Welcome, and thank you for finding us. We're Doug and Marcy, and since 1994 we have owned and run four small cabins on a wooded point on Deer Meadow Lake, at about 3,200 feet in the pine-and-oak country on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, a couple of hours' drive from the Central Valley and a good deal farther from anything you'd call a town. The cabins were built in the 1940s as a fishing camp; we have fixed what needed fixing and left the rest alone. They are rustic in the real sense of the word. There is no telephone, no television and no room service, and our guests tell us that is precisely why they come back.

We live in the house at the top of the drive, year round, with a dog named Hank and a vegetable garden the deer take a keen interest in. If you need anything, walk up. If you don't, we'll leave you be.

All four have a wood stove (we supply the wood, split and stacked on the porch), a kitchenette with a two-burner propane stove, a small refrigerator, pots and pans, dishes and a coffee pot, a bathroom with a shower, electric lights, and a porch with two chairs pointed at the lake. None have a phone, a TV, a radio, a microwave or a clock. Bring a watch if you must.

Cabins are cleaned between guests, not daily. The film with the new cabin pictures on it is at the drugstore; the old ones didn't do the place justice, so please check back.

• The weekly rate is seven nights for the price of six.
• Two-night minimum on weekends (Friday and Saturday), and three nights over Memorial Day, the Fourth and Labor Day.
• Midweek in April, May, October and November: stay three nights, and the third is half price.
• Rates are for the number of people the cabin sleeps. Children under 3 are free. We can put a cot in Cedar or Big Oak for $10 a night if you're one over.
• County lodging tax is added to the above.
• Firewood, linens, towels, the canoe and the rowboat are included. So are the stars.

Marcy walks the loop trail every Friday morning from now until we close and writes down what she sees. Here is this week's:

First real cold morning of the season today, 38 degrees on the porch thermometer at seven, and the lake steaming. The bigleaf maples along Bear Creek below the falls have started, maybe one leaf in ten gone yellow, mostly up high on the trees. The dogwoods on the shady side of the loop have a pink blush on them and one by the footbridge is well on its way to red. The black oaks are still solidly green; they're always the last, and I'd guess the third week of October for them. Willows along the inlet just starting to go. Cottonwoods at the far end of the lake: still green, thinking about it.

If you're coming for color, I'd say the best of it here is usually the second and third weeks of October, with the oaks holding on into early November most years. The aspens over on the east side of the range are a different story and go earlier; folks tell us they're already turning up high. I'll update every Friday. Bring a sweater and a camera.

— Marcy

Previous reports: Sept. 17 ("nothing yet, but the mornings smell like fall"), Sept. 10 ("still summer, sorry").

We provide: sheets, blankets, pillows, bath and kitchen towels, dish soap, a first supply of coffee and filters, firewood, matches, a flashlight in each cabin, and a kerosene lamp in case the power goes, which up here it sometimes does.

You bring:

• All your food. There is no store closer than the little market at the highway junction, twenty minutes down the hill, which closes at 7 and doesn't carry much. Most guests shop in the valley on the way up. Bring a cooler for the drive; the cabin refrigerators are small.
• Warm clothes and a rain jacket, any month. It is often twenty degrees cooler here than in the valley, and the nights are cold even in July.
• Good walking shoes, a hat, sunscreen and bug spray (the mosquitoes are mostly gone by mid-August, but the June guests will want it).
• Fishing gear and a California fishing license. We have a few loaner rods, but not many.
• Books, cards, board games, a sketch pad, a guitar. Whatever it is you never have time for at home.
• Binoculars, if you have them, for the ospreys.

Leave at home: the television, the cellular phone (there is no signal here, and we don't expect that to change), the laptop unless you're writing a novel, and any worries about the Year 2000 problem. Our cabins were built in the forties and don't have a computer chip between them.

Fishing. Deer Meadow Lake is stocked with rainbow trout by the state in the spring, and there are bass and bluegill in the warm shallows at the far end all summer. Fish from our dock, from the rowboat or the canoe, or walk up Bear Creek above the falls for the small wild trout in the pools; a few of our guests fly fish it and say nothing else about where. License required.

