Here's how the weekend at Silent Lake could have gone:

Arrive at Silent Lake Provincial Park, where you can't drive to the campground in the winter. Let the rangers shuttle in my gear while I get on my newly-acquired but not yet mastered skis. Finally get the hang of the whole kick-and-glide thing on an exhilerating ski into the campground under bright blue skies. Dump gear in the yurts, eat something fabulously healthy for lunch, and construct an igloo in record time without getting frustrated. Toast igloo with a bear, eat dinner, sit outside at a campfire under brilliant stars. The next day, get up, do not eat too many pancakes, and then tackle the whole 18 km ski loop around the lake. Drink in the brilliant sunshine (wasting not a minute of the stunning day). Come back in time for a late lunch, followed by more snowshoeing. Repeat dinner plans from previous day. Sunday morning, before leaving, get in some more bright, sunny outdoors adventure.

That sounds delightfully wholesome, doesn't it? The kind of weekend you come back from, feeling like you made the most of it, and not hung over. And it could have gone that way - I do have those skis, and snowshoes, and the igloo kit, and the weather really was that bright and sunny and exhilerating. So, there was the potential for the most wholesome weekend of all time. Ha! I say. That's obviously not how it went...

Elke, being far more wholesome than I am (time for another Ha!), did ski in - even pulling her gear in her newly constructed toboggan. She's testing her gear for an upcoming backcountry adventure. Chris, Jeff and I chose to ride in the shuttle - who could resist the bright orange rescue sled with three little benches in it that makes you feel like when you're five and have lined up the kitchen chairs and are pretending it's a train and your aunts humour you and ride with you (oh. was that just me?). Please note that rescue sleds have no shock absorbers of any kind, nor do they have runners - it's a flat bottom, so sometimes you start to go a little sideways. That, too, was fun at this stage.

When we got to the yurts, I was absolutely delighted. These are very different from the ones at Mew Lake - there is no electricity and thus no electric heater, but there is a cozy wood stove. There is no comfort station, but the rangers give you big bottles of both drinking and dish water (and tell you to just give them a shout if you need more). Firewood is supplied, in a blue locker outside (as is a firestarter log). Dishes, pots, pans and utensils are also supplied, as are trail maps, a shovel, a propane bbq with spare tank, and just about everything else you could need other than your sleeping bag, food and clothing. Best of all, these yurts have skylights!

Elke split us into male and female yurt groups (she herself was cold-camping in the snow). Since I was the first arrival for the female yurt, I made a fire (fending off the ranger's offer to do it for me - this after he gave me the trail maps, put the drinking water on its stand and delivered three bags of kindling - note that the men's yurt got none of these perks at that time!). Then I wandered up to the other yurt and derailed the wholesome weekend plan by cracking open a beer and sitting by their fire for quite a while.

Chris and I did go for a quick jaunt around the place - Chris has these rather unique snowshoes (appropriately named the Yeti) and I tagged along without snowshoes at all (because I was too lazy to strap them on). We didn't go far - just far enough for me to conclude that this is one of the nicest campgrounds I've ever been to and to scout out a location for an igloo-building adventure the next day.

After that, I did my sloth impression. I blame it on the skylight - you can see the sun, after all, so why go outside? There was all this beer, and snacks... Elke set up her campsite and then tromped out to the road again, Jeff went for another ski. I hung out with Steve, Janet, Dan and Chris. Later, in a burst of energy, I tromped back out to the road with Chris, Steve and one of the sleds. We met Melissa and Kim on their way in (the snowmobile shuttle stops at 4 p.m.), and then got to the parking lot just in time to shuttle in Sue and the clink-clink of the bar she seems to travel with every time I see her. That clink-clink pretty much took care of the rest of the weekend...

There was sitting by the fire, listening to Jeff and his guitar. But wholesome it wasn't... When I retreated to bed, our yurt was toasty warm due to the fabulous wood stove that Janet had kept stoked to the hilt. During the night, I even woke up, feeling way too hot! That's winter camping, when you complain about being too hot...

So, given that I was in such an invigoratingly wholesome group, there was no reason not too eat too many sausages and pancakes the next day, and who needs to go skiing when there are so many less taxing activities to have? Besides, that igloo still hadn't been built. So, after some more sitting around on Saturday, I decided to build the igloo in the scouted-out location with Chris, Steve and Janet.

We got a good start (even if I did forget about loosening the toggle during the first part of the bottom layer), but the sugar snow we had to work with was a lot of work. It took us far too long to complete the first layer, at which time I went to get my stove and make hot chocolate. Halfway through the second layer, we abandoned the project. There was beer in the yurt, and igloo building is not high-cardio activity so people were getting cold. We stomped back up to the yurt, and I continued the not at all wholesome impression and hung out eating Douglas and Roberta's delicious spread-o-snacks. Every now and then the wholesome people would pop in, looking all flushed and outdoorsy, just to say hi before conquering yet another ski or snowshoe trail. It was not contagious. I conquered yet another beer can, that was about it.

I did branch out later - I drank the clamato-based drink Sue made me...But mostly, it was the afternoon and evening of eating, drinking and being goofy. I did look at the skylight from time to time and think that I'm really wasting the first outdoorsy weekend I've had in a long, long time by sitting inside, but the attitude-behaviour link was not functioning. Not even a little bit. So I can't tell you how great the ski trails are at Silent Lake, because I never saw them...

I finally got over the sloth-impression on Sunday morning, when I realized that I hadn't seen any more of Silent Lake than I had during the Friday afternoon quick stomp with Chris. I strapped on my snowhoes, and trudged along the snowshoe trail (which crossed one of the ski trails, and the ski trail did indeed look good). When I got to the lookout on the snowshoe trail, I ditched it and made my way down to the lakeshore - and when I got there, I decided to snowshoe on the lake around the next point. I was just on the cusp of enough floatation on my snowshoes on the lake - I could wander along the crust for a while, but then I would break through again. If I hadn't had so many snacks and beers the day before, I'm sure I would have been fine!

And that pretty much took care of the weekend. All too soon, it was time to get back on the shuttle (this time driven by a blonde female ranger who, as Douglas put it, was "heavy on the throttle". I did scream "we're gonna die" a couple of times, when the rescue sled was travelling sideways at high speed and the ranger blithely sped up toward another snowbank. I was wearing a helmet, but that wouldn't have stopped the carnage... sloth-like winter camping is dangerous!

And that was that... the weekend was over. It wasn't wholesome, but neither was it a waste of a weekend - not at all! how could it be, when there was all this laughter, and fun people to hang out with, and blue sky to look at through a skylight... I liked the Silent Lake yurts way more than the Algonquin yurts (which I liked just fine), and can't wait until Yurt Weekend 2005. I better keep myself in Elke's good books!

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