Winter camping in a snow igloo

Such a cold winter everywhere… Up in Minnesota, temps have been dropping to -15 F with windchills of -40 to -60 below zero. It’s been so cold that schools have been cancelled this week, according to my family who lives there. Luckily when I visited last month, it was not quite so cold, and people were still doing plenty of outdoor activities for fun.

My nephew, Brandon, for one, decided to build a snow igloo for a little winter camping in his parent’s backyard. (And Bailey, the family’s Golden Retriever mix, didn’t seem to mind…)

Years ago when Brandon was in high school, building a snow igloo was a required part of phys educ class. And they had to spend the night in it for completion of the grade. Guess knowing how to build one would come in handy living there… I’ve never built one. Nor even knew that you could build a fire in one!

But you do need to be careful that it doesn’t melt the ceiling! A chimney and air vents were all part of the construction…

This particular day was not that cold…was around 6 or 8 F degrees…

Yet, Brandon’s thermos of hot water still turned chilly in record time…

Freeze frame at f8, SS 1/500