Rustic Dawson Cabin a Great Great Place to Stay and Play in Southern Colorado

Dawson cabin was recently rehabilitated and features a wood stove and picnic table inside. Visitors need to bring water, lanterns, bedding to enjoy their stay.

The $50 a night cabin has a clean, well lit outhouse and a picnic table, fire-pit and a level tent site behind it. Visit www.recreation.gov  to reserve for your next vacation.

The cabin floor is bare concrete and requires an insulated sleeping pad or mattress to provide comfort, warmth and a decent night's sleep. This air mattress would have worked better with a couple of closed cell foam pads spread out beneath it.

Wildlife visit the cabin too.

Dawson cabin is just 20 miles north of Buena Vista, Colo. near the historic mining town of Winfield in the San Isabel National Forest.

Winfield's one room school house where according to the pamphlet in the window working conditions for female school teachers were draconian and required them to avoid almost all contact with men.

The nearby Arkansas river provides plenty of public access and stunning scenery. 

The Arkansas river provides plenty of good fishing including feisty, resident brown trout that readily take a well-placed fly. Photo by Bill Diven.

Nearby Clear Creek Reservoir also provided good fishing with a Pistol Pete beneath a bubble producing plenty of strikes. For more information about the fishery visit the Colorado Parks and Wildlife  website. Photo by Bill Diven.

Neighboring Buena Vista offers plenty of services including a supermarket, fly shop, restaurants and free wi-fi at the community center. For more information about Buena Vista and outdoor recreation opportunities in the area visit www.buenavistacolorado.org.

Colorado brook trout.