Snowshoeing

Nighttime snowshoeing right out our front door.
For living in a city (a BIG city, says this small town girl) we sure do live in an ideal location, right on the creek with a wooded area straight across the creek from us. Perfect for trying out new snowshoes!
It was an exploration in Antarctica. We saw tons of penguins and had to map out unexplored terrain. Or at least that is what Adventuring Anna was doing. I asked Ruthie if she saw the penguins and she said "Where? I don't see any penguins, Mommy. I just see a log." The three year old realist. Josie and Mitch were our cartographers. I was Cook Kate in charge of provisions. Trekking into the moonlight:
Ruthie did plenty of this:

See! I really was on this expedition! There's proof in the pictures.

Our next exploration was in the daylight. I brought the backpack to put Ruthie in if she got tired, but this intrepid explorer made it the whole way (with the help of some M & M's that I used to bribe her). She had to hold my hand the whole way or else her snowshoes would trip her up, but she did it all on her own.

Down the trail they go! We were looking for a Mama Moose and her calf. A snowshoer coming towards us told us it had been sighted up ahead of us, but by the time we got there it was gone. We just saw the tracks.

The lunch spot.

It was a bit of a winter wonderland listening to the sounds of nature around us, the wind in the trees, the few birds, the water of the creek rushing along below the ice as we trekked along at our slow pace taking it all in and enjoying each other's company.

Snowshoeing

This was a first for Anna and Josie, snowshoeing! We rented snowshoes for them and hit the trail. They had a blast.Anna during our lunch break:

Cool Jo:

Silly Ruthie on Mama's back:

We had the sled with us for whoever might need a break, we had no idea how the girls would do. Ruthie was the only one who took a turn in it today, the other two just wanted to keep snowshoeing. Here we are trekking down the trail:

Ruthie along for the ride:

Me!

This next picture was actually the next day, when we headed out first thing in the morning to get one more snowshoeing expedition in before we had to return the girls' snowshoes. Our favorite thing about this trail was all the animal tracks we saw, rabbit, squirrel, coyote (sometimes chasing the other two), and some mystery tracks (Josie swears they were skunk). Winter in Rocky Mountain National Park means all the animals are hiding, hibernating, or have headed down to lower elevations, so it was fun to see evidence that a few of them were still around.

Josie wanted to show you a video of how she hopped on her snowshoes:

What wintertime expedition is complete without a little hot chocolate afterwards to warm you up? The girls loved the snowshoeing and are ready to buy their own snowshoes so we can head out more often. Watch out, Grandpa and Nona, they're already working on their birthday and Christmas lists! You've trained them well. We ended up snowshoeing three times and I think they never would have stopped.