Night in a Yurt

WARNING:  The following is the story of how our little Phin almost became an orphan.  Now that I think about it Phineas kind of sounds like an orphan's name...right along the lines of Oliver or Annie.  We may have to be more careful when naming our future children.

For years I have dreamed of spending a night in a yurt.  What is a yurt you ask...a circular, domed, portable tent.  I first heard about a yurt when I started dating Seth.  His family loves to snowshoe and several members of his family have talked over the years about renting a yurt that we could snowshoe to during the winter.  When we were living in South Carolina I looked into renting a yurt in North Carolina and Georgia on several occasions...but it never quite came together.  Seth remembered my hearts desire and arranged for us to spend a night in a yurt the Friday after Christmas as part of a Christmas present for me.  

We stayed in the Utah State University Yurt up Logan Canyon.  Our brother-in-law Jami who is a student at Utah State was very kind and met with the yurt host several times in preparation for our trip.  The big day came and after dropping Phin off at my parents, driving to Logan, getting our car stuck in the snow, digging our car out and finding the trail-head we were on our way.  From the road it looked like there wasn't much snow but as we got further along we found the snow was much deeper.  The picture below is quite possibly my favorite...I just have one word for it...handsome.

The yurt host had gone up earlier in the day on skis to mark the trail for us and to unlock the yurt.  We would have been completely lost without the ski tracks.  It had snowed earlier in the week and the powder was fresh and deep.  We started out great but quickly started to slow down.  We both had packs that were weighing us down.  We found that the person in the lead quickly tired from blazing the trail.  The yurt host had not sunk down in the snow as much as we were.

We are smiling in the picture below but completely exhausted and starting to wonder what we had gotten ourselves into.

The yurt host had indicated that it should take us 3-4 hours to snowshoe into the yurt.  We are typically on the shorter end of hiking ranges like this so once we hit the 3 hour mark we started thinking "this would be a good place for a yurt" each time we came to a meadow...but alas there was not yurt in sight.  We also were expecting to run into the yurt host on his way down from unlocking the yurt.

Seth and I kept rotating the lead.  Once one of us would tire out we would switch.  It was very slow going...we would walk about 20 feet and then have to take a few moments to catch our breath.  The meadows were beautiful...but I have to side with Bambi's mom...don't go into the meadow.  In the meadows the snow had fallen unobstructed so with each step we were literally sinking in the snow up to our knees.  We quickly found that if we took little baby steps we would sink nearly as deep.

By the time we made it to the second meadow I was starting to get worried.  It was starting to get dark and the yurt was no where to be seen.  I was absolutely exhausted and wondering at what point we would have to turn back.  It was hard to not know how much further we really had to go.  Well it got dark and we kept moving forward with our headlamps strapped to our heads.  We started on a very steep uphill portion of the trail.  The trail was very deceiving because we would get to the top of a little ridge just to see more mountain ahead of us.

We hit the five hour mark and were in bad shape.  We had been hiking in the dark for about an hour and were still on a very steep section.  Seth's legs started cramping.  We prayed together that our legs would have the strength to carry our bodies where they need to go and that we would be kept safe and able to return to our Phin.  After praying, we decided that we would snowshoe for about another hour or until we got to another steep section.  If we didn't reach the yurt by then...we would turn back.  Within fifteen minutes we saw lights off in the distance.  At first I thought they might be stars but then we realized they were lights from the yurt.  We were relieved to step into the yurt and know that we would be safe for the night.

We quickly got to work making a fire in the stove, cooking a dinner of fish and vegetables, melting snow for water, doing dishes,etc.  I made my first yellow snow and then we turned in for the night.  I slept close to the stove and now know what the term "tending the fire" really means.  I was up every hour putting more logs in the stove...let's just say I would much rather tend my baby then a fire.  We didn't sleep great and were up early to make breakfast, clean the yurt and hike down the trail.

Before we left we got a few photos of the yurt.  In the photo below you can see the sleeping bags hanging from the ceiling.  The yurt was outfitted with a wood burning stone, propane camp stove, dishes, supplies, camping chairs,etc.    

Here are a few pictures from the outside of the yurt before we headed down the trail.

The trail was much more enjoyable on the way down largely due to the fact that we could walk in our tracks from the night before.  Below is a picture of one of the dreaded meadows.  Seth looked at a map in the yurt and the meadows had fairly ominous names like Moose Massacre Meadow and Never-ending Meadow.

We ran into several groups on our way down the trail.  The first group thanked us for blazing the trail the night before.  They said they had gone off our trail for a short section and that it was much harder in the non-blazed section.

We ran into another couple near the very end of the trail.  They were planning to stay in the yurt on New Years Eve and were coming to test out the trail.  They were skiing up on skis that were originally a snowboard that had been cut in half.  Once they got to the top, they planned to snap the snowboard back together and board down.  

It took us just about two hours to make it from the yurt down to our car.  After a quick stop at the Bluebird in Logan for lunch we drove back to pick up Phin.  He got some pretty serious hugs from two parents that were very glad to see him again.

About a week after our yurt adventure I saw a great deal on another yurt on Groupon...I mentioned it to Seth...his response..."if I tell my co-workers we are going to another yurt they are going to think I am crazy."  Needless to say I did not book that yurt.