Student to student: Four alternatives to fun snow day activities ruined by the unbelievable cold

Skiing

Hitting the slopes after a night of heavy snowfall is a classic snow day outing. The snow, so fresh and so light, feels like air underneath your skis, and the sky, having dropped all of its moisture overnight, is blue enough to send chills down your spine. And the ski lodge, warmed by wood-burning fireplaces, serves the hottest, most refreshing coffee you’ll ever taste.

Too bad you can’t do that today! Going down a hill in -50 degree temperatures might literally kill you by the time you reach the bottom. Trust me, I once biked to class in 0 degree weather and my eyes started watering so bad passerby stopped me to ask if I was okay.

Alternative: bundle up in a puffy winter coat and watch the first 15 minutes of this incredible Candide Thovex video.  

Sledding

It doesn’t matter how old you are, there’s always that itch to go sledding on a snow day. Across Madison, any hill that can deliver some speed is blanketed with kids and their sleds. Even on campus, people sled down Bascom on food trays and spare pieces of cardboard.

But the best sledding hill in Madison is hands down the gargantuan one at Elver Park. It’s so tall and steep that walking up takes several minutes and kids, surely disobeying park rules, build ramps that send unsuspecting sledders ragdolling through the air. It’s fast, thrilling and dangerous enough to make you think twice about going down – in other words, the perfect sledding spot.

In any other circumstance where Madison wasn’t literally colder than most places in Antarctica, that would have been fun.

Alternative: slide under a blanket and slip into an all-consuming four hour power nap.

Snowball fights

I was never the biggest fan of snowball fights, mainly because I don’t really think it’s fun to have things that are hard and cold thrown at me, but it’s hard to deny that they are a quintessential snow day activity. The yearly, massive snowball fight on Bascom goes to show that even college students, as mature and scholarly as they may seem, still retain a part of their childhood selves.

It’s all fun and games until “The Battle for Bascom” turns into the “Battle for Stalingrad” and your roommate develops the fourth and final stage of frostbite, though. In short, it’s probably best to just stay inside today and save your snowball fight for another day.

Alternative: Set up a snowball fight indoors using balled-up pairs of socks.

Building a snowman

This one would’ve been fun, huh? You could’ve dressed it in funny clothes, made it wear sunglasses, made another, smaller one that’s supposed to be the big one’s kid – the possibilities are almost endless.

Unfortunately, the only thing you’ll be crafting on a day like today is a justification for why you don’t have to homework on your day off. And that, even more so than building a snowman, takes ingenuity, dedication and skill.

Alternative: Watch the classic, heart-wrenching 1982 animated short “The Snowman.”