Making the Most of the Cold Winter Weather

Believe it or not, there are ways to have fun outside in this bitter cold winter.

The snow may have showed up later than usual, but there’s plenty of time to flood the ice rinks and clear the hills.

There’s no business like snow business.

While you’re hiding inside from the mounds of snow and biting wind chill, there’s many ways to get outside and enjoy it for free.

“Here in Fargo, we have such a wonderful winter season, and I know sometimes it gets a bad rep, but what we really love about it is it gives us some opportunities to do something that a lot of places don’t get to,” said Joel Vettel, who is Executive Director of the Fargo Park District.

From cross country skiing to ice skating and sledding, there’s loads of free winter fun.

Vettel says about 14 free ice rinks will open in Fargo.

With this ice rink and many others opening in the next few weeks, the warmth of our community and a massive fire pit might be enough to get us through this cold winter season.

“There’s going to be a warming house,” added Vettel. “We’re going to do a lot of programming down here. It’s an awesome opportunity for people to get together and really enjoy the season.”

The ice rink in downtown opens sometime next week.

While you’re waiting, the free cross country ski trail at Edgewood is already open.

The owner of a Fargo restaurant that also rents skis says he’s looking forward to what appears to be a great skiing season.

“We’ve had only two weekends out of the last three years that we’ve had good snow conditions combined with decent enough temperatures to be outside,” Mark Melby said.

Melby says later on this February, Edgewood hosts their annual Pond Hockey tournament.

“On the pond out there, we’ll get that cleared off and we’ll get pond hockey rinks set up there. Last year we had six rinks set up,” Melby said.

So next time you feel cabin fever set in, just remember you can strap on the layers and have fun in the snow.