Every year I take a winter camping trip with friends up to the North Shore of Lake Superior. Of course my kids, who love to backpack, have been clamoring to go winter camping with Dad, so this past Friday-Saturday I took them. The weather was perfect with highs in the teens and a low of -1F. The snow base was around 10" of puffy white powder. We put everything on two sleds, one of which I pulled and one of which my 11 year old son pulled, and headed out at a state park on snow shoes. After getting to our campsite, we set up the tent and unrolled pads and sleeping bags. The kids each got two bags, one inside the other, because I don't have winter bags for them. When it got dark we crawled in and stayed there until the sun came up around 13 hours later. Needless to say the kids were restive from being cooped up so long but did fine once they were out of the tent.

Food included Cranberry Chicken and rice, Ramen Soup cups, bacon and eggs, bagels, hot cocoa, cheese, salami, and lots of chocolate! Toe wamers and hand warmers were used in abundance and are a very necessary part of taking kids winter camping IMHO.

On Saturday we hauled the sleds out with skis and spent several hours cross country skiing before heading home. All in all it was a great trip. My daughter has decided that she does not want to go winter camping because "it is too cold" and my son want to go again "as long as I have lots of hand warmers"

Hope you all get to enjoy similar joys with your kids.