The Dodge Nature Center Women in the Woods with Wine

Add wine to any event, and you’re bound to gather a great group of women. That is the secret that the Dodge Nature Center in St. Paul has learned. Starting out this Fall, they created a new series of events called Women in the Woods with Wine.

Designed as a safe environment they provide a little info on the area and lead you on some fun hikes. When the event first showed up on Facebook it filled up so fast, they added more.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get in this past fall. But when they showed up again this winter, I was quick to sign up. This time it involved snowshoeing. I’ve wanted to try out snowshoeing for the longest time. I grabbed my sister, and we headed out.

Women in the Woods with Wine at the Dodge Nature Center

The group leading the women were amazing. It started off with a brief nature introduction all about Winter. Basic info and fun facts and then they got to the good part. NO, not the wine.

While tasty, you had to finish that before you left. For some reasons they didn’t think it a good idea to give wine to people and then have them try out snowshoeing.

The Dodge Nature Center has the more traditional style Michigan snowshoes. Many people brought their own aluminum varieties too. I had been eyeing the aluminum ones for a while now so I was excited to see how they performed.

One thing I found was that the traditional wooden ones did a lot better job of evenly distributing your weight on the fresh batch of snow that had recently fallen. The aluminum ones worked better on hills or places where the snow was or ice.

Once everyone was strapped in, they took us out to some virgin snow so we could get our sea legs or snow legs in this case. I didn’t realize how different they would be to walk in.

After about 5 minutes, we no longer looked like crazy people walking in clown shoes. The trick is to take longer strides with higher knees so you don’t step on the shoes. After that, we hit the trails.

It was such a fun time! I would defiantly go back again. I’m already thinking about going in the summer when we can bring wine with us!

The Dodge Nature Center has events for everyone for every age. Including a Love in the Wild – Date Night adventure, Summer Camp and Preschool programs. 

Because the events fill up so fast, I recommend following them on Facebook. As for the snowshoeing, I’m trying to convince my husband that we need to buy a pair.

Until then I’ll be sitting at home enjoying my wine. If you love wine, check out the 11 Wineries and Vineyards Minutes from the Twin Cities.

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