Winter Lodging in Northeastern Minnesota State Parks

Northeastern Minnesota state parks become wonderlands in the silence of the winter season. Vacationers wishing to enjoy the winter solitude and beauty do not have to seek lodging outside the state park. Five northeastern Minnesota state parks have cabins or guesthouses available after the snow flies. Visitors can hike, cross country ski, snowshoe, or snowmobile during the day and spend the evenings in one of the state park cabins or guesthouses open during the winter months.

Jay Cooke State Park Winter Lodging
Jay Cooke State Park is an excellent park in which to spend a winter weekend and explore almost nine thousand acres of wooded river valley and uplands. Five 12- by 16-foot camper cabins are located in the campground located north of Highway 210. The campground is not far from the River Inn Visitor Center and the popular swinging bridge over the St. Louis River.

Each of the cabins are named for rock types you can find in northeastern Minnesota. Slate and Basalt cabins are in one of the northern loops of the campground while Agate, Gabbro, and Shale cabins are in a southern loop. Maximum occupancy for the Basalt and Agate cabins is five. Six people can sleep in each of the other three cabins. All five cabins have electricity and heat and screened in porches.

Wood may be purchased at the state park office to use in the fire ring outside the cabin. There is a water source located in the two campground loops. The water source is closer to the cabins in the southern loop than in the northern loop. The cabins do not have indoor running water so there are no indoor toilets but vault toilets open all winter are located in both campground loops.

The cabins are located very near a network of winter recreational trails. The campground is encircled by the Forbay snowmobile trail on the west, the C. C. C. cross country ski trail to the north, a connector cross country ski trail to the east, and Highway 210 and the White Pine cross country ski trail to the south. More trails may be reached by crossing Highway 210 and the swinging suspension bridge. Jay Cooke State Park is five miles southeast of Cloquet and about twenty miles southwest of Duluth, Minnesota.

St. Croix State Park Winter Lodging
St. Croix State Park covers 34 thousand acres with the St. Croix River on the east and the Kettle River on the west forming park boundaries. This park has two heated guesthouses available for winter weekend stays.

Fifteen guests can sleep in the eight bedrooms of the first two story guesthouse. This guesthouse includes a fully equipped kitchen and two full and one half bathrooms.

The second guesthouse is also two stories but a little smaller. It can accommodate twelve people in its six bedrooms. Besides the fully equipped kitchen, the second guesthouse has two full bathrooms. Unlike the cabins at Jay Cooke State Park, the guesthouses have a shower on each floor. Outside the guesthouse door, you can cook on a pedestal style grill or warm yourself and make s'mores by a fire ring.

St. Croix State Park's guesthouses are located near the group center at Norway Point. Cross country ski trail loops lead out of Norway Point and along the St. Croix River. The Maurie Krier trail and Willard Munger State Trails for snowmobilers are to the north of the guesthouses. St. Croix State Park is about sixteen miles east of Hinkley, Minnesota. The park's western boundary is on the Minnesota-Wisconsin state border.

Savannah Portage State Park Winter Lodging
The almost sixteen thousand acres of Savannah Portage State Park are located along the Continental Divide in Minnesota. The waters of the park either flow into the Mississippi River or east to Lake Superior.

One heated six person guesthouse, the Garni guesthouse, is kept open during the winter months for overnight visitors. A small garage, located a small distance from the guesthouse, has beds for four people and is also heated. The Garni guesthouse has one bedroom, a complete kitchen and a bathroom with a shower.

The guesthouse and garage are situated on a peninsula which juts out into Savanna Lake. The surrounding park land is composed of hilly terrain. A number of snowmobile trails, including the Continental Divide trail and other winter trails passing near Wolf Lake and Lake Shumway, are conveniently close to the Garni guesthouse. Savannah Portage State Park is located about twenty miles north of McGregor and about 75 miles west of Duluth, Minnesota.

Tettegouche State Park Winter Lodging
One of the cabins at Tettegouche State Park on the North Shore of Lake Superior is on a site which my husband's grandparents and parents once owned. They were pioneer resort owners who gave their name to the waterfalls you see from the deck of the Illgen Falls cabin. The two bedroom cabin has room for six people. The interior looks more like a home than a cabin with its fully equipped kitchen, full bathroom, and gas fireplace.

A half mile from the Illgen Falls cabin, the Superior Hiking Trail, a snowshoe trail in winter, crosses Highway 1 into Tettegouche State Park. To access the other winter park trails, you must drive from the Illgen Falls cabin to the Highway 61 rest area or along the road which leads to the main trailhead and interior of the park.

Tettegouche State Park also has a group of four cabins and a lodge which were once privately owned. These more primitive cabins on Mic Mac Lake can be accessed only by hiking, cross country skiing, or snowshoeing. You must carry in all of your equipment by way of the 3.5 mile trail beginning at the main trailhead or the more strenuous 1.7 mile trail leading in from the Lax Lake Road.

Three cabins have a maximum occupancy of six persons. The fourth cabin accommodates two guests. The cabins do not have indoor plumbing. A bathroom and shower building are located within a short distance from the cabins. Water may be gotten from the outdoor hand pump or from the shower building. The Tettegouche camp cabins are very near many snowshoe trails leading to breathtaking overlooks of Nipisiquit, Tettegouche, Lax, and Nicado Lakes and the Palisade Valley. Tettegouche State Park is about 65 miles northeast of Duluth, Minnesota.

Bear Head Lake State Park Winter Lodging
In 2010, Bear Head Lake State Park in northeastern Minnesota was honored with the most votes from the public in Coca Cola's "America's Favorite Park" campaign. You can visit this park in the winter and stay the weekend in one of five camper cabins or a larger group may rent the guesthouse. These are located very near the shore of the North Bay section of Bear Head Lake.

The camper cabins are named after trees common to the area: White Pine, Aspen, Red Pine, Birch, and Cedar. Each camper cabin has a maximum occupancy limit of five to six people. During the winter months, camper cabins do not have running water. Water may be gotten from a faucet outside the state park office or from a hand pump in the campground. Vault toilets are available all winter in the cabin loop of the campground.

Bear Head Lake State Park's guesthouse has three bedrooms and one full and one three-fourth bathroom to accommodate ten guests. The heated guesthouse also has a fully equipped kitchen, a deck, a charcoal grill, picnic tables, and a fire ring.

The camper cabins and guesthouse are close to cross country ski trails which parallel the lake shore to the swimming beach and then loop north to the campground entrance road. For the other state park trails, you must drive a short distance to the parking areas. Bear Head Lake State Park is about twenty miles southwest of Ely, Minnesota.

Guests must provide their own bed linens and bath towels when renting a Minnesota state park camper cabin or guesthouse. To reserve your cabin or guest house for a Minnesota winter weekend vacation, go to http://www.stayatmnparks.com/SearchAmenity.aspx?reg=0.

Source:
http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/state_parks/index.html Minnesota State Park Page
http://www.midwestweekends.com/plan_a_trip/stay/camping/camper_cabins_midwest.html State Park camper cabin review