Thick clouds of snowflakes swirled as I climbed the steep hill. Behind me, a string of 20 third graders from Hayward Intermediate School padded along on the Cable Natural History Museum’s rental snowshoes. Their feet were quieter than usual—in many years the trails are hard-packed ice by the time we embark on this annual field trip. This year, fresh snow dampened the crunch of plastic and metal.

This field trip is designed around the Mammal Tour at the North End Trailhead, a roughly 1-mile loop trail where we’ve placed life-size metal silhouettes of 25 Wisconsin mammals.