Seasons of the Yurt
by Jeff Potter
One thing led to another…
A while back at a cozy, rockin’ party Bob shouted above the music: “There’s some land up north that my Dad might give to me. It’s real hilly and he’s not doing anything with it. All I gotta do is pay the back taxes. Wanna check it out?” Bob said this with his Good Idea twinkle in his eye.
So our gang found itself on an excited expedition one spring weekend. Cars and trucks finally found each other several miles uphill off a two-track trail in steep woods. A good spot for our temporary camp. Busy carpenter-types erected a kind of Quonset. A big dinner table was screw-gunned together. An outhouse was erected on the brink of a gentle vista. Elk thundered by during siesta. The happy family of goofs romped in their woodsy new living room.
“Well, let’s go find that land.” …It proved to be situated a stone’s throw away in deep folds of ferny hill, up against state land. Folks stood around in the brush, hands on hips, dreaming and scheming.
“OK, for winter I’m going to build a yurt down in that dog-leg notch valley,” said Bob. “You know, those Mongolian nomad huts? No one will be able to see it until they’re right on top of it. It’ll be protected from the wind. Snow gets four feet deep up here.”
“I’ll build a sauna,” said Dave. Over the next months I heard word of other expeditions. People’s eyes were bigger and bigger each time they reported back. “You have to come up and see it!”
So up we went. Up the interstate. Off an exit and onto a dirt road. Off the dirt road. Onto a different, better route to the interior. Back, back we go. Unwinding and decompressing the whole way. Up a 2-mile sandy two-track to the top of the biggest hill in the area. Then down a plunging trail. Then off into the woods along a secret ridge. Follow the strings on trees. If you miss ’em, you’re lost! Third valley in. Look over the edge.
A beautiful round cabin sits bright on a ledge. Scramble down, then open the door to your new home. Fresh piney scent of freshly chiseled trees fill the air. Perky wood stove. Clean dirt floor. The radiating rafters make a perfect fit at the clever peak. Army-tent canvas is wrapped, along with a cable, around timbers to form the wall. A clear plastic tarp for the roof.
Everyone had put their hand in, making bunks, leveling earth, building the outhouse. But nobody had seen it all together yet. I got up there midnight for the first big occasion and started the stove and lantern. Other caravans of Friday-after-work travelers arrived later. Cold, tired and weary, they slumped through the dark woods not knowing if I’d made it or was awake. They popped over the brink of the hollow. And saw the glowing, circular roof, shadowed with dark spokes, smoke puffing out the stack. Home! 
For a whole year now the yurt has been a prize, delight and respite. A surprising and easing sight for weary travelers. And even though it’s in the land of yahoo-ism, its rugged location has kept away unsuitable visitors. Even though anyone who finds it is welcome.
In the spring, I caught some trout at the nearby lake. Hungry woodchoppers and hikers were rummaging up a bits-and-pieces dinner when I got back. I pull out the trouts. Ahhh! Then I pop out the single Morel I found. Mmm! Slice it up many ways. Someone gathered wild leeks from the hillside. The sparse, unplanned dinner becomes lush and rich.
Then there was New Year’s… We all wondered what would winter be like deep in the outback. We all scrounged snowshoes. We park along the main dirt road. Two miles from the yurt. We’re the first car. As we’re setting out with our sleds of gear, the friends from Chicago arrive. It’s always fun how the cars accumulate from the various cities! Who knows who might come? We greet folks we haven’t seen in ages. Off we go! Worries and city life falling off our shoulders. After an hour of climbing, we’re clanking snow off gear at the bright red door. Some haven’t seen ‘er yet. Wow!
Snow-shoeing that day opened our eyes. No flound-ering off-trail on skis, on shoes you float like a dream. You can go straight up the steepest ravines, squeeze through thick, snow-pillowed shrubbery without a worry. Shoeing works just right and is as quiet and muffled as can be. If you thought getting off roads and onto trails was a relief, try getting off trails and float straight into nowhere with just your compass. You¹ll need a compass and map, coz in dense, hilly country in four feet of snow, one step away from familiar trails and you can easily get panicky vertigo… With a compass you can revel in this new world. Try it!
Hours later, around the toasty fire, ten bodies jam into the yurt, listening to the fresh subzero snap, crackle and pop. We go through Mill Cycles where every 30 minutes someone gets up, inspiring others and all positions change in a spontaneous burst of milling around. It’s tight, but the dance goes silky smooth.
Someone remembers the heavy water jug we abandoned along the trail. I stumble over some energy remaining after the day of shoeing and volunteer to get it with a sled. Who’ll come? It’ll be fun. We’ll sled down to it. This latest Jeff Idea doesn’t inspire any action. Finally Lindy says OK. I choose the long, old, wood toboggan. And off we go into the night, Miner-style head-lights beaming.
