The tunnels, as expected, had been a bit cold and nasty, but not too difficult. Sinead brushed herself off fastidiously as she stood at the far end, glancing behind her to see- to her relief- that the yeti which had been on her heels was now nowhere to be seen. Probably terrorising somebody else.

Trudging through the thick snow was beginning to get kind of old, and when she reached the next obstacle, she almost thought about giving up there and then. But then, she dismissed the idea out of hand. She wasn't a quitter.

That being so, it still didn't make it any easier for her to move this stupid tree. Whose idea was this course, anyway? And why did she come again? The tube and the tree were about the size of Sinead herself when put together, and it only took about five paces before she had to stop and put them down, breathing hard and cheeks flushed with exertion. Wow, she did not expect to overheat while she was out here.

She could always put the tree in the tube and drag it up, but she wasn't sure how well that would go down, their relative weights being considered. So, what to do...
She was at a loss for a minute until apparently out of nowhere, one of those massive dogs appeared. She looked at it, struck with inspiration, and wishing for the first time in her life that she knew more about how to act with dogs.
"Here, boy? Bumi- er- Roscoe?" Luckily, it was obviously trained to be friendly to students, because she didn't think it was her authority that brought it over; either way, it bounded towards her and thrust an extremely slobbery face in her direction. Not so much what she was after.

She had to pull her gloves off in order to enact her plan, and her fingers were numb with cold by the time she finished tying the knots, but she was relatively confident that the handle of the snow tube would stay tied to the dog's harness. With her hands free of one object, she was able to use Wingardium Leviosa on the tree and now that she wasn't carrying anything, she found it much easier to get up the mound, to her relief. She was going to be fair to the dog: she had a snack bar in her pocket and she waved it in front of him to get him moving up the hill as she went, more than a little pleased with herself for this wonderful solution to her problem. It didn't take too long, relative to the jogs between obstacles, for her to reach the top of the little hill; trying not to let it lick her too much, she fed the dog her snack as payment for its help and untied her snow tube.

Just one task left now. Hopefully it wouldn't be the one which was her downfall.