New scenic lodging among wildlife and woods offered at this Pierce County park
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- Northwest Trek opened bookings for lakeside A-frame, cabin and cottage lodging.
- Renting all three lodging options is $1,500 total per night plus taxes and fees.
- Lodging fees include park admission and a 50% discount on Keeper Adventure tours.
Do you want to spend the night in a historic Pierce County cabin surrounded by bison, elk, mountain goats, moose and bighorn sheep? Well, now you can.
For the first time, you can rent a cabin or cottage within the 435-acre free-roaming wildlife area of the Northwest Trek Wildlife Park in Eatonville. Booking opened Friday and prices start at $500 a night. Spots are already going fast.
Last year was the first time the public was allowed to stay overnight in the Northwest Trek Wildlife Park, deputy director Rick Dietz told The News Tribune on Tuesday. The A-frame cabin was so popular, the park expanded lodging options this year, Dietz said.
The 725-acre park has nature trails, walking tours, tram tours and keeper-guided adventure tours, all operated by Parks Tacoma. It’s a premier place to see Pacific Northwest wildlife like grizzly bears, black bears, foxes, wolverines, lynx, cougars, bobcats, bison, moose, mountain goats, elk, caribou, black-tailed deer, bighorn sheep, skunks, beavers, badgers, amphibians, reptiles and more.
Bookings are now open for three lodging options on Horseshoe Lake: an A-frame, a cabin and a cottage. The fees include admission to the park and support operations at Northwest Trek, Dietz said. Guests also receive a 50% discount for the Keeper Adventure Tour. Those who rent all three lodging options can pay a discounted $1,500 total per night, in addition to taxes and fees.
The cabin belonged to the original landowners, Dr. David “Doc” and Connie Hellyer, who donated the land that would become Northwest Trek Wildlife Park to Parks Tacoma in 1971. The Hellyers built the cabin as a vacation home in the 1930s and later built the other homes as their family expanded, said communications and media relations supervisor Tessa Miller.
Visitors can browse Doc’s extensive natural history library at the cabin, and they can also see original engravings of bison, elk and bighorn sheep Doc carved above the mantle, Miller said. All the lodging options are on the water and are surrounded by tall trees and beautiful forest.
Most of the animals in the park are rescued or injured and cannot survive in the wild, Miller said.
“There’s a lot of really inspiring stories, and the keepers that care for them care deeply about them,” she said. “Northwest Trek is a stop, especially in the summer, on the way up to Mount Rainier to Paradise. So many families going up there in the summer, they stop by Northwest Trek to visit the animals during the day on their way up, and they always are asking, ‘Can we stay here? We want to stay here,’ and so it’s awesome that we can finally offer them that opportunity that they’ve been asking for.”