There’s no knowing if it’ll work. We get to the snowed-over road at the top of the long hill and set the old boards down. There’s not much slope here really, but it does curve down and away. We scootch. Headlights pick up falling snow. We start moving, just a gentle crunching under the butt. Then a rumble. We lean and glide around the curve, picking up speed. Hmmm, this is kinda neat. We head down into a tunnel of trees, into the dark of the snow road. After a minute of sizzling along, we’re ecstatic. This is cool, I say to Lindy quietly, so as not to jinx us.
I lean back and see night sky ahead. We don’t really need to steer. Just a little english as we recline does the trick. We go faster and faster. It’s been a few minutes now. I feel like we’re on some kind of honest to goodness sleigh. We’re really travelling! We must have gone a mile by now. We get tired of sitting, so we lean back on our elbows, a happy, snug unit, our pool of light flying through the creaking zero chill. We start to slow around a bend, then the road drops, and again we pick up whistling speed. We fly past the water jug. We have to let it keep gliding because it feels so good. Eventually we slow and creak to a halt.
“Well! That was something! A good ten-minute ride!” And back up we start trudging, to pick up the jug. I feel like a little kid… from the 1800’s.
By the top, it’s obvious only one ride can be done in an evening. But back at the yurt, we walk in beaming. “Hoo boy,” folks say, “how was it? Oh man,You don’t have to say, your looks tell it all. We really missed something, didn’t we? How tasty was it?”
“Let’s just say, we’ve found something you’ll like.”
This launched a winter of sledding. We discovered five different runs. Four big and twisty. And one long and satisfying. When I left that weekend, I piled my gear atop the big tobaggan, then sat on top of the mound and pushed off. Ten minutes later, I glided to a stop at the cars. Perfecto.
Once, Chip and I plummeted down the snaky, steep trail near the yurt which I call Grenoble. (It has a Jean-Claude Killy look to it.) I’d finally figured out how to properly turn toboggans. (Mitt down to the rear.) This is normally a death-defying run. Not really doable on skis. But I thought I’d figured it out. Dave E was skiing quietly up the hill. We hurtled at him like a 300-lb cannonball. We blasted dark and low past his ankles about as fast as we could get a warning out. We flew expertly around the chicanes. It was like being in a race car with the seat on the ground and fully reclined. With just enough snow spray to give that extra zing. Dave E said we looked like doom at each curve until a mitt would pop out from the rear and touch just so.
Soon luge berms were built. Motorcycle helmets donned. Trees swept past close and intimately. Foursome runs attempted in the night…with hurricane snow spray blindness and tumbling wipeouts the usual result. But sometimes after the first can’t-see, can’t-breathe plunge we’d find ourselves all still aboard, gliding merrily down the road. We all but gave up skiing.
Snow berms couldn’t always hold the speed and bodies were launched into trees. Such thrills held no interest for half the gang. They realize that all gliding is a pleasure; that faster isn’t better. They go for the lingering trundle. Time to watch scenery go by, quiet and fair. They look for long runs instead of steep.
Finally the snow melted. We huddled in the yurt, listening to the rain, watching the snow steam, knowing the ferns wanted to come out.
On one such night, several pals who’d never been to the yurt together met, scrambled out of the chilly rain, and had dinner. We wondered if the other visitors would bother to come. Midnight rolled past. Then a shout. “Watch it! Hey, help me here.” Then a bellow “Well, look at that, Bobby, my boy! So that’s a yurt!” Boom, crunch, slide. “So where’s that red wine you promised me, Bobby!” We all look at each other while listening… It’s Bob’s dad! He who made this all possible!
Thus the only Parent to make it to the yurt bangs through the door. “Hello, hello!” And the fun begins. Next out of the rain comes Bob’s younger brother Scott from Philadelphia. “Hello, hello!” And our host Bob himself. The Moir clan, bright and bespeckled; two of them spanking new yurt virgins. We tell stories with Mr. Moir until the wee hours, his lawyerly curiosity and energy keeping us well-primed with questions and refills of red wine.
Thus the surprising ways of the Yurt keep piling up, as Mr. Moir adds his own boisterous new twist.
This past summer, Bob blazed 3 new tobaggan runs. And built 5-foot-tall, banked turns of logs and woven saplings. The twinkle in his eye is still going strong.
Dave E finished his sauna, and we had our first steam-blasts in it, that scorching jolt the Finns call lolika. It’s the perfect night-cap. I was boggled by how much it added. Sauna-ing seems to invigorate and break you down at the same time. Breaks down the suburban walls of perception. I begin to see why the Sweat Lodge is essential in Native spirituality. I was surprised how different it was from city saunas. -And it gets you clean, too. Standing naked in the moonlight afterward is just the thing.
