You know those cold nights where you haul the hose and homeboni out of the basement and prepare for a night of floods... what do you do with your time between floods when you are waiting for the water to freeze? Here what we have done at our house - we make a slide for the kids; well, it's more like a bobsled run than a slide.

Here's what we do:
1 - Whenever it snows, we shovel the snow into a pile - this will become the launching pad. Every time it snows, the launch pad gets higher, wider and more sturdy.
2 - Route your slide around trees or other obstacles. We have to high bank one corner, otherwise the kids end up underneath our giant spruce tree.
3 - Pack the snow to protect your grass
4 - Slowly soak the snow - it will eventually become ice after several soaks
5 - Scrape of any big bumps and fill any holes with slush on those extra cold nights
6 - Flood it in between your backyard rink floods.

We have a little slope in the middle of our side yard so the kids pick up some extra speed. Last year the slide was 120' long and a great source of fun when they weren't on the backyard rink.

Unfortunately I can't embed the video and I can't attach... here is a link for a video back in 2007... I walked on it tonight and no word of a lie, you could skate on it... Red Bull called me earlier to have a Crashed Ice test run on it. :-D
https://picasaweb.google.com/1023145397 ... 1262702082

That is awesome! I will be trying that IF we ever get some snow and cold temps again...