Heron Lake Plateau Oh the Weather Outside is Frightful

C'mon then, he said, bidding his son to walk alongside.  It wasn't like Quixote was taking him somewhere unexpected.  They weren't going to just teleport across the packland, so after a moment of silence in which he was really thinking hard about what to say, Quixote finally spoke up, I could tell you more about it on the way?  The snow can be good though -- if we catch a big deer, it'll stay fresh longer when it's buried in snow than it would in a cache in the spring.  It makes it easier to track them, too -- you can see their hoofprints most of the time instead of relying on your nose.

Hm.  Well, he maybe didn't want to freak out Owen too much, but there was another thing about the lake that hadn't come up.  By now they probably had at least kinda learned to sort-of-swim (good enough for their age at least) unless I'm messing up my timelines.
The lake will end up freezing over, too.  The top part of the water turns to ice, and after it's been really cold for a while then you might be able to walk on it -- only if you're sure the ice is thick enough though.  If it's been warm or you hear the ice making noise, get out of there.  Quixote looked over to make sure that was getting through to him.  It was kind of an important thing.  Well, along with avalanches but as long as they didn't leave the territory, that wasn't really a factor.  Maybe when they got older.