How to Build Snow Caves

“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 and very wet, not to mention all the bent over back-breaking and knee crawling work. Not a good combo for survival. Now let’s take a look at the new way.

1. Step One

Dig out a section of the snow bank about waist-high, two feet in and no wider than your hips (the key is to keep it narrow because you will need to bridge this gap later).

2. Step Two

Now dig out each side to form a “T” shape about chest high.

3. Step Three

Now duct under the lip and carve out the ceiling to form an arch or dome inside.

Here’s a view looking up at the snow bank inside the cave with the shovel standing on end. You only need enough headroom to sit up in the sleeping area because you’ll be able to stand at the entrance.

Testing it out for size and making final adjustments.

4. Step Four

Now cut a big block to bridge across the entrance; this is probably the most technical part of the whole thing and why it was so important to keep the opening at the beginning of the process as narrow as your hips. (Any bigger, and it becomes really hard to find a big enough block to bridge the gap and not break). After you place the main block, just fill in around it in to the point where you’re shoving snowballs in the holes. You can usually make blocks out of the snow you have shovelled out and packed down, along with where you’ve been standing. (Don’t worry, I’ll be carving out the block over the entrance to form an arch, the trick is to just get it in there at first, you usually break a few).

5. Step Five

Now just put some snowballs in the small