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Have you always wanted to ski into a remote cabin during winter but felt too much like a beginner? Have you hesitated taking the family on outdoor trips when it's cold?

There are solutions nearby. In Southcentral, at least 10 public use cabins and yurts are accessible by an easy ski, snowshoe or walk of less than 3.5 miles. Some are so close you can drive right to them, yet they still provide a feeling of getting out of the city into the wilds.

From a public use cabin in winter, you can explore the area -- assuming we ever get snow -- and then come back inside and warm up with a hot chocolate. At night, there's nothing like stepping outside a cabin into the cold, jet-black Alaska night to stare at a show of shimmering northern lights.

Nearby cabins are among the most popular. If you decide to plan a trip, take out the calendar and start now. Many public use cabins can be reserved months, or even a year, in advance. Popular weekends, like Valentine's Day weekend, get snapped up quickly.

As of this week, most nearby public use cabins still had multiple Saturday nights available throughout winter, but one -- the Bald Lake Cabin in the Nancy Lakes State Recreation Area -- is booked every Saturday night through April. Other highly popular cabins include Byers Lake Cabin No. 2 inside Denali State Park, which offers a view of Mount McKinley on clear days, and the Yuditnu Creek cabin at Eklutna Lake, just three miles from the Eklutna trail head.

"It's on a pretty, private lake," she said. "It is our most expensive cabin, but at $50 a night, it's a very nice cabin."

Bald Lake is also one of the easiest cabins to reach. You can drive to its parking area on the Nancy Lake Parkway, which intersects the Parks Highway at Mile 67.3. From there, it's about a half mile to the cabin, mostly downhill.

In the area are four other close-in cabins, all around Nancy Lake. Nancy Lake Cabin No. 1 is the smallest, probably better suited for four people rather than the maximum of six. The cabins are all grouped around the lake, but not so close they don't afford privacy, Johnson said.

IDEAL FOR BIG GROUPS

If you wanted to head out to a cabin with a big group, Johnson recommends Nancy Lake cabin No. 4 as the main gathering cabin for meals because it's the largest. It sleeps eight. The other nearby cabins can accommodate extra people with sleeping space.

Johnson reminds visitors that they need to haul their own wood to the state's public use cabins. It is not legal to collect firewood from the area, she said.

Other cabins are equally close to the road. If the area is clear of snow, you can almost drive to the two Byers Lake cabins in Denali State Park. They are just one to two miles from the road.

CLOSE AND COMFORTABLE

The Eagle River Nature Center also rents two yurts and a public use cabin -- all within two miles of the trail head at the nature center.

One cabin you can drive to all winter long is the Hope cabin, a private cabin donated to the Nordic Skiing Association of Anchorage by Golda Whitaker. Diane Moxness, former executive director of the ski club, said it's a comfortable A-frame just off Palmer Creek Road near Hope. It has no running water or electricity and an outhouse, like all of the cabins. But it does offer a propane cook stove and lantern, pots and pans and wood. There is good cross-country skiing in the area, on the Gull Rock trail or up the Resurrection Trail.

The ski club used to have another close-in cabin, the Manitoba cabin in Turnagain Pass, but that has since been turned back to the Forest Service, which no longer rents it.

Most of the cabins are more rustic than the ski-club cabin. Johnson said it's best to think of them as indoor camping.

"We provide four walls and a roof and that's about it," she said.

If you're up for more of an expedition but don't want to go too far, two options are the U.S. Forest Service's Barber Cabin overlooking Lower Russian Lake (3.3 miles) and the Exit Glacier Willow Cabin, at the end of the Exit Glacier Road inside Kenai Fjords National Park (7.3 miles). That cabin is only open in winter, when the road is closed.

The path to the Barber cabin is mostly flat, but it does cross an avalanche path. Another avalanche path is beyond the cabin, in an area where people might think of exploring.

Steve Hennig, a landscape architect with the Forest Service, said people who go there in winter need to be very careful and aware of avalanche conditions.

Andromeda Romano-Lax, author of "How to Rent a Public Cabin in Southcentral Alaska," said she and her family usually visit cabins in summer. But she likes going in winter because there aren't bugs, and there's always the chance of seeing northern lights.

Romano-Lax recalled the time her family skied into the National Park Service's Exit Glacier Willow cabin. At the time, she was pregnant with her daughter, Tziporah, and her son, Aryeh, was 3. Even then, it was doable, with her husband and another adult hauling gear -- and sometimes Aryeh -- on a sled.

"It's completely flat, but since I was pregnant, all I could manage was a bare little shuffling along," she said.

It was cold that day -- maybe about 10 degrees -- but when they got to the cabin, all they had to do was turn on the propane heat. The cabin warmed within minutes, she said.

That cabin is more like a hotel room, with mattresses on bunks, a dining room table, chairs and even a couch. You can also drive a snowmachine to that cabin once the road has 18 inches of consolidated snow and the Park Service has given the go-ahead.

Bob Butera, another cabin lover, said he and his wife, Liz, have done cabin trips as long as 10 miles with their son, Paul, who is now 6. But he doesn't recommend a trip that long in December or January, when light is at a minimum. During the dead of winter, they usually limit their trail time to four hours or less, he said.

"With the lack of light, there's too much chance of something going wrong," he said.

And with kids, don't push it, Butera said. The last thing you want is for your kids to get cold and miserable, and never want to go again.

FUN FOR KIDS

He said his son, Paul, has loved all of their cabin trips.

"He's always had good experiences, and that's the key," he said.

He said they don't go when it's very cold, and his son is comfortable on skis.

Both Butera and Romano-Lax said they towed their children in sleds when they were young. But as soon as they could walk or ski, they encouraged them to hoof it themselves, at least part of the way, to keep warm.

When Romano-Lax's children get tired, they can always flop on the sled for a ride, she said.

Romano-Lax said she found it easy to take an infant to a cabin, but a toddler is a little trickier.

"A toddler has their own idea about where and how fast they want to go," she said.

Both families said they usually go with friends who also have kids, which helps to keep all the children entertained.

Inside the cabin, Romano-Lax said her kids have always found things to do. When her son was younger, he loved to play with the fireplace tools. Before long, the kids would be "ping-ponging" off the walls, she said.

When her daughter was a baby, she said they would make mobiles out of natural materials to hang over her bunk. And at night, everyone would gather to listen to Robert Service or scary stories.

Protecting kids from bumping into the hot wood stove has always required vigilance, Romano-Lax said, but her kids have always been safe and snug inside public use cabins. Outside, the kids wore snow suits, multiple layers and hand warmers inside their mittens. But inside, everyone has to shed layers.

"If anything, you get too hot," she said.

"Start them young," Butera advised, on taking along kids. "Our son gets excited about going to cabins. The more you do it, the more they get used to it, and the more it's something they like."