From a backpacker’s perspective, Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park has it all.

The 79,160-acre gem in the Selkirk Mountains north of Nelson, British Columbia, has enough helicopter-serviced bridges, restrooms and facilities to attract novice and hard-core adventurers alike — with minimal impact.

Options begin with hiking on- and off-trail into nooks of raw forest or alpine solitude and sleeping on the ground at 11 walk-in campsites.

The developed backcountry campground at Kaslo Lake ($10 per person per night, $5 kids) has food storage lockers and a nifty new day-used shelter for cooking out of the weather and away from the healthy crop of mosquitoes.

On the other end of the scale, visitors shack up in three backcountry cabins, including one of the finest on the Canadian Alpine Club’s rental list. For $25 a night and a three-hour trek, backpackers can bask in the relative luxury of a million-dollar cabin complete with flush toilets and electricity.

Land a reservation for one of 20 bunks in the Kokanee Glacier Cabin and you can enjoy a shower, full kitchen and lights as well as treated potable tap water —hot and cold.

A hidden micro hydropower generator and a sewage treatment system take advantage of the water that pours down to Kaslo Lake from surrounding snowfields.

After years of planning and fundraising, the cabin was completed by BC Parks and the Alpine Club and commemorated in 2003. The investment has minimized the year-round impact of thousands of visitors into fragile alpine lakes and meadows.

Having the cabin as a base allows the hard-core contingent to hike, climb and glissade on snowfields to their hearts’ content while others take the day easier, plowing through a book, casting for fish, making easier walks or cooking something exciting for the evening group meal.

A few of the 30-some lakes in the park were still partially covered by ice even in late July, and the mosquito season was just getting a good buzz on as the Kokanee Cabin visitors arrived to a retro experience: The sewage system was plugged.

Showers were prohibited by the cabin host. Gray water had to be hauled out and guests had to use the outdoor vault toilet until technicians could be helicoptered in to fix the problem.

Danielle and Bob Riggs were undaunted.

“We’ll rinse off the old-fashioned way,” Danielle said, heading out the door in her swimming suit for a quick plunge in icy-cold Kaslo Lake.

That was a flashback to the decades of primitive cabin dwelling before the Kokanee Cabin was built.

The Spokane Mountaineers are among the groups that had traditions of applying in a lottery to book time in the nearby Slocan Chief Cabin.

Built by miners in 1896, Slocan Chief gradually was taken over by the province when the park was established in 1922. It became popular with hikers, climbers and skiers who volunteered to upgrade and maintain it. By the 1960s, visitors could count on finding a group in the cabin, especially from November through May.

“The powder snow in the Selkirks is fantastic, and you could ski right out the cabin door,” said Mary Weathers, who organized about 20 annual Mountaineers week-long trips to Kokanee Glacier.

Once helicopter service from Nelson became reliable, the lottery was needed to handle the demand.

Groups wanted to play hard, eat heartily and sometimes drink liberally to facilitate the deep sleep needed to make it through the night in the one-room Slocan Chief Cabin, she said.

The Slocan Chief Cabin has been retired for overnight visits but still stands as a historic site for hike-in visitors with artifacts and photos of people enjoying its relative comforts from days past.