This was waiting for us when we reached the cabin -


The ladder got in with the help of my friend Mike – the two of us bravely fought the royal battle of the arctic air to raise the 16 foot ladder to its rightful place into the heavens… Oh, sorry, been reading too many books written during the hey-day of British Imperialism. Imperially or not, we still got the ladder in place and it is a pretty nice thing. The banister is still a work in progress; I will probably make it shorter at some point; and both the banister and the ladder will get a coat of oil when it is warmer.
In case you are wondering, the walls are getting done in the spring.

from the first floor
continuing into the second floor
looking down from the second floor
More snow had fallen since I was last there, so we parked in a neighbor’s driveway and climbed over the 6 foot snow bank blocking my driveway.
Mike and I planned on spending a night in the cabin, so we loaded up the sled with food, water and wood to burn. We had to make a couple of trips with the sled, which worked great – most of the hike in (a bit less than a quarter mile) is a gentle slope downhill, so sometimes it felt like the sled pulled us.




I had bought snow shoes on ebay thinking they might be handy, but there really isn’t enough snow yet to bother. I did use them, and it seems to keep me from going too far down in the snow, but again, the snow isn’t deep enough yet to warrant wearing them.
It was cold, but not terribly; in the 20’s in the day and the teens at night. After a few hours the new heater worked well enough that we could start peeling off most of our layers and hang out inside, in comfort!

We spent most of the time inside enjoying the view out the windows; it snowed lightly overnight, but not before we watched the moon rise.








By the end of the stay we started to fool around with floor plans -






to be continued!