You can join a yoga retreat in the Maine wilderness
The trip is meant to help you relax during the busy holiday season.
Are the holidays stressing you out? A Maine wilderness retreat scheduled for this weekend is designed to ease your mind.
Maine Huts & Trails, a nonprofit organization that pairs outdoor adventures with overnight accommodations in the woods of western Maine, is hosting a winter solstice retreat in the Carrabassett Valley, about a four-hour drive from Boston. The 25-hour retreat will deliver off-the-grid living that includes snowshoeing, yoga classes, locally sourced meals, and plenty of quiet time.
Kimberly Truskowski, a registered Maine guide and a certified Kripalu yoga teacher who will lead the group, said the winter solstice is a great time for a retreat because it comes during the busy holiday season and also celebrates light. After the winter solstice on Thursday, Dec. 21, the shortest day of the year, the amount of daylight will begin to increase.
On Saturday, Truskowski will lead participants on a quiet and reflective, 3-mile snowshoe trek through the woods to one of the organization’s four remote “huts.” The huts are actually modern, spacious eco-lodges powered by solar energy that include separate buildings for gathering and sleeping. There’s a main lodge with a great room, reading area, dining room, bathroom, porch, and kitchen, and separate buildings where guests sleep in heated bunk rooms. The lodges cannot be reached by vehicles; they’re located along an 80-mile trail system in the Kingfield/Carrabassett Valley region of Maine near Sugarloaf Mountain Resort.
“It’s about increasing our awareness and being grateful for the beautiful area we’ll be in, and taking notice,” she said.
The main lodge and sleeping quarters at Poplar Hut, where folks will stay during the winter solstice retreat.
Once guests settle in, they’ll take the first of two hour-long yoga classes taught by Truskowski. The second class will take place at sunrise on Sunday morning.
“It’s going to be more of a meditative, inward practice, incorporating a lot of breath work,” said Truskowski, who studied at the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in Stockbridge.
After class, participants will have quiet time to write in journals, she said, before enjoying a home-cooked meal. All of the retreat’s meals will be locally sourced.
“It’s a hectic season; it’s the end of a busy year,” Truskowski said. “It’s really just giving yourself the gift of time and introspection.”
Saturday, Dec. 16 at 1 p.m. to Sunday, Dec. 17 at 2 p.m.; 1242 Carrabassett Ave., Carrabassett Valley, Maine; $175; to register call 207-265-2400
