Wilderness trips just ended and they all seemed to be successful. There were 6 groups. Three groups were in tents, two were in cabins and one group was in a yurt. Two groups cross-country skied and the other four hiked with snowshoes.
I was in a tent group. We were at a place called the Hidden Valley Nature Center. It was beautiful. Skiing through the woods and under snow-covered trees was so pretty, but the frozen lake provided the best views in my opinion. We set up our tents on the side of the lake and could watch the sun rise and set from just out side of our tents. We were in canvas wall tents that had wood stoves small wood stoves in them. Someone would have to constantly tend to the fire to make sure it was still going because the fires in the small stoves would burn out in thirty minutes. The nights were very cold. Even with two sleeping bags, I had to curl up in the fetal position to stay warm. When we would wake up there would be frost on our sleeping bags and any gear we didn’t sleep with would be frozen. It was as if our warm bodies had created a small little winter weather system inside our tents. Once we woke up we would take short little runs on the lake before breakfast in order to stay warm. After breakfast, we would almost immediately leave for an all-day ski through the woods of the nature center. The days were so much fun skiing and laughing with each other as we would get out of control and fall down the hills on our skis. I do not regret signing up to be in a tent at all even if it was freezing cold at night. I had so much fun with my group and I think we all bonded because of the cold weather at night and in the mornings. It was quite an adventure and in was definitely intense (in-tents).
-Paul Kendall
Charlotte, NC
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