Hannah the hiker

A couple months ago I was searching for a place to celebrate an anniversary with my boyfriend, Conner.

I was looking for a cabin out in the woods that we could hike to, and bring Cash. Surprisingly, the closest option was 4 hours away in Vermont. Any cabins in New York don’t allow for dogs to stay inside, or they are drive up sites, or super pricey! It was such a treat to discover Merck Forest and Farmland Center.

I booked their Viewpoint cabin for two nights at the end of March. I kept the trip a surprise for Conner and did all of our packing, so he had no idea where we were going the whole drive there. I was close to spoiling the surprise in the weeks leading up, but was able to hold out!

We got to the parking lot of the center around 4 pm. There was ample parking and lots of signage telling you about the center and the trails accessible. We packed our bags and said goodbye to the car and set off on our 2 mile hike up to the cabin. We followed the gravel road for a while. We passed by the visitor center (closed at that time), walked through the farmland area (horses, cows, sheep, and sap lines), and then dipped up into the tree line on the gravel road.

All of the trails connect back to the main farm and are easy to navigate. The website for the center has lots of options for downloading an app to assist with navigation, downloading a virtual map, and obviously there is a print version as well. The trails also have signs with condensed versions of the map to refer to. Needless to say, we were able to find our cabin easily. It was about a 2-mile walk with a couple of hundred feet of uphill. It was gradual at first and then became quite steep once we reached the spur trail to the cabin.

Conner carried the majority of our heavy supplies, so the hiking wasn’t too tough for Cash and I! Cash had his own little backpack but all he carried were his food bowls and a water bottle.

We reached the cabin around 5:30 and were greeted with amazing views of the hills surrounding us. The cabin itself was charming. It was the perfect size for two people and a dog on a chilly spring weekend. We unpacked some of our things and then we started on making dinner. It was clear and cool outside so we opted to sit at the picnic table and enjoy our little burritos (one of my favorite backpacking meals). We had refried beans, knorrs mexican rice, tortillas, shredded chicken, and of course, cheese. Cash enjoyed his kibble with a view too.

The cabin itself had a woodstove, table and bench, lots of hooks, food bin, firewood, and a wooden platform to sleep on. There was also plenty of dried firewood inside the cabin, and loads of firewood cut and stacked under the shed outside.

The woodstove was small but mighty, especially in this close quarters cabin. Cash found the perfect sleep spot just in front of the stove, and laid there any chance he got. Needless to say, we did not get cold the entire weekend.

It started raining the first night and didn’t stop until we left two days later. We quickly discovered where the small leaks were in the roof that first night. I had just gotten in my sleeping bag and fallen asleep when I woke up to a steady trickle hitting my forehead. It was a bit of a scramble to find the hole and come up with a solution but we managed and didn’t have any more leaks (above the bed at least).

The second day was spent enjoying the warmth of the woodstove and exploring some of the trails surrounding us. We walked by numerous sap lines, the center has about 3,000 taps on trees on their land. It is impressive to see hundreds of sap lines throughout the trees. My family has only ever used buckets or bags to collect sap, I couldn’t imagine installing 3,000 taps!

Lots of the viewpoints on the trails were socked in with the clouds and rain, but it was still wonderful to be among the trees and seeing the various wildlife. The trails surrounding our cabin were well marked, and relatively easy grade.

During our walks, we had to walk back to the farm to get more water. There were no streams near our cabin, the closest one was at the farm, about a 1.5 mile walk. We filtered four liters of water with my new Sawyer Squeeze which worked perfectly.

Later on we took a night hike and my headlamp happened to reflect a set of eyes looking at us from within the woods. We could tell by the shape and general size of the animal that it wasn’t a bear or just a bunny rabbit. We thought that it was a bobcat but weren’t certain. Conner walked to a different spot to get a better look, I did not. I am okay with nearly all other wildlife, but wild cats do tend to scare me! And I was worried about Cash’s wellbeing. So, I’ll just blame it on Cash. Anyway, sure enough, it was a bobcat that was hanging around the brush in front of our cabin. Conner got a good look at it and called for me to go and see it. But when he shouted my name it spooked the cat and we weren’t able to find them for the rest of the night.

That night we were also greeted by some new guests. We had fallen asleep, Cash was snoring on the floor next to the woodstove. Our cooking kits were drying on the table in the cabin. Conner woke up to something tinkering around in the pots and plates. He shined his headlamp, and two little mice looked back at him. They quickly scurried to their hiding spot. He lay back down. A couple of minutes later they came back out, just couldn’t help themselves to whatever crumb of food that was left on our plates. Conner got up and hung everything from the ceiling, and we didn’t hear from the mice again. Cash kept on snoring the entire time. I was asleep throughout all of this and when I got up I was surprised to find everything hanging from the ceiling!

On the last morning we enjoyed coffee with our somewhat cloudy view. We ate our breakfast and cleaned up the cabin, packed up all of our things and wrote an entry in the cabin log. We came up with quite a nice poem detailing our adventures during our stay.

Then we said goodbye and started our trek back to the car. There are no garbage cans on the property until you reach the parking lot. We carried our garbage out and were even able to pick up some trash people left along the trails. It felt good to help out the property in that way.

The farmland center is such a neat place with a great mission. They provide lots of educational events, their trails are free to access, and they have great maple syrup! They have lots of options for cabins, shelters, and hiking on their property. Plus, they are very dog-friendly which is a big plus in my book. Information about their work and property are available on their website. https://www.merckforest.org/

The trip was a success. It was a nice surprise for Conner and Cash and was a great weekend getaway. Even though we were only 2 miles from our car it still felt like such a nice break to step into the woods for two nights. I would love to go back and stay at that cabin again in the future! It was a perfect cozy place with the woodstove and had amazing views of the nature around.