The perfect winter adventure for a family with a wide range of ski touring experience, and an even-wider range of camping-enthusiasm.

My name is Mo and I’m Nate’s younger sister, only sibling, and self-proclaimed BFF. I love skiing and the outdoors but I live in Boston and am in law school which means I don’t have much time to hit the slopes. This fall, Nate suggested that we go on a family ski tour and winter camping trip between Christmas and New Years, when we were both home at our parent’s house in Vermont. I was hesitant at first, mainly because I have never gone camping in the winter, and I’ve only gone ski touring a few times. Nate has planned many adventures for our family over the years though, so I knew we’d be in good hands. He has a knack for putting together trips that are fun for our whole family, despite our varying amounts of enthusiasm for the outdoors, fitness levels, and ages. I said I was in for the trip, as long as Nate carried most of the heavy supplies (a classic younger sibling move by me!). 

Nate found an awesome Appalachian Mountain Club cabin for us to stay in, near the top of Mount Cardigan in Central New Hampshire, which was relatively close to our family’s house. He sent me the link to the cabin and, at first, the lack of electricity and running water made me a bit hesitant as a city-dweller who generally skis at resorts and stays in hotels. However, I was cautiously optimistic, since Nate had led me before on a gorgeous ski tour in the Wastach backcountry in Utah, as well as a few other ski tours in New England. 

In addition to finding the cabin and mapping out the best routes to hike up and ski down, he assuaged the concerns my dad and I had about the physical challenge and duration of the trip, made a packing list for us to use since we didn’t all know what gear we’d need to camp overnight in the winter, and provided us with winter sleeping bags. In the days leading up to the trip, he checked our boots, bindings, skins, and overall touring setups to make sure we were all good to go, and helped us all pack our backpacks efficiently. 

The hike up was gorgeous and although the trail was a bit physically demanding, it was doable – hard enough to push us out of our comfort zones but not impossible. I was sweating more than I would have expected considering the cold temperatures, but Nate was very encouraging, helping me work on my skinning technique and giving words of wisdom as we went. Getting to the top was super rewarding —there was a great viewpoint near the cabin, and an awesome sunset that night. Nate and I decided to put our phones on airplane mode so that we could enjoy the family time, and we spent the evening doing crosswords, making a delicious dinner, and stoking the fire. The sun set early (New England winters!) and we did some star gazing. The fireplace made the cabin warmer, and far more pleasant than I had expected. 

We woke up to a gorgeous sunrise, and the prospect of a fun ski down to our car. I was super excited for the ski down, but, to be fully transparent, the snow conditions were dicey at best and horrible at worst. We managed to get some good turns in, between endless dirt patches and the approximately 7 creek crossings we had to make. The only real low point was when Nate asked me to take a picture of him standing on a patch of bare dirt on his skis (we thought it was too comical not to capture). I dug out my phone, snapped a photo, and promptly forgot to lean into the hill and fell phone-first into the snow with my skis uphill. Extracting myself from this position was one of the greater physical feats of my life! 

The ski down ended with a gorgeous open meadow that Nate and I zoomed down (it’s always important to race against your siblings) with grins on our faces. When we got to the bottom, we had a nice debrief while waiting for our parents to finish up their own descents. I remember telling Nate I was proud of myself for doing something out of my comfort zone and thanking him for doing the heavy lifting – both figuratively and literally – for the trip.