The cabin and amenities were fine. There was an odd smell in the kitchen. Maybe the head of garlic that had been left behind? The fridge contained many already opened food items. We didn’t use any of these and didn’t leave any. The three local restaurants are not reliably open, so be sure to have enough food in the cabin. In the winter it’s a long uphill walk to the cabin at 7100 feet altitude through snow and ice. Plan on using one of the local informal snow mobilers to get your belongings up and back. Would stay again.

Will stay here again.

This cabin was just our speed- great for families with kids for a weekend getaway at the end of summer. It leans more towards the "vintage" feel, but it was certainly clean and comfy. We'd be happy to come back.

We came for a long summer weekend at nearly Lake Alpine, and planned to use it as a home base for outdoor adventures. Overall we enjoyed our stay. The cabin is located in the residential neighborhood of Bear Valley, on a sloping lot about 5 min drive from the main road. Easy to find (though there is no way I would attempt to walk here in the wintertime, it's uphill the whole time). The cabin comes with all the essentials, and has a feeling of being well-loved and used by the owners, because we found items like ziploc bags, cleaning supplies and seasonings as well as board games without pieces missing. 4 beach towels were provided. There were even camping chairs which came in handy sitting by the lake. Linens were nice and towels were fluffy. Wifi worked fine. Kitchen knives could definitely use an upgrade. (If you plan to cook a lot and care about that, bring your own.) There was a charcoal type bbq with a very basic plastic table on the outside deck, which we didn't use. The deck is big enough to sleep on but we skipped that because the nearby wildfires made the air smoky. the carpeting could use replacing, my daughter who is allergic to dust had trouble with that. The whole place could use a thorough dusting on the less often touched surfaces, but overall the place made a clean impression, bathroom and kitchen were very clean. Because it was hot during the day, the upstairs kids loft got quite hot at night, even though we had the windows open and fans running - not a ton of cross ventilation. Downstairs was better but if you're the type of person who needs to sleep with AC on, you might have trouble in the summer here. My guess is this would not be an issue in wintertime. We did enjoy the living room fireplace for making some indoor smores. Plenty of firewood and fire starting supplies. I'd say this place won't disappoint if you're looking for a home base for a family with older kids. I don't recommend it for kids under 5 - the stair railing up to the kids loft bedroom has huge gaps 3 feet apart which would not pass current building codes and the only bathroom is downstairs. Also the upstairs loft has no door, so everyone upstairs can hear what's going on in the main living space. Not a problem for a house that goes to bed at the same time. I'd come again for the convenience of having everything nicely stocked and proximity to the water fun nearby.

We stayed 4 nights here and it was a great location for day trips to Lake Alpine and Utica Reservoir. Some good things about the cabin: - very well stocked kitchen with essentials for cooking. Tons of dishes and silverware, new pots & pans, charcoal for unplanned grilling when the power went out in the area on our last evening. - lovely wood slab dining table & benches for eating and playing games - roomy deck for eating outdoors, drying out swimsuits & towels - short walk to Bear Valley Lake which was perfect for enjoying the meteor shower some cons: - couch and master bed were saggy and the couch had a smoky smell to it - mud room had a weird smell. We discovered on our last day when we went to do a load of laundry that the cleaners had left a damp load of linens in the dryer and a large wet load in the washer... which at that point had been sitting in there for 4 days getting funky :/ - several bedroom curtains weren't hooked on properly and were very dusty to fix - carpeting could probably stand to be updated - while host response was good prior to our stay, I received no response to two e-mails sent right before and during our stay.

We really enjoyed our stay. The property is clean and well-maintained. The ski/hike in won't be for everyone, but for us it added to the experience. We will be back.

Me, my wife and 2 kids stayed here for 3 nights in January . The cabin location was ideal for what we were looking for. We enjoyed the ski in ski out location and the cabin had all the essentials we needed. During the winter you will need a snow mobile to get you to the cabin, not walkable. We rented one for our stay and had a great time cruising around on it. Arrive prior to sunset or you'll have a very hard time finding it. Only complaint was the broken fireplace- was disappointed we were not notified prior to arrival. When there's several feet of snow out the windows a working fire place is necessary. Manager's Response: Mike, thank you for your review. This homeowner has asked us to pass along the following response: "Thank you for the nice comments, we are so happy you had a great time. We apologize that the fireplace was not working during your visit. We have since had a chimney sweep come clean the fireplace and it is now in excellent working condition. If you decide to stay at our place again please reach out beforehand and we will make it up to you." Best, the Evolve Team