Winter camping in Afton state park

This past weekend, I spent a night outside in Afton state park. Afton state park is located near the st. Croix river, just east of the twin cities.

We headed over to the park in the early afternoon, when we found out we were te only ones camping in their backpaking campsites. We traveled about 3/4 mile from where we parked the car to our eventual campsite. This included going up a pretty big hill. Our site was great, and with no one else out there, we had the park to ourselves.

We set up camp, got a nice fire going, and cooked some good food as it got dark outside. It was a windy day, but not incredibly cold. By the time we went to bed, it was somewhere just under 20 degres, I believe. My sleeping bag is rated to 20 degrees, and even though I hd a sleeping pad and a small blanket underneath, I was still a little cold, mostly in my feet.
The next morning, we got the fire going, cooked some pancakes, packed our stuff up, and got out of the park. It would have been nice to check out some of the snowshoe trails,but I didn't have my snowshoes with, and there really wasn't much snow.

I recommend afton state park to anyone who wants to camp a little distance away from their vehicle, but not too far. There are some great views of the st croix river as well.