What outdoor activities did you do in the snow as a child or as an adult? I liked to build a snowman family.How about

[debm55]

you? PS I loved crosscountry skiing. snow ball fights, sledding.

[Ocelot II]

1. All of them.

Sledding, snow forts, snowball fights, snow angels, cross-country skiing, downhill skiing, snowshoeing, shoveling, and winter camping (which is horrible because you have to get out of your sleeping bag and your tent to go to the bathroom when it's -15F).

[debm55]

3. Wow, Ocelot II, you must really love the winter weather. Thank you very much.

[WestMichRad]

2. Have always loved playing outdoors in the winter

As a kid, building snow forts, ice skating, making a huge pile of snow and diving in… as an adult, cross country skiing and, occasionally, snowshoeing… and diving into piles of snow!


The key is to stay actively moving about when you’re outside in the cold, generating body heat, and promptly retreat to a warmer place when you’re done.

[debm55]

18. Exactly, I could remember sweating when I was outside as a kid and cross country skiing at the golf course.

[BOSSHOG]

4. I recall a rather snowy stretch in North Philly in the early 60s

Snow was very deep for us short people. No vehicular traffic could traverse the streets. About a half a dozen of us dug tunnels in the snow on most of our block. We were completely under the snow. I’m surprised none of us died due to a tunnel collapse. It was all our parents fault. They let us do it. I think they let us do it. It’s what you do when you’re stupid. I’ve always remembered that adventure.

[debm55]

22. Thank you very much BOSSHOG. Yes, it was dangerous, but I can tell in your post that you had one heck of a time doing it

[PikaBlue]

5. Sledding, sledding, sledding

and building fabulous snow forts!

[debm55]

23. Thank you PikaBlue. I will include with the snow forts----SNOWBALL FIGHTS!!!!!!!!!

[Polly Hennessey]

37. Me too, PikaBlue. Sledding🛷, sledding, sledding.

Building Frosty the Snowman ☃️

[WmChris]

6. As an "adult"

Snow especially heavy snow equaled broken tree limbs and wires down and more overtime than I really wanted. As electric linemen when it wasn't fit out for man nor beast we got go play outside. While not always fun the challenges were exhilarating.

[debm55]

24. Thank you very much WmChris for reminding us the dangers of heavy snow. You are are very great person for doing what you

do, I appreciate your dedication.

[Nittersing]

45. I tossed this in the back of their truck...

I was playing around with watercolor and painting "en plain air" and did this quick painting... No idea if they saw it or it got lost...

[WmChris]

47. Nice gesture

I hope they were able to see it.

[SamKnause]

7. We slid down hills on cardboard.

We built huge snow forts.

We slid down hills on garbage can lids.

Sometimes dad and mom would build a fire for us to keep warm.

We slid down hills on sleds.

Sometimes we would roast hotdogs and have hot chocolate.

We slid down hills on the hood of a car.

If we thought it would move, we were jumping on it and trying it out.

We had snowball battles.

[debm55]

25. Oh , SamKnause I love your post, I can feel the excitement of a young child experiencing the snow and the activities.

Love ,Deb. PS, On a hood of a car.?

[SamKnause]

41. Just the hood. It wasn't attached to a car.

We had a lot of fun.

We had a horse.

We had go carts.

We climbed big big trees.

We road our bikes for miles.

We walked to the dairy to get a cone. It was a 10 mile round trip.

We camped out.

We had dogs, pigs, rabbits, a goat, and a pet chicken.

My brother bought his first car when he was 14.

We had access to 100 acres of land to drive it on.

Good times.

[Dear_Prudence]

9. Snow ice cream!

Collect clean snow in a big bowl. Then mix the snow with some sugar, some vanilla, maybe a little dash of cream. Yum!

[debm55]

27. Thank you very much Dear_Prudence. for sharing that memory . I remember that so well.

[SamKnause]

42. I forgot to mention snow ice-cream in my post.

Yum indeed !!!

[stopdiggin]

10. actually did 'ice fishing' once or twice

Hands down - must rate among about the stupidest things ever invented !

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Firmly convinced it was clever ruse invented by the old guys to drink schnapps.
And - with schnapps - subterfuge and misdirection are an absolute requirement !

[debm55]

17. HAHHAHHAHAHAHAH. never tried ice fishing. Did they have those little cabins with the open bottoms to fish through. Thank

you my friend stopdiggin for sharing the stupidest winter activity.

[LogDog75]

11. Sledding, snowball fights, snow forts....

My dad was in the Navy so we lived in state that had snow in the winter and some states that sometimes got snow. We do sledding down a hill and there was a chain-link fence to stop us. Often, we'd be going so fast that we'd end up going under the fence.

We also built snow forts and have snowball fights against each other.

