Just a few miles off Route 1, the Snow Bowl has it all: small-scale ski slopes, trails for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing, a tubing hill, a pond for ice-skating, and a wooden-toboggan run. If that's not enough, Camden Hills State Park is just around the corner, and its pristine environs are open in the winter to Nordic skiers and snowshoers.
For our kids - twin boys who were 8 last winter and a girl who was 5 - the tubing hill was the star attraction. For $5 an hour, you can slide down the hill as many times as you're able to climb back up. There's no tow rope, but the trek up isn't as laborious as it might appear.
The toboggan run - the only one in New England - offers a unique thrill. As many as five adults sit on the wooden sled, linking arms and legs so that no one falls off, and scream down the chute at speeds approaching 50 miles an hour. At the bottom, the toboggan shoots out onto a frozen pond. (This is where the tongue-in-cheek National Toboggan Championships are held every February.) The downside is the same as at the tubing hill: You have to lug your heavy sled back up the hill. Same price too: $5 an hour.
For a change of scenery, we decided to snowshoe in the state park. Camden Hills was the perfect spot to begin. Many of the trails are flat, smooth, and wide, and if the kids don't feel like climbing up Mount Battie or Mount Megunticook, there are enough trails closer to sea level. An Audubon group was arriving as we were leaving, but we didn't see another soul on the trails.
We lucked out when it came to lodging. The obvious choice for a family of five might have been the famous Samoset Resort, but a little searching online turned up a family-friendly inn that was a better bargain. The Country Inn, on Route 1 just over the Rockport line, is about three minutes from downtown Camden.
