I know it’s spring, and I was a little behind in getting the snow shelter posts out, but after all those posts on snow shelters, I thought it a good idea to write about sleeping warm before I start in on warmer weather shelters. Sleeping warm is a key any time of the year, and … Read more
How Strong Are They? Those new to snow shelters often stay up the first night they sleep in one staring at the ceiling, wondering if it’s going to collapse. Remember, they only collapse when you’re building them, and that’s only if they are constructed wrong; if you can get inside a finished shelter, it will … Read more
1. Too Flat Remember the shelter criteria from chapter one? Well, the first one was Round. People always ask if a shelter will collapse, and the answer is no if you can climb into them. If they’re going to collapse, it’s only while you’re building them and always because you have to flat of a … Read more
The Quinzee is a shelter that was built by the Inuit Indians of Alaska and is basically known as the “snow mound” shelter. Its advantage is that it can be built in just about all locations and in any snow conditions (light, fluffy snow to wet snow). You can build it in 10 feet of snow to … Read more
“T” CAVE / SNOW CAVE The old snow cave was the standard for winter shelters. You would just find a snow bank or hillside and just tunnel in. They worked fine, but the building process of trying to crawl through a small hole and keep it lower than the beds meant getting covered with snow … Read more
The name says it all, this method was developed by the military and taught to their fighter pilots for a quick winter shelter. Basically, you dig a trench, cover it with branches, skis or whatever, and then cover those with a poncho, tarp or snow blocks. Its biggest benefit is that it’s one of the … Read more
The Old Way When people first started building snow caves, the basic forms were the Tree Well, where you dug under a tree to form a shelter. And the standard Snow Cave where you dug into a snow bank from a cave. Both methods worked to keep you alive, but they were crude and primitive, … Read more
Before we get into shelters, we should talk a little about how we lose heat and how shelters help prevent this. There a 5 Heat loss mechanisms, and the picture below shows them, and I’ll try to sum them up for you. We lose heat through Respiration or breathing, but there’s nothing we can do … Read more
One of the biggest problems is focusing on what matters most in emergencies. That’s why we use acronyms and steps like the “ABCs” in emergency medicine to help us control panic and remember what we should do first, then second, etc. Survival is no different; we still need to control panic and prioritize our efforts. … Read more
Wilderness Survival Studies show that staying alive in a survival situation is: 80% Mental 10% Skills 10% Equipment So, what’s this 80% or mental attitude made up of? 2 things: The Will to Live and your Problem-Solving Ability! How does a person improve these 2 aspects in an emergency? By following the S T O … Read more