“Summertime and the living is easy” is a well-known phrase. But what about winter? Sheldon Perry has a counter phrase: “Summer gives you its love. In winter, you have to go out and earn it!”
On Saturday, February 12, from 12-3PM, join Chocorua Lake Conservancy for a Winter Camping Expo at 191 Great Hill Road, just above Tamworth Village. Dedicated winter campers Geoff Burke, Dave Evans, and Sheldon Perry will share what they’ve learned about winter camping, trekking, and seasonal trapping and hunting, and offer a show and tell of traditional heated tents and trekking toboggans. Hot drinks and warm soups will be available around the campfire. Come when you like and enjoy the company of friends and neighbors out-of-doors, ask questions, and share your own winter camping stories.
Parking is very limited. If you are able, please park in one of the public parking lots in Tamworth Village and take a brief (.3 miles), scenic, winter “hike” up Great Hill Road to Sheldon’s, the first house on the left after the Remick Museum fields. A shuttle will also be available from the parking lot behind the Tamworth Town Offices at 12PM and again at 1:30PM. Dress for the outdoor weather, and please bring a mask if you’d like to go inside the tents.
This event is free. Please register below by Monday, February 7 so we have plenty of soup for everyone. Storm, rain, or wind date will be Sunday, February 13, 12-3PM. You can read more about Sheldon’s winter camping experiences HERE.
After you select the number of people you are registering and click “register”, be sure to scroll down and fill out all required fields. Thanks!
Presenters:
For Sheldon Perry, winter camping is simply an amplification of a lifestyle committed to spending time in the outdoors. Sheldon grew up in a family whose love of skiing fostered the love of the mountains which, in turn, led to five summers working for the AMC’s hut system. As a parent with two children, it was easy to turn to camping as exciting mini-adventures to interesting and beautiful places. These experiences culminated in a passion to spend even more time in the woods and to help preserve and protect them for generations to come. Seen in this way, car camping, canoe camping, and eventually winter camping are just logical extensions of each other. Winter camping became a way for Sheldon to open up his outdoor world to a season not yet available to him. It required obtaining new equipment and greater knowledge, which was exciting. All the hard work necessary to make it happen? Priceless.
Dave Evans was raised in Lexington, MA and Jackson NH. In 1973, after college and foreign travel, he left New England, intending to build a cabin in the woods and live close to nature. He had the good fortune to spend 10 years in a remote area, on the Yukon River, in interior Alaska. He learned how to build log cabins, hunt, fish, trap, raise and use a dog team, and camp out, as needed, summer and winter, from 90 degrees to 50 below. Later, Dave was hired by the National Park Service, first as a patrol ranger on the Yukon, later in other capacities, in other parks, in Alaska and Arizona. After retirement, he returned to New Hampshire and currently lives in Madison.
Known in these parts as the master builder of Chocorua Boatworks, Geoffrey Burke’s expertise as a boat builder (steam bending, in particular) made him the perfect instructor to lead myriad classes in toboggan building. He is also known for being a edge tool sharpener, skills he has employed well in the use and handling of axes-—the instructor of the instructors for the USFS. This is just the beginning of his outdoor knowledge.
Banner image: A happy man with his winter tent deep in the snowy winter woods. Photo courtesy of Sheldon Perry.