Secret Forest Sauna.... shhh!

So, last night turned into a pretty fantastic Thursday evening... I was all set to head out to yoga after work when a friend called and invited me to go ski out to Portage glacier... I rushed home packed the dog and some snacks and we headed off... a lovely sunny afternoon in Anchorage... warm and sweet. We got to Portage lake and it was snricing! For those of you who have never heard this word (snrice) before, don't worry... I made it up. It is the delightful form of precipitation that comes in spring and fall, a mix of snow/rain/ice... Anywho... Steve forgot his rain coat, so we bagged skiing out to the glacier and headed a little closer to Anchorage to check out this secret forest sauna that I had heard of once apon a time...

I had a little map drawn in teal marker in my Gazetteer that Moksha had drawn up nearly a year ago. It consisted of a straight line, a couple squiggles, some dots, the work 'log' and an 'X' that marked the "spot"

"Who knows if this thing even exists," I thought to myself. But it seemed like a plan. A bundle of wood and a sixer later, Steve and I were headed off on the trail. The log was in the exact location it was supposed to be, so I knew we were on the right track. The dots turned out to me the most lovely grove of white spruce with Spanish moss hanging down... and across a couple creeks (squiggles) later, we were there! This little shack was snug into the side of a mountain, almost entirely cloaked in snow, moss, and the rest of the immediate surroundings that blended so seamlessly into the small structure.

We lit a fire in the make~shift stove and started to heat the lil place up! We both thought that it was going to be a bust, but all of the sudden heat started to radiate inside and the rocks on top of the small rusted caged barrel started to get hot to the touch... success! It was a surprisingly warm, surprisingly funny adventure to the lil hippie sweat lodge in the wood. Next time we decided we would bring two bundles of wood instead of one, a case instead of a sixer, a stove and some dinner, and a gold pan for activities while the place is heating up. Next time...