Winter camping – or very early spring camping – was something attempted only one other time and given that there wasn’t a blog post about it, you can guess how it went. This trip to Myre-Big Island was more successful, although I wouldn’t consider it an outright success. Just learning and practicing more skills to make winter camping more comfortable. One day, I will have a post on a winter camping trip that makes it look like a breeze.. today isn’t that day. 🙂
Myre-Big Island State Park
Part of the Minnesota State Parks System
~1 hr 30 min south of the Twin Cities
I won’t wax on about the weather that we experienced this past winter, but needless to say it was pretty up and down in temps and precipitation. On one of the weekends when the temps were up and limited precip, we decided to chance a winter camping trip. The highs for the weekend were supposed to be in the upper 30’s / low 40’s, comfortable enough for hiking and being comfortable while moving around camp. In recent years, we’ve invested in better camping gear as some of our cheaper things have worn out, like down sleeping bags and cots to keep us up off the ground.
The park isn’t far from the Twin Cities, so we headed down after work on a Friday having made reservations only the night before. There were only a few sites open in the park for reservations, so we ended up picking an electric spot. As we arrived at the park, the office was still open, so we stopped in to check in. The park ranger mentioned that not all of the sites had been plowed, so it might be best to go look at the sites before settling on one specific site. Thankful for their advice, we went down to the Big Island Campground and drove around, ultimately deciding that another site was better since there was no ice on the pull-in of the site.
The weather was on the milder side that night, so we got our site set up and then proceeded check out the rest of the campground and picnic area that was nearby. This seems like it would be a great park in the summer for water activities since the Big Island Campground is basically surrounded by water on all sides. The sites didn’t seem that private or separated by brush, although it’s hard to tell in winter with there being no greenery. For the rest of the night we had a fire and relaxed and made dinner. Since it was still very early spring and was still getting dark fairly early, we went to bed at probably close to 8pm because there is only so long you can stare at a fire.
The next morning was pretty chilly and we didn’t want to get out of our warm sleeping bags to make breakfast or coffee! We had heated up water before going to bed and put them in our water bottles to keep us warm through the night and we were both able to stay nice and toasty. After we finally got up, we made a fire and our hot coffees so we could relax a little bit before venturing out to hike. We started out our hike on Big Island Trail, which as its name implies goes around the Big Island. There were portions of the trail that went right down to the water and others that stayed more elevated, almost all of which was in the woods. It was a nice trail, but I could see it being pretty buggy in the summer.
As we were eating lunch, we started to notice the wind picking up. The weather was supposed to stay mild through the night and into Sunday, but the wind got me concerned. After checking my weather app, we decided to call it a weekend and head home. The temps were supposed to drop in the night and with increased wind we didn’t want to chance getting too cold during the night and push the limits of our sleeping bags.
Although it was a very quick trip, we enjoyed getting out and being in the woods with not another soul around. We plan to come back to this park in warmer weather to explore more of what the park has to offer and to see what the park looks like with plants that are alive!
‘Til next time!
average girl's adventures 