[debm55]

16. That sounds wonderful LogDog75, I can tell by your post that you loved it.

[DBoon]

12. I grew up in Los Angeles

No snow until we started staying in the mountain areas (Lake Arrowhead) for holidays. We'd ride these metal dishes downhill...

Snow is something I always associated with high altitudes - you are always breathing heavily when you are at 7,000 feet.

[debm55]

15. Thank you very much, DBoon . Around Pittsburgh I don't think it is that high. Just our weather around here. PS Some

kids were lucky enough to use the truck tire tubes, that we used in the summer for swimming and would use them for snow tubing.

[johnp3907]

13. Sled riding!

That’s what we all called it. No one ever said “sledding.”
There was a disused dirt road at the end of our street. It was nice and steep! Also full of big rocks, and it emptied out onto the road the trucks used to haul the coal away from the nearby mine!

[debm55]

14. Yes, sled riding. Thank you johnp3907. Sled riding!!! I lived near a hill called the double dip. You would go down the

higher big side and see if you could make it up the lower side. The city that I lived in never put cinders on it the way the other streets had cinders from the Steel Mill. No salt was ever used.

[JMCKUSICK]

19. Boot hockey on a nearby pond

[debm55]

20. Thank you very much, John. That sounds interesting as I near learned how to skate.

[Nittersing]

46. Booting!!!

When I was very little, my brother and sister went skating... guess I wasn't trusted with blades on my feet yet, so my parents called it "booting" and I was very happy to run and slide.

[debm55]

50. Thank you very much, Nittersing. I tried to skate but I had/have very weak ankles.

[KitFox]

21. I was raised in a small rural town with lots of snow every winter. Weren't we lucky to grow up with all the activities

snow provided! One of the best sledding hills in town was right by our house, so we could always pop in and warm up or get dry mittens. We went ice skating on the mill pond which was so much fun and thrilling playing “Crack the Whip”. Some kids skated on the river but we weren’t allowed to skate there because of the unevenness of the thickness of the ice. We made snow families and snow forts and had snow ball fights. We played a chasing snow game on the school playground called (I think) Fox and Goose. The plows would plow roads and parking lots and we would play games up and down those giant snow piles. Now I live where we don’t get much snow but I always love it when it happens. When I was teaching, so many kids wished for snow for Christmas. Thanks for stirring our snow memories 🩷🩷☃️❄️☃️❄️

[debm55]

28. Thank you, KitFox. loved the joy in your post. I am glad you posted. You bought back the memory to me of climbing up the

piles of snow. rolling sideways down them.

[Basso8vb]

26. It doesn't snow where I live, so nothing.

[debm55]

29. Sorry , Basso8vb. But you can share the fun by reading the posts and sharing with our days in the snow.

[gab13by13]

30. I had the fastest sled,

I would slick up the runners with wax from the canning jars.

We would sled ride down a steep hill and at the bottom fly under a barb wire fence.

It scares me today thinking about it.

[debm55]

33. Thank you gab13by13 . But I can see the younger you, waxing up the runners, going down the steep hill with the cold wind

in your face, and the excitement of the ride and that "Oh, crap" moment of not hitting the barb wire fence. I bet you dragged your body back up the hill and did it again.

[gab13by13]

39. You are a visionary,

We would sit down on the sled and before we got to the fence we would lay down.

On one trip, halfway down the hill I ran into my buddy's sled and we fell off. My sled continued down the hill, hit the wooden fence post and bent the steel frame on the front of the sled.

I still have that sled in my garage, with the bent steel in front.

[debm55]

51. That was a great idea. Ty gab13by13.

[GP6971]

31. Skiing & hockey

[debm55]

53. Thank you very much, GP6971.for sharing. Thosw are wonderful winter activities.

[WestMichRad]

32. We used to bomb down steep snowy hills on stolen cafeteria trays.

College days. Alcohol was involved.

[debm55]

35. We did that too, at Penn State. No alcohol. Pure joy. Thank you my friend, WestMichRad.

[oberle]

34. When I was little

my brother and I would lay on top of my dad as he guided the sled down this incredible hilly set of streets where we lived. At night. It was great!

[debm55]

56. Thank you very much, oberle. Sled riding at night sounds wonderful and dreamy.

[sheshe2]

36. Flying saucers, metal back then plastic now.

We went to Sherborn's Hill just down the street to sled (or saucer). Our friend's older son took us to their pond when it was frozen and attached a rope to our saucer and spun us in circles on the ice. We ended up headfirst in a snowbank more than once.

Oh, and one winter dad built us this really cool igloo in the middle of our driveway. The rule was only one in at a time in case it collapsed. It was so cool!

