This post is about a family yurt trip we did February 2024 to the Spruce Hole yurt at the NM/CO border, though I’m very late in posting this (eight months late).
This was a very difficult trip. We’ve been to this yurt two (three?) times before, and it’s only a two mile slightly uphill path to get though. However when we showed up to the parking lot this time there was a fresh foot of snow in the parking lot and two fresh feet on the trail.
Even getting into the parking lot was an adventure—it wasn’t plowed, so I just built up a head of steam on the highway and then stuffed it in as far as I could get, maybe 50 ft, about halfway into the big lot. When we came to a stop, there was no moving that car anymore without completely digging it out. I assumed that the plow would clean out around me while we were out at the yurt (luckily correct).
It was brutal hard work, and the kids had a really rough time. We were ridiculously slow pulling the pulks uphill in all that fresh snow. The pulks kept tipping over because the packed-down center track was higher and more firm than the surrounding snow. It was also windy, cloudy, and snowing more on us. It took us nearly five hours to go the two miles to the yurt. Multiple times I thought we were going to have to just turn around and bail back to the car.
The way in was uphill for the first 2/3, which was the only reason I wasn’t concerned about things getting dangerous. During that first 2/3 we could have turned around and been back at the car pretty quickly—at least relative to our progress in. And then the last 1/3 was flattish and at that point the boys had rallied and were making slow but steady progress so we decided to push the rest of the way.
Unfortunately I have no photos from the way in. Conditions were not conducive to taking the time to get out the camera, and the collective attitude towards a camera being pointed in their direction was decidedly negative. I have more video than photos because I kept the Gopro reasonably handy. I didn’t capture any footage of Jasper’s massive breakdown or the frequent complaining. Though to Jasper’s credit it turned out that he was getting sick—in retrospect it was a hell of an effort for a sick ten year-old.
Once we made it to the yurt the predominant feeling was relief, all around. Jasper was adamant that it was the hardest thing he’d ever done (probably accurate). For the next day and a half we nursed our exhausted selves and recovered from the shell-shock of the brutal approach, while trying not to worry about the challenge of getting back out. It was the first time I can remember having mixed feelings when it started to snow again that night. Having to break trail all over again on the way out was not super appealing.
We still managed to have a good rest day in between, filled with the usual activities: round after round of tea and hot chocolate, some sledding and fort building, reading, drawing, and all the fun family laughter and conversation that our boys bring along on these adventures.
The way out proved to be totally fine. Granted there was another eight inches of fresh snow to break trail through, but Bodie and the other two boys charged ahead to handle it the whole way back and it was downhill enough for it to feel pretty casual. It was a relief to find that the plow had taken care of the parking lot, because I still spent fifteen minutes digging the car out and that was just the snow packed directly underneath the car that the plow couldn’t reach. If I had to dig two-feet-deep of snow out all the way back to the pavement it would have taken all day.
All in all it was a solid family bonding experience. A ton of work for just two nights at the yurt—we’ll be looking to make it three nights from now on so we can have two days of well-earned inactivity to balance the two days of effort. Though I fear it might be hard to convince the boys to do it again this next winter, we’ll see how much rosy retrospection kicks in.
