest at night and the cabin wasn’t used much,” Long said.
The cabin was used from the 1950s until the mid 1970s, Long said. It was used for students so that they wouldn’t have travel to do their research, but as the commute from school to the forest became easier the cabin was abandoned and used only to store things.
Doc’s Cabin was named for T.W. “Doc” Daniel, a late College of Natural Resources professor. The Cabin is also referred to as Daniel Cabin.
“The renovation of the cabin will mainly affect the student community because forestry and natural resources students can use it as a base to operate and do research,” said Mike Kuhns, USU wildland resources professor.
About two years ago, the Forest Service decided to destroy the cabin because it was not being used and was considered a safety hazard. The Forestry club decided to intervene. By restoring the cabin, Birch said he hopes to help students develop a connection to the forest and its history that has been lost because the cabin was no longer used.
Groups of volunteers, usually consisting of four or five students, travel to the cabin to help with the renovation.
“We try to go up twice during the fall semester and hope to get up there at least once during the spring semester,” Birch said. The Forest Service closes the road to the cabin when there is too much snow, which makes it difficult to travel there, but it is always accessible with snowmobiles.
The renovation of the cabin began last fall when volunteers cleaned out the cabin.
“There was year’s worth of junk and lots of really old paint in the cabin, which was kind of weird,” Birch said. “It took the whole day just to clean everything out.”
Even though the cabin was a mess, it was still structurally sound, he said. Many different animals made their homes in the cabin so the group had to clear them out.
The next step in the restoration of Doc’s Cabin is to make repairs, which the group is working on this fall.
“It sounds like the cabin really needed to be restored,” Kuhns said, “so it’s good they are doing it now before it has the chance to deteriorate even more.”
The club wants to make the cabin available for public use by restoring it to a more usable condition. People could stay there now, but it Birch said it probably isn’t “too safe” yet. The group is hoping it will be ready to rent out by next fall. The cabin will be used for student outings, skiers and snowboarders and the public. Public rental of the cabin will be available through USU’s Outdoor Recreation Center.
Because it has been costly to repair the cabin, it will be good to start making money off the project when the cabin can be rented out, Birch said. The restoration of Doc’s Cabin has been funded by USU’s Forestry Club. The club has had to purchase a wood-burning stove, among other things, for the project.
To help fund the project, the club sells firewood in amounts varying from small amounts to truckloads, Birch said.
The club can be contacted at forestry@aggiemail.usu.edu.
– marissa.bodily@aggiemail.usu.edu