[debm55]

57. Thank you so much sheshe2 for sharing with us. It sounds delightful . I tried to make an igloo. but was never successful

[Bavorskoami]

38. Also enjoyed the snow - still do.

Last year on my 78th birthday went snowshoeing in New Hampshire. As a kid I was out sledding, skiing, building snow forts, etc. As a father of a Boy Scout I enjoyed winter camping, "Klondike Derbies". Now I am looking forward to clearing the driveway with my new snow blower.

[debm55]

58. Thank you very much Bavorskoami. You still have the child in you that enjoys the wonders of winter.

[pfitz59]

40. Been skiing since I was 3

leather boots, wooden skis and cable bindings.

[debm55]

60. Wonderful , thank you for sharing with us, Pfitz59.

[electric_blue68]

43. Sledding, snowball fights, ice skating....

Maybe because I had high arches I was wobbly on skates. I really had to double socks, and super tight lacing. Went to our cousin's town lake owned by someone who let people use it. Then Rockefeller Center's rink very occasionally. More often the rink in Central Park. I never learned to properly stop so it was into the rink fence, or finally slowing down.

Snowball fights with our cousins in NJ!
Same cousins' we built a bit of a snow fort - barely 18" inches. But I had fun forming, cutting the icy snow bricks!

At that cousin's we went sledding at the HS hill. Made sure we didn't end up in the street.
At a different cousin's we went on the hilly golf course. I was in the middle of us three. We hit a big dip, fell off no one hurt.
At home I had the "flying saucer". My parents wouldn't buy a sled, but it worked well enough. Had a hill in the park a block away.

Maaaaybe one small snowman at some point? 😄

[debm55]

48. Thank you very much for sharing with us electric_blue.68. You had a lot of activities and cousins to have winter fun.

[electric_blue68]

65. Definitely lucky to have them!

[debm55]

66. You're welcome

Last edited Tue Dec 9, 2025, 01:55 PM - Edit history (1)

[lostnfound]

44. Same things as in the summers in sunny Florida :)

But as an adult living in chicago, i positively loved long walks in the snow, shoveling my driveway, running along Lake Michigan, taking pictures of the beautiful variations of frozen lakes in the harbor.

[debm55]

49. lostnfound. a child lives in all of us. I love how you are doing your winter activities now.Love, deb

[applegrove]

52. My mom who put my twin brother and I in snowsuits and put us outside

for 1/2 and hour on cold days. We would stand frozen on the stoop too young to realize that if we moved around a bit we would be warmer. We'd stand there until she would let us back in.

One time I licked the snow off the metal banister to the back stoop. Of course my tongue got frozen to the metal. Rather than ripping my tongue off my mom boiled some water and poured it on the metal railing a few feet from me and my tongue detached. No blood.

[debm55]

55. Thank you very much applegrove for sharing the memories of you winter activities as a child.

[Sneederbunk]

54. Skating on the pond.

[debm55]

61. Thank you very much, Sneederbunk. I always wished I could skate. While watching my friends it always seemed so graceful

and serene.

[ProfessorGAC]

59. Toboggan Rides

A city owned golf course across town was pretty hilly.
In winters, they would build a toboggan chute at the top of the hill for the 12th hole.
It was a good 275 yard downhill run.
That tee box was only about 40 yards from the clubhouse, so we could go there to warm up & get hot chocolate.
We probably went 6 or 7 times a year (different parents would take turns doing the shuttling across town).
I'd guess there would be 6 to 8 kids and 2 or 3 toboggan.
In the next town north, the had a city park with a very long hill. We used to go there with snow disc's. My uncle (divorced, with ex-wife having custody) would take us a few times a year.
He was a very fun loving WW2 vet and with his time with his kids limited, he loved taking the nieces & nephews out for fun.
That was pretty much my fun in the snow as a kid.

[debm55]

62. thank you very much, ProfessorGAC. That toboggan run sounds exciting. Would have loved to try it.

Last edited Tue Dec 9, 2025, 01:57 PM - Edit history (1)

[get the red out]

63. Ride our sleds down the street

We would ride down the one street with a steep hill in our neighborhood. One person at a time watched for cars while the others rode down trying not to crash into each other. It was WONDERFUL!

[debm55]

64. Thank you very much , get the red out , for sharing your childhood memory of sled riding. Beautiful memories my friend.

[LakeVermilion]

67. Living all my life in Minnesota,

I’ve done all of them. But now, at age 78, my only activity is shoveling snow.

[debm55]

68. Dear Lake Vermilion , shoveling snow is very good, Dare I say terrific. Let your inner child out and make a small

snowman.

[TommieMommy]

69. I could make a snowman. Tried skiing but I couldn't stop and would fall. Tried ice skating and the same thing.

[debm55]

70. Thank you TommieMommy . You sound like me--no ice skating, no down skiing but I did do cross country skiing. Its more

jogging on a flatter surface--golf coarse.