I was fortunate to be invited to a private cabin for the weekend, in the Howe Block of Camel’s Hump State Forest.  It’s apparently reachable by road in the summer, but for the winter, we were snowshoeing in with our stuff on a pulk.  We tried not to overload it too much; I’ve gone that route before and learned my lesson.  We mostly kept our gear to our backpacks, and only put the cooler and skis on the pulk.

We snowshoed in on the Enchanted Forest Trail, through woods lined with maple sap lines.  Once over the hill, we gradually descended on rolly trail through a beautiful forest of tall pines.

We made it to the cabin in time to get the woodstove really going before dark.  It’s really a beautiful home, just no electricity or plumbing, and it warmed up nicely with the giant stove going.  Laura and Brad heated up a pre-made dinner of cilantro-lime chicken and rice on the propane stove, and served it with salad and a surprise dessert of bananas foster!  It was delicious.  We then followed up dinner with a game of Clue, which we sort of remembered how to play.

Photo by Laura

On Saturday, we had a lazy morning.  I spent most of the day inside reading but did go out for a ski back into the Enchanted Forest in the afternoon.  The rolly downhill part of the trail was a lot of fun, although I did have to bail and fall over towards the end because I couldn’t slow down enough.

Photo by Laura

Dinner Saturday was butternut squash and black bean chili that I’d made at home ahead of time and just needed to heat up.  It was really a luxurious weekend for a “cabin.”

On Sunday morning, we went out again for one last ski before packing up and going.  I did even better than yesterday on the trail, but did fall into the snow at the very end because I couldn’t make the 90 degree turn with the trail.  Still so fun!

Corrie and I went back to the cabin for lunch of PB&J sandwiches and final cleanup before going.  Unfortunately, the final cleanup meant emptying the bathroom bucket we’d been using all weekend, but it wasn’t too bad.  A small price to pay for an awesome stay.