A Frosted Festival for Misfits
Join the pied piper of the Catskills woods, Will Soter, who shares these mountains with rare and contagious joy. We’re gathering for a most excellent winter fest, full of fire and ice, laughter and camaraderie. Coax flame from spark and kindling in the fire challenge, find stories written in wild winter tracks, and forage pine tips for a bit of forest alchemy. Conjure your gleanings into drinks in a fiercely creative mixology contest, and feast on the flavors of the mountains by candlelight.
Come remember how much there is to love about winter.
About the Imaginarium Series
Step sideways into another world. Here, imagination has gravity. The ordinary tilts just enough to let the marvelous through. Each Imaginarium gathering is a living moment in our new expanding universe of SpillianQuest: intimate circles of up to 20 co-conspirators who weave the reveling together. With extraordinary chef-made feasts, fires and candlelight, and an enchanted historic estate.
And each is its own quest: a small act of rebellion against the rush of the everyday, a chance to revel in the delight of co-creation. And somehow, in that shared play, something genuine takes root: connection, belonging, a touch of wonder. Come as you are and let’s play together.
SpillianQuest: reveling fuel for people yearning to make meaning.
A mycelial web of tools, toys, treats, adventures & boon companions.
A handcrafted overnight adventure.
What’s Included
- Programming, materials, and festivities for two people
- Afternoon refreshments with house-made Spillian treats
- The Forest Feast for two, with carnivore and vegivore options
- Overnight lodging for two in one of Spillian’s eight rooms
- Sunday morning breakfast for two, featuring our famous bagels
- Wine, local beers, and Spillian cocktails available for purchase
- From our kitchen: a complimentary tin of Cat’s Love Tea and packet of Bliss Crisps for your journey home
- A chance to join the League of Spillian Revelers
When
- Arrive at noon or so on Saturday and settle in by the fire
- The Winter Wonder Games begin at 1 PM
- We’ll say farewell at 11 AM on Sunday
A quest awaits before you arrive. Details when you book.
Advance registration required. Small gatherings can fill quickly.
What We Will Do Together
The Winter Wonder Games
Savor the delights of frost and fire (and a bit of mostly-friendly competition) on Spillian’s mountain. Each year’s games shift a little with the weather and the whim of the day, but some traditions hold fast. Permission slips always available to play hooky by the fire.
Will’s Winter Fire Challenge
Test your mettle and your match-lighting skills in this favorite relay race: build the best fire, coax it to boil water, and make hot chocolate over open flame in the Meadow. Winners get to spike theirs.
A Foraging Wander
Join Will on a ramble through Spillian’s wintry woods, following tracks and foraging pine for a bit of forest alchemy. Depending on how generous the snow gods are, we’ll wander in boots or snowshoes.
The Winter Cocktail Contest
Channel your inner mixologist in a creative, no-holds-barred cocktail contest. Local spirits, mixers, garnishes, and a smoker await. The best concoction wins naming rights and eternal Spillian glory.
A Feast Worthy of the Forest King
Gather around our extraordinary mahogany dining table, a true place of convivium—where tales are topped, ideas are birthed, and friendships take root. Feast on the flavors of the mountains, crafted with wild delight by our kitchen.
Fireside Revels
As night settles in, we gather by the fire. With the scent of woodsmoke, the low thrum wildness savored, someone will inevitably find the whiskey. And, because they are simply necessary, there will be s’mores.
To Sleep, Perchance to Dream
Wander off and dream of the perfect snow in of one of our eight splendidly whimsical rooms: The Secret Garden, The Scheherazade, The Lotus, The Camelot, The Jules Verne, The Klimt, The William Morris, or the Four Seasons.
A Breakfast to Close the Circle
On Sunday morning, featuring our famous house-made bagels and apple turnovers.
Why We Gather
To Feel Alive in Winter
By late February the light feels thin, and the air heavy. We wake in the same grey, move through the same cold, and something inside begins to forget its shape. As the cold moves inward, we still with it, just waiting.
To Keep the Old Fire
For thousands of years, people have met the long winter by drawing close to flame. We stare into embers and the world grows quiet enough for story to arrive. Myths take shape in that glow; the collective memory remembers itself.
To Find the Wild
The woods are exquisitely silent. Snow re-imagines landscapes into a beckoning unknown. The mountains show the bones of memories of an ancient landscape. Streams run dark and slow, laced with ice. An invitation.
To Share Warmth as Kinship
There is a hunger deeper than food. To stand near someone else’s laughter. To share bread, a drink, a story, until the edges between us blur and soften. As humans have done for thousands of years.
To Play, Always Play
To pit ourselves, laughing, against the press of cold so it becomes a companion. And to hold ourselves lightly against the darkness.
To Leave in Wonder
In the shortest month that is truly the longest, there is a glimmer in the crystalline beauty of winter adventure. And in a pulse of life under snow. We come to feel it again. And to be reminded, that the world is still making itself new.
About Will Soter
Will Soter is a New York State–licensed outdoor guide and founder of Excelsior Adventures, a concierge adventure company crafting bespoke journeys across North America and Europe. A Wilderness First Responder and Leave No Trace Master Educator, he’s guided thousands into the wild, helping people rediscover not only the land but their own place within it.
Will knows these Catskills as few do—their flora and fauna, their hidden trails, their long, layered stories. He’s led the Catskill Conservation Corps, served as president of the New York State Outdoor Guides Association, and worked to shape the future of New York’s trails and guide licensing. But at heart, he’s still what he’s always been: a pied piper of the mountains, inviting anyone willing to listen into conversation with the wild.
