Initially I had planned to go on a trip to Tettegouche State Park, on the North Shore, to a hike in campsite (using the toboggan I made over Thanksgiving) with my 4 year old son (Jackson) . Unfortunately, 14 inches of snow was foretasted for the weekend in the state and I wasn’t feeling the drive to that part of the state which would have endangered our safety.

Instead, we headed to Whitewater state park in Southern Minnesota near Altura, Minnesota.

Whitewater State Park was forecasted to get 4ish inches of snow, making it more safe to travel to.

Previously, we have traveled to Whitewater State Park in the Summer, the park is notable because in the Summer there is no mosquitoes.

For this trip our gear load out was:

• SeekOutside 8p Tent
• Coleman Trailhead II Cot (2)
• Thermarest basecamp sleep pad (2)
• 3 Piece Military Sleep System (Jack)
• My cold sleep system:
  • Thermarest Sarros (20 degree bag)
  • Military Goretex Bivvy Bag
  • Sea to Summit Reactor Sleeping Bag Liner
• Kni-co stove – I purchased this as I was looking at Four Dog Stoves after the Winter Camping Symposium, BUT unfortunately I wouldn’t have been able to obtain a Four Dog Stove before this trip with my kid. I decided on Kni-co after seeing that Snow Trekker Tents uses Kni-Co to manufacturer their stove.
• Misc Kitchen Gear (Pots, Pans, Sporks, …)
• Misc Food (Mountain House, Eggs, Dry Hashbrowns, Butter, Breakfast Sausages, …)
• Misc Other Gear (Saw, Axe, First Aid, …)

Day 1 (Friday):

We packed up our truck (Ford Explorer) and headed south at 9am. It took about 3 hours to get to the campground from Hopkins MN.

We got to the park around noon and purchased 5 bundles of firewood from the park ranger. The MN DNR park ranger that was staffing the office over the weekend was very friendly and helpful — great guy to talk to.

The campground that was open during the winter was the new campground right across the highway from the front office of the park; I can imagine that this might be an undesirable campground for tent camping in the summer as it more tailored to trailer camping and RV camping, there are no mature trees in the area (yet) and it is near the highway.

Setting up the SeekOutside 8P Tipi was fairly quick, staked all points of the sod skirt of the tent and used half of the guy-out lines.

Jackson with the SeekOutside Tipi

Setting up the new Kni-Co Alaskan deluxe stove was easy; I hadn’t burnt out the stove before this trip, once the stove was setup I built a very hot fire in it to burn off the galvanization off of the stove pipe and the oil off of the stove.

Seek Outside Tipi with Jack in the Background

My son had fun playing in the snow, looking around the campground. Jack had quite a bit of fun using his excavation toys inside of the tent to dig holes in the snow and move things around, when his toys would freeze up from the snow he would dry them out near the stove.

Jackson playing with Construction Vehicles in the Tent

We drove out of the valley that the campground is located within to call my wife and daughter for a couple of minutes (No LTE cell phone service in the valley that Whitewater state park is in).

We ate a Mountain House meal and some treats (Jackson was rationing out his own treats Jelly Beans, and Gummy Treats).

We ended the evening by watching the movie Wall-E.

I kept the stove burning all night, I was able to keep the fire burning the whole weekend.

KniCo Stove in floorless Tipi

My station at the stove, sitting on my cot

A bit of snow fell during the night.

Day 2 (Saturday – My Birthday, February 24th):

We woke up after it was light, and I got the fire burning hot in the stove. I had one bundle of wood left (meaning I burnt through 4 bundles in 24 hours).

I made coffee and cooked up some hashbrowns, eggs, cheese, and sausage. Jackson enjoyed the breakfast.

Jackson Playing in the Tent While I Cook Breakfast

After eating breakfast we walked around the campground for a bit, and then went back to the park’s front office, I purchased 5 more bundles of wood.

To warm up a bit, we went to the Whitewater State park front office there is a natural museum room that has fossils from the state park area. It also had a small play area, taxidermist animals, and a few small exhibits about the natural history of the state park.

There was an old timer in the front office building running a wood stove, keeping the building really warm. They feed the birds outside of the big windows that look out to the river from the front office building–I have never seen so many Blue Jays in one place.

We rebuilt the snow floor of the tent by shoveling some snow into the tent that afternoon, the floor had decayed quite a bit between the heat from the stove and Jackson digging out the snow to play with his excavation toys.

We would warm up in the tent intermittently and Jackson would read his books or play with his toys.

Sitting next to the KniCo stove

We drove up out of the valley to call my wife and then headed back to our tent for dinner and to watch a movie.

We started watching ‘Finding Nemo’ my son found quite a few scene’s scary; so we ended up watching the ‘Snowy day’ movie on Amazon prime (I had downloaded some movies to my phone so we could watch offline).

There were some strong gusts of wind and I did notice that the stove pipes started to separate some during the stronger winds — not enough to cause any real hazard to health, but enough to notice and adjust.

It rained during the evening and then turned to snow; it was nice that it snowed because it helped stabilize the tent against some strong winds.

Kept the fire burning all night.

Day 3 (Sunday):

We woke up to quite a bit of snow on the ground; the trees were lightly coated with snow and sunrise made the valley that the campground was situated within almost magical.

Gif of the clouds moving Sunday morning

Seek Outside Tipi with Some Fresh Snow

Snow on the tent after the high winds, rain, and snow from Saturday Evening

I helped my son cook some sausages over the stove with a stick on Sunday morning.

Jackson on his cot in the tent

I opened up the dampers on the stove and let the fire burn hot to turn the coal base to ashes.

I slowly started to packup in the tent (rolling up sleeping bags, pads, …) once I had a good stack of stuff I started throwing all of that into the truck.

We made it back in time for my son to visit our neighbors house for their kid’s birthday party. I had 14ish inches of snow to move around.

Conclusion:

The lessons of the cold are not quickly forgotten and time spent with my kids is always valuable time. There is value in growing confidence in knowing how to not only survive in adverse conditions, but how to thrive–simple trips like this winter trip are the first lessons in this.

I forgot to take pictures while we were out and about 🙂

Jackson playing on his cot while packing up

Jackson and his “snow tree” \ “stick tree”

Whitewater State Park