Winter Camping in a Cabin

During the week after Christmas we went on a fun adventure to a public use cabin up in the southern part of Denali State Park.

We went with the Atkinsons, who were once again so kind to let us join in their fun.

The plan was to ski in to the cabin which was about a half a mile from the trailhead. Brig and I didn't want to rent cross country skiis so we just used our telemark skiis although we didn't have skins.

Brigham had no problem pulling his load, which consisted of Andy in the bike trailer we rigged up for snow travel.

I was pulling the sled with the pack n' play and a couple other things...

At least I tried to pull it. It was rather ridiculous. I was trying so hard and hardly getting anywhere. In hind sight I should have just hiked in. The path was packed enough it wouldn't have been too bad. I ended up ditching my load at the beginning of the trailhead. I only made it that far from the parking lot.

After getting to the cabin, Julie and I stayed there with the boys and the men (Jake, Brig and Jed) went back for the rest of the gear. It took a little while to get the cabin warmed up, but it was a lot warmer than outside.

I was the first of our party to venture out to the outhouse. When I lifted the lid there was about a good 1/2" of frost on the toilet seat. Brrrr.

I scraped it off best I could and then took care of business. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. It was so cold that I was numb in a matter of seconds so I didn't have to endure pain too long. :)

We stayed over two nights and hiked out on the 3rd day. The hiking out was a lot more successful than the skiing in, but unfortunately our bike trailer malfunctioned and broke. Luckily I had Andy in the backpack and Brig was pulling the sled and the bike trailer with all our gear. We had to make 2 trips to get everything but it was pretty close to the beginning of the trailhead so it wasn't too bad.

On the second day Brig, Andy and I went for a little family excursion to the cars to drop off some stuff and garbage. Brig pulled us the whole way in the sled.

When we were at the cars we grabbed the backpack carrier and I put Andy in that and Brig loaded up the sled with more firewood. There was a large group that was getting ready to hike in to the other two cabins at this particular lake. On the journey back one of the guys offered to take a family picture for us.

I think the boys had fun. They played for a bit in the pack n' play...

...and then found quite a bit of enjoyment from my boots.

We really enjoyed this outing and thought that our families would all enjoy this type of thing. I know the Atkinsons already have plans to try and get Jake's parents in on their trip next year.

And here is our group picture in front of the cabin before leaving. Even Nora dog was up on the railing with us.