And painting the cornhole boards…

It was quick but still a great trip up. It’s always fun to have some company along. Josh owns Mr. Sparkles Painting in Des Moines, WA. He also does interior and exterior house painting.  https://www.facebook.com/MrSparklesPainting/

If you are using GPS, it will take you to the upper entrance along Salal Drive. However, the easier way to enter is from Chiwawa Loop road. To find it, if you are heading SE from Hwy 2 and Cole’s Corner, you will eventually turn left to enter the drive from Chiwawa Loop. After you pass Sumac Lane we will be the first driveway on the left. There is a black & white Guten Cabin sign on the evergreen tree just past the entrance.

If you are coming from the opposite direction, headed NW towards Lake Wenatchee and Hwy 2, we will be the first driveway on the right past Pine Tree Road.  You won’t be able to easily see the sign coming from this direction.

While you are welcome to park where ever you best see fit, I have put together a visual guide to give you our suggestions. In short, avoid the Salal entrance if it is even a little icy. If it is more than a little icy, I also avoid the parking spots in the upper area and stick to the lower spots. Using state of the art satellite technology, we are able to remove the tree canopy and zoom in to this overview image of the property:

Using advanced topographical software I have identified and labeled the best parking spots.

All kidding aside, this should at least give you a general idea on how to best park any time of the year.

One more note, a snow blower clears the drive when there is snow accumulations, but it doesn’t remove the layer of compacted snow and ice.  4-wheel drive or all-wheel drive is recommend when it is icy. Not just for our driveway, but for the Leavenworth area.

Safe travels and smooth parking!

Happy Giving Tuesday! If you haven’t heard of it, the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving has been dubbed Giving Tuesday. It may not get the same amount of hype as Black Friday and Cyber Monday (or even Small Business Saturday), but Giving Tuesday is a great way to circle back to the idea of giving thanks.

With that in mind, we are excited to announce the Guten Cabin Stay Giveaway donation contest. We are giving away a 3-night stay at Guten Cabin for your weekend of choice in March or April 2018 (subject to availability).

The only catch is that we ask you to make a small charitable donation. Our family has chosen three organizations that we are big fans of and created $5 donation products for each one in The Store here on the cabin website. Please take a minute to read through the descriptions and pick your favorite and then purchase a $5 donation. For each donation purchase you make, you will be entered into a sweepstakes drawing for a free 3-night stay at Guten Cabin. 

There is no limit to how many entries you can make by donations. For example, if you purchase a quantity of 10 ($50 worth of donations) you will have 10 entries in the drawing. The entry period to the contest will end on Tuesday, December 5th at 9 pm. The winner will be drawn and contacted on Wednesday, December 6th.

To make your stay special, we received gift card donations from Munchen Haus, Icicle Brewing Company and Old Mill Cafe. These cards will be waiting for you at the cabin in a gift basket along with goodies and gear from Plain Hardware gift shop. Big thanks to all these great local businesses for donating!

As a bonus, for the charity that receives the largest number of donations, our family will be making an additional $100 donation! All of the proceeds from the donations (minus the credit card processing fees) will be given to the respective charities on Wednesday, December 6th. There are no administrative fees or other hidden fees. Everything we receive will be donated directly to those organizations.

Also, be sure to share this on Facebook. If one of your friends wins, you will be a shoe-in to be a guest during their stay. Hey, while you are there, give us a like. Occasionally we have an open rental weekend that we exclusively offer discounts on to our Facebook fans and email subscribers.

NEXT STEP: Check out the charities we chose in The Shop and pick your favorite to make your donation and entry!

Thanks!

Sweepstakes Rules

December weekends have been booked up with rentals for some time. NW Comfy Cabins, our rental management company, may still have some availability in other cabins. But if you are among the lucky travelers that get to experience Leavenworth in the holiday season, here are a few of our favorite things to do.

• Sleigh Ride at Mountain Springs Lodge. If there is a chance of enough snow for the sleigh to run, then be sure to get this booked ahead of time. Make sure to bundle up with an extra layer more than you think you’ll need to account for the wind chill. The ride takes you through a trail on their estate in Plain and makes a stop to warm up with hot cider and cocoa around a fire pit. If you would like to make a full evening of it, there is a package that includes a delicious dinner at the lodge.

• 

  Sledding runs at Front Street Park.

  Sledding. When there is snow in town, the hillside east of the gazebo in Front Street Park turns into a mini-sledding hill.  For something a little more thrilling check out tubing at ski hill.

• Have a beer. On a crisp, cool day, a good ale goes down smooth. Icicle Brewing Company and Blewett Brewing Company are both terrific choices for the beer enthusiast. DogHaus Brewery is on my to-do list and has great reviews.

• Stevens Pass. Sometimes the snow hasn’t quite come to us, so we go to it. Stevens Pass is only a half hour from Guten Cabin but it is double our elevation. Great news for skiers:  it is already open for the 2017-18 season! If it is your first time up, be sure to check the parking guide.

• Hunker down at the cabin. This is always a family favorite. As much as we like getting out to enjoy activities, a quiet evening at the cabin can’t be beat, especially if there is fresh snow falling. First priority is to turn on some tunes and get a warm fire crackling. After that, we make popcorn and play a game or watch a movie. Or we might change it up and relax in the hot tub or bake up something sweet. These are my favorite memories to make and at the core of why we bought a cabin.

For more of our favorite activities in both winter and summer check out our Things To Do guide.

Check it out here!

Black bear left us a gift

The mess wasn’t terrible but we didn’t want Guten Cabin to become a regular feeding stop for the local bear community. Something had to be done. The first option would be to purchase a new bear-proof garbage. I wasn’t eager to do that. The can we had was in great condition and wasn’t cheap.

I searched a few articles and watched a couple YouTube videos on ways to bear proof a garbage can. I bought the materials and had a solid bear-proofing plan for my next trip. When I arrived, I realized that none of the tutorials I found matched the style can I had. It is not an uncommon style, so hopefully someone else may find this useful. With that, I (un-technically) present to you…

The Official Guten Cabin Guide to Bear Proofing A Trash Can.

Tools needed:

• Drill
• 3/8″ drill bit
• Wrenches (or an adjustable wrench)
• Large screwdriver (bit doesn’t matter)
• Clamps or a second set of hands
• A hand saw or circular saw or sawzall, etc..

Materials needed (I purchased all the fasteners from Plain Hardware for under $15):

• 3/8″ x 6″ eyebolt – quantity 2
• 3/8″ washers – quantity 4 (you could use fender washers)
• 3/8″ nylon lock nut. Standard thread. – quantity 4
• 3/4″ trigger snap – quantity 2
• 5/16″ threaded quick link – quantity 4
• One cedar fencing plank. Scrap plywood could also work.

Time Needed: 20 Minutes

Step 1: Install the quick links and snaps. On my can lid there is a lip edge on top that I believe is there to make it easy to open. I drilled directly through the edge of that material. You want the hole close enough to the edge that you can loop the quick links through, but not too close or it may rip out when Gentle Ben shows up. About 3/4″ back from the edge should do.

Connect one trigger snap to two quick links and connect this linkage to the can through your newly drilled hole. Be sure to tighten down the nuts on the quick links so they don’t open up too easily. Repeat this on the other front corner of the can lid.

Step 2: Cut two sections of plank.  First piece should be slightly shorter than the width of the upper front of the can. Second piece should be the width of the same spot on the can but on the inside.

Sandwich the can in between the two pieces inside and out. Clamp them together or have your helper hold them in place. Let the trigger snap hang down in front of the boards. Place the threaded end of the eye bolt through the middle of the opening of the snap trigger and push it to the board. Mark the spot where the threaded-end lands on the board. With the boards clamped together drill all the way through the front plank, the plastic of the can and the inside plank. The purpose of these boards is to reinforce the plastic. I thought about just going with fender washers direct on the plastic but I was worried those could rip through if pulled hard enough. It also makes the eyebolt sturdy and solid-feeling.

Can interior with eyebolt

Step 3: Thread and tighten a nut all the way down to where the unthreaded shank meets the thread and put a flat washer on it. Insert the threaded eye all the way through and put a flat washer and nut on the inside. Repeat this process on the other side. The goal is for the trigger snap to naturally align with where the loop end of the eyebolt sits when fastened. To tighten up the inside nut, put the screwdriver through the eyebolt loop so that you can easily have leverage to anchor it while you tighten the inside.

Step 4: Remove your clamps and hopefully your trigger snaps align and easily fasten to the eyebolt. Bears are very intelligent animals so we took one extra precaution to dissuade them from pursuing our can and wrote them a clear message that they are not welcome.

Prologue: A few weeks after I completed this project, we were back at the cabin. I was very bummed when we arrived because after all that work, our garbage can was gone without a trace. My only guess was that I did such an amazing job bear-proofing the garbage can that someone decided they had to have it for themselves. The next day I was in the yard with the kids and we found it laying in the brush near the edge of the property, apparently dragged down to there. Aside from some light scratch marks on the lid (and extra-ripe garbage smell emanating), it was no worse for wear. The bear proofing worked (the signage had not) and we haven’t had any trash messes since.

Nothing to see here bear. Lumber on.

Throughout this summer, a road improvement project has been underway on the main road in front of the cabin, which completely closed off our lower entrance. Without it, we were left to enter and exit through the upper drive, which is even steeper.

We met with Chelan County engineers and agreed the best solution would be to wait till their project was completed and then fix our lower entrance and lose the upper driveway. The road construction is in its final stages and there now is a wider, safer, and quieter road that has a nice shoulder for joggers and bicyclists.

With that wrapping up, I recently spent four days with Doug of Doug Bennett Landscaping. Doug is Adrianne’s father and a seasoned pro at projects like this. He brought along his backhoe, trailer, and right-hand man Huy. Huy is a talented and patient backhoe operator. He has a gentle touch and a methodical approach.

In just a few days they made tremendous improvement. A lower tract has been added and a new passage was forged for access to theparking behind the cabin. A turn around was also added. The driveway is in better-than-ever condition.

In October, we will be back to finish installing retaining walls and to transplant a dozen 14-foot spruce trees for privacy. More to come on that.

We want to give a huge thank you to Doug Bennett Landscaping. Without their help we may have been without a driveway this winter. They are the best in the business. Just ask his daughter.

Paul Chalk Log Cabin Painting

The dream of a log cabin for me goes back to a snowy mountain cabin painting that hung in the house I grew up in. Generally speaking, I wasn’t an admirer of wall art (especially my parents’), but I could imagine myself snug inside that cabin in the quiet of winter.

From time to time, my dad would talk of finding a mountain cabin for the family. When I was in college, my parents purchased acreage above Cle Elum Lake in Roslyn, Washington. There were distant plans discussed to build a vacation home but eventually that dream faded. The ocean was calling and they sold the Roslyn property and later bought a vacation cottage in Seaview, Washington.

Seaview is wonderful and that cottage, Captain’s Haven, is still in the family. We love spending time there. (Coincidently, Captain’s Haven is named after a different painting that hung in my childhood home.) For me, however, the mountain cabin was still the ultimate getaway.

In December 2005, I rented a cabin I found on Craigslist and surprised my then-girlfriend Adrianne with a weekend away (this was before sites such as HomeAway, VRBO and Airbnb were commonplace).  It was a small cabin with one bedroom. The only source of heat was a wood-burning stove. The kitchen was under remodel and had very limited usability. While it wouldn’t work great for our family today, for just us for a two-night stay it was perfect.  We went for a sleigh ride and dinner at Mountain Springs Lodge where I proposed and she said yes.

A few years later, I came across a group call the Log Home Builders Association. They teach a weekend course that provides everything you need to know to build a log cabin of your own. I figured this was the path to cabin life. I enrolled and spent two days in Gold Bar, Washington learning the advantages of butt-and-pass style cabins, tools such as log dogs and spuds, how to acquire free logs, and how to put those logs together to build a cabin of you own.  It was a great course and there are lots of students that go on to build really great, sturdy cabins.

I came back inspired but with a growing family and a demanding business, time was a scarcity.  Before kids, it was easy to envision kiddos picnicking and playing in the woods while I constructed our dream cabin. Sometime after our second son arrived I realized that idea was nuts and not going to happen any time soon. I still plan to put my coursework with the LHBA to use but instead of building a cabin, I’d like to construct a log-built outbuilding that can be used as a playhouse, shop, or snow-mobile storage.

With our busy life and young family, I decided instead of building; buying was the way to go and the search began.  An issue of Sunset magazine had an article called Cabin Fever where writer Leigh Newman visits Dick Proenneke’s log cabin in remote Alaska and lives as he did for a few days:  simple, quiet, and connected with nature. As you can imagine, I was a fan of Dick Proenneke and his documentary Alone In The Wilderness. Leigh’s article re-sparked my interest at just the right time.

Craigslist came through again and I found the listing for a log cabin a half hour outside of Leavenworth and in our price range!  It listed on a Thursday. I saw the listing a day after on Friday evening. Saturday morning I called the listing agent, Steve Craig of Lake Wenatchee Properties, and he said two offers were already expected. I was bummed. A month or so later, it listed again. I spoke to Steve and found out the first offer got deterred by the amount of work needed and the back-up offer found a different property. That Saturday, we packed the kids, dog, and my wife (pregnant with our third child) into the car with our pre-approval letter in hand.  A few weeks later, the cabin was ours.

We were not partial to the original name, Camp Leavenwerk. It had a little too much of a ‘work camp’ vibe. Our then-six-year-old son’s name ideas were Dead Wolf Cabin and Stupid Cabin (after he slipped on an ice patch). Neither of these seemed inviting. Our first guests to join us after the big remodel was the Morris family. Dan is among my closest friends and an excellent namer of things. He came up with Guten Cabin and it fit.  It’s truly a good cabin.

***

Next week, I am excited to go up with my father-in-law, Doug of Doug Bennett Landscaping, to repair and re-grade the driveway. I should have plenty of project pictures and updates to share.

*Guten Cabin Sketch was provided by artist, friend and guest Andrew Lund.