The Pentagon Shack

Back in the 70’s my brothers and I along with some friends got this idea about building a cabin out in the deep forest of a nearby National Park.

It first began when we first started hiking there. The area use to be worked by farmers back in the early 1900’s. There remain ruins of their cabins and the cleared out areas where they grew hay.

We were especially attracted to Anderson’s Ranch which lay across the river. There were no trails to the place, and you had to hike 3 miles up stream to use the bridge to get across.

We made several attempts to find our way downstream on the other side, but the going was arduous. There were several large creeks to cross and the tangle of dead trees from a recent landslide made going difficult.

We eventually made our way there, and in the summer of 75 we hiked in with the intent of an extended stay of a couple of weeks. We brought with us a large roll of plastic which we used to build the Plastic Shack

We framed up a structure underneath a large tree that overlooked the fields of Anderson Ranch. Then we covered it with plastic and called it home. It was a nice time, but that is when we got the idea of building a more permanent structure.

We wanted to find a location that we thought no one would find. Following the elk trails up a steep mountain slop we reached the top of the ridge. There was a small semi flat area that was mostly old growth cedar trees with a dense growth of smaller trees growing under them.

For the next three years we went up there whenever we could to work on our cabin. It was named the Pentagon Shack because we made it with 5 walls. We cut down a larger tree to act as the center support post.

Then we got 5 more logs to use as the corner wall posts. Then 5 roof beams were connected from the corner posts to the center support. We accomplished this during our 2 week camping adventure, often during the rain that is common there.

Over the next few years we continued to visit the place and mostly used the small under growth trees to lay the floor and build the walls.

I have a few pictures taken of the construction project with one of those 110 cameras. I’ll post some with my next entry. Unfortunately we didn’t get any after it was completed.

Of course we had to hike up all the tools and supplies required for the construction. Often we would hike up in the middle of the night so that no one could see what we were bringing up.