Camping in a Yurt at Afton State Park

About a week after my boys and I spent a night in Forestville State Park, we loaded up for a brand new adventure: our first night in a yurt!

Here's what I knew about staying in a yurt ahead of time: it was a canvas-like tent with a door, there were bunk beds on a plank floor, there was no electricity, and the only heat was from the wood stove. The wood was free for "heating" (included in the rental price), but bundles for the fire ring outside still had to be purchased.

We got there and the boys helped haul a load on the easy 1-block walk to our yurt:

Henry helping start the fire in our wood stove. It was 25 degrees in there!!


Warming cold bodies by the fire.

Here are 2 side-by-side views that show most of the yurt from the door:

My double bed on the bottom, a rocker in the corner (is there a "corner"
in a round tent?), a table in the middle, and the wood stove on the back wall.


Farther to the right: 2 more bunk beds (all singles). It officially sleeps 7.

We got the fire going, unloaded and made our beds, and left the fire to keep heating up our yurt. I was a LITTLE concerned at this point as it took about 90 minutes to get "up" to 32 degrees, and it cracked 40 degrees after about 2 hours. I was hoping we'd come back and it'd be around 50.

2 of the 3 deer we saw that night. Bright "Afton Alps" ski hill is through those trees.


Back at the yurt, making a fire outside to cook. The yurt is to my
back, and that's a HEFTY picnic shelter with a food locker at the back.


Stocking up on the free wood stove wood for the night.


Ham steak, apples, tangerines, and root beer for supper.

Notice Charlie is coat-less in that photo. We got back from our short drive/hike by the river, and the temp had hit 60! We got it up to the mid-60s before backing off the air a bit to see if we could regulate it around 60 for the night.

My wife showed up to check it out after work (and she didn't spend the night as she had to get to work the next morning):

Henry and my cutie as Henry was showing her the bunks.
(They are TALLER than in camper cabins!)


Salted naan for dessert (with the yurt in the background).




Cards with Mama before she had to leave.


Henry warming by the fire after he was outside with me. (It was 11 degrees that night.)


Mama saying goodbye. (Lit by my headlight and a small battery-operated lantern.)

Oh, and when she was still there (when they were roasting marshmallows after supper), I took a quick video walking back up to the yurt and showing the inside (by headlight):

Direct link: youtu.be/iBMv5RA44VE

We tucked in around 9 pm. At midnight, I woke up and checked the temp: it was still 64 degrees. I added wood to the fire as it was just embers. (I actually got back into bed and then got out 2 more times to open the door of the wood stove for a minute to get EXTRA airflow to make sure the new wood was able to properly take off.)

Then I PASSED OUT until 4:15 a.m. Like DEAD. And at 4:15, it felt a bit cooler. I checked the temp, and it had only dropped to 56 degrees. So I filled it up with wood again, and I actually used ALL the wood from inside - I thought I brought in a COMICAL amount of wood at 8 p.m. the night before, but I actually had to step outside to get 2 more pieces.

At 7 a.m., both boys were still passed out, and the sky was just starting to get bright through the skylight at the top of our yurt:

The view from my bed.


The boys helping start a breakfast fire a bit later.
(Notice the glowing wood stove through the window in the background.)





Breakfast sausages over the fire.


Spanish homework with breakfast.


72 degrees before we headed out for a hike. (Around 10-15 degrees outside.)


Showing the distance between us and the other yurt (not occupied).


Taking a load of stuff to the car before a long hike.

In that photo above, the black tote is our camping gear (cast iron pan, panini press, wash tub, towels, matches, etc), the white tub is our cooler, and the dark blue tub in the back is our food and eating supplies (plates, knives, silverware, snacks, oatmeal, etc). The laundry basket on top is dirty clothes and all the quilts be brought. And the wooden box behind the cart is wood storage - we burned through about 60 pieces of wood in the 21 hours we were there!

Oh, and I bumped into a park employee as I was loading up the car, and he asked how the night was. He mentioned that it can be a bit hard to keep it warm enough inside once outside temps drop below 0. But we were absolutely fine at 11 degrees - we had the air intake for the wood stove only about 15% open (to keep a smaller fire that lasted longer) and it kept us around 60 all night.

We drove to the big parking lot so we could hike down to the St. Croix River:

Down about 100 steps.


All of this area was flooded the last time we were here!


Crossing a creek on some branches.




Where the creek meets the St. Croix.


Shallow and wide creek meeting the bigger river.


Video from that area. Direct link: youtu.be/fUFWMIWMIBE


We found such a huge root ball that it was a fort! Direct link: youtu.be/2BmnHOiG2lI

In the background of the first few seconds of that video above is the swimming beach. We went and played over there for a while and broke up chunks of ice on the shore:

On the trail heading back home. Again, the last time I saw this, it was ALLLLL under water.

The last time we were here, the swimming beach was ALL under water. A few days ago, I think I counted 25 steps leading down to the beach, and then a few feet of sand between the last step and the edge of the St. Croix. Last time, the water level was about 8 steps down from the top of that 25-step staircase!

We warmed up in our yurt as we finally let the fire die down. It was in the mid-70s when we got back in there! The boys were saying right away that they want to do this again... 2 nights next time. We don't want to do it in the summer (it seems like it could get hot), but fall, winter, and spring all sound good!

On to another adventure next week...

p.s. Here's a really sweet video (from someone else) that shows the same yurt we stayed in.