Snow Much Fun @ Afton State Park

In February of 2022, Tristan and I embarked on an adventure to Afton State Park. The winter weather was beautiful, we had recently had fresh snow but the roads were clear. We went without a definite hiking route and planned to explore what the park to had offer. We ended up hiking for about an hour and half and managed 2.66 miles. Afton has a number of cross country ski-only trails in addition to multi-use trails; there is a $100 fine for hiking on the ski-only trails. Per the All Trails map, it looks like most of what we hiked is typically a bike path; in winter it is one of the multi-use trails. The vast majority was boot-packed and did not require crampons or snow shoes. There was a point where I wished I had brought my poles with for stability. In typical fashion of our winter hiking, I pulled Tristan on a sled for the majority of time there. There was plenty of elevation to make this difficult at times. We ended up have a blast sledding down a giant hill that had no traffic but it then came to a T with a cross country ski-only trail. I was highly regretting having to hike back up that hill while pulling the sled, Tristan got out a few times to hike and give me a break but it was difficult for him to hike up the hill as well. Lesson learned. :) Tristan enjoyed riding in the sled but his favorite part was seeing some "dinosaur" tracks in the snow. I'll definitely be heading back to Afton at some point, regardless of the season, to explore more.