The trail to the falls. From the cabins, follow Bear Creek upstream about a mile and a quarter on an easy, shady trail to where it comes down over the granite in a fifty-foot fall. It is a roar in April and May and a lace curtain by September, and it is worth it either way. The loop trail continues back along the ridge, about three miles total, with a bench at the top that looks over the whole lake. Kids do it easily. Marcy does it every Friday.

Stargazing. There is no town for thirty miles and no lights on the lake but ours, and we turn ours off at ten. On a moonless night the Milky Way goes from one shore to the other. Lie on the dock. Bring a blanket. In August, the Perseid meteor shower is the best show of the year and we book up for it.

Boats. One canoe and one rowboat, free for guests, with life jackets in the shed. No motors allowed on the lake, which is why it is so quiet.

Swimming. Off the dock, from about late June through early September if you're brave and July and August if you're sensible. The water is snowmelt.

Wildlife. Deer every evening, ospreys over the lake all summer, a pair of bald eagles that winter here and are sometimes still around when we open in April, and, yes, black bears now and then, which is why the cabins have latching food cupboards and the garbage cans are the kind they can't open. Keep food inside and you will very likely never see one. Keep it on the porch and you very likely will.

Doing nothing at all. The most popular activity we offer. Porch, chair, lake, coffee. We have had guests who never left the point for a week and went home saying it was the best vacation of their lives.

Well-behaved dogs are welcome by prior arrangement in Manzanita and Big Oak, for $10 a night, and we ask that they be leashed on the point (for the deer's sake, and for Hank's dignity), kept off the beds, and not left alone in the cabin for long stretches. Please tell us when you reserve; we keep Pine and Cedar pet-free for guests with allergies. Cats and other creatures, please ask.

We are about two and a half hours from the Sacramento area and about three from the Bay Area, the last forty minutes of it on a two-lane road that climbs from the valley floor up through the foothills. From the state highway, turn off at the junction where the little market is, follow the county road up the hill for about twelve miles, and then watch for our sign on the left just past the bridge over Bear Creek. The last mile is our gravel drive; go slow, it's fine in any car in the summer and fall, but it is gravel. We send detailed written directions with every confirmation, along with a hand-drawn map that Doug is prouder of than he should be.

In April and early May, and again in November, carry chains; it can snow here at any time in those months, and the county doesn't plow our road first. If the forecast looks bad, call the market at the junction and they'll tell you what the road is doing.

We are a two-person operation and we do things the old-fashioned way. Here is how it works:

1. E-mail us at [email protected] with the dates you'd like, which cabin (or how many people), and whether you're bringing a dog. We check e-mail every morning and evening, and we'll write back within a day to say what's open. If you don't have e-mail, the phone is (555) 555-0158; it rings in the house, and if we're down at the dock the machine gets it.
2. To hold the dates, we need a deposit of one night's rate (or two nights' for a week), by personal check, made out to Bear Creek Cabins and mailed to the address we'll give you in our reply. We hold your dates for ten days waiting for the check.
3. When the check arrives we mail you a confirmation, directions and Doug's map. The balance is due when you arrive, by check or cash. We are not set up for credit cards and probably never will be.
4. Cancellations: full refund of the deposit with 14 days' notice; with less notice we refund it if we can rent the cabin to someone else, and we usually can on weekends.

Check-in is 3 p.m., check-out is 11 a.m. Arriving late is fine; we leave the porch light on and the key in the door.

We close from November 15 to April 1. The road gets snow, the lake gets ice, and we get a rest. Reservations for the 2000 season open on January 2, 2000, by e-mail; our regulars know to write early, and the Perseid week in August and the color weeks in October usually fill by spring.

As of September 24: Pine and Manzanita are still open the weekend of October 15–17; Big Oak is open the weekend of October 22–24; midweek is wide open through November 14. Come see the oaks.