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