There’s actually a fairly decent amount of coverage, there’s just a section of the Banff Trail that’s absolutely awful (as half of the trail is bare to the asphalt for access to the enormous pile of sawdust).
So, it finally warmed up to about -10oC, so with those positively balmy temperatures the Moosling and I headed up to the Nordic Centre to have a play in the snow.
It was more of as test run than anything, they could still do with a bit more snow at the Nordic Centre, and I didn’t want to get too far out and then have the Moosling wake up and start screaming with hunger. So we just did a short loop, he fell fast asleep just before we got going and stayed that way until I got back to the Daylodge.
We’re using an old infant bivy in there, that we got from a garage sale, and he’s in a super warm polar fleece sack suit inside of that – he stayed pretty warm, but we weren’t out for long. There’s some padding around the bivy for extra insulation, but I might add a bit more. And he’ll probably stay warmer once I stop compulsively opening the front cover to check that he really is still ok. All in all, it’s a pretty promising set up for proper adventures later on!
It’s shaping up to be a pretty game-playing kind of Winter. And boardgame #1 so far (actually, it’s the only boardgame we’ve been playing, everything else has been cards or tiles or something), has been Settlers of Catan.
It looks a little something like this:
To play, you roll dice, collect resources (such as sheep), and build settlements and roads and things like that. But the most important thing is that like all good things, it’s also available in food form:
You can even play it giant sized at Burning Man (less tasty, but also fun)
And best of all, it’s so simple that even a baby can play!