If you鈥檙e looking to spend a night out in frigid temperatures鈥揳nd who isn鈥檛?鈥揅olorado is the place to be. I personally have skied and snowshoed into a dozen 10th Mt. Division huts, the ring of high-country cabins that extends from Vail down through Aspen. But until I moved here, I鈥檇 never heard of a yurt. No surprise there. I鈥檓 from Connecticut and yurts were invented in Mongolia 3,000 years ago. Typically, yurts are self-supporting circular structures with a quick tear-down time, which is helpful if your yak herd suddenly bolts for the Himalayas.
Former Supreme Court Chief Justice William O. Douglas encountered yurts during a trip to Mongolia, which he wrote about in The National Geographic in 1962. Soon backcountry enthusiasts would plop yurts down in all sorts of mountain paradises. Like Colorado.
Yonder Yurts, based in Gould, is currently taking reservations for seven yurts in State Forest State Park鈥搘hich is the most boring, redundant name ever applied to an astonishingly beautiful place. I鈥檝e stayed in State Forest State Park a half-dozen times, so I鈥檓 entitled to propose that we rename it William O. Douglas State Park, for his straight-up contributions to circular lodgings.
Douglas wasn鈥檛 just a revolutionary camper. He also had good advice for how to handle an early dusk in the shadow of the Medicine Bow mountains. 鈥淎s nightfall does not come all at once,鈥� the Chief justice wrote, 鈥渘either does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of a change in the air 鈥� however slight 鈥� lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.鈥�
That was certainly true鈥攎inus the oppression鈥攁 few Februaries ago, when a friend and I sat on the front deck of the North Fork Canadian yurt, in the heart of the state park, sharing beers and watching for moose in the gloaming. None showed their long faces, but the beer was just right. Until the sun set, that is, and the temperature plunged. We retreated indoors, fired up the wood stove, and whipped up a hearty soup on the propane burner. Before retreating into our sleeping bags鈥攔ated for below-freezing temperatures鈥攚e promised each other that we鈥檇 stoke the fire throughout the night.
I should have known better. I鈥檝e read Jack London鈥檚 story 鈥淭o Build a Fire.鈥� They don鈥檛 always stay lit.
Around 1a.m., I opened an eye and saw an orange glow. The fire needed fuel, but I simply couldn鈥檛 leave my warm sleeping bag. By 3:13 a.m., another urge was upon me. My choices were stark: Either visit the outhouse, 100 chilly feet distant from the yurt, or remain awake until an even chillier dawn. So I leapt from the bed and hastily pulled on my warmest clothes. The fire was stone dead, as I would have been, if I didn鈥檛 hurry.
When I stepped out of the yurt it was breathtaking in two ways: First, the moon had set, so the star show was spectacular. Second, it was now -12 degrees, which my lungs complained about. I raced to the outhouse, took care of business, and sprinted back to my sleeping bag. A half-hour later I stopped shivering.
In the morning, my friend lit the stove again, for which I declared him my brother for life. After the yurt warmed a bit, I whipped up blueberry pancakes and sausages. I even brought condensed milk for our coffee. Later, we enjoyed a morning snowshoe and found deeply hollowed-out depressions in the snow, where moose had spent the night. I was so glad we鈥檇 slept indoors.
Which again made me extend gratitude to yurt pioneer William O. Douglas, who once wrote: 鈥淭he way to combat noxious ideas is with other ideas. The way to combat falsehoods is with truth.鈥�
Somebody oughta name a state forest state park after that guy.
Peter Moore is a writer and cartoonist living in Fort Collins. You can hear, and see, more of his work at KUNC.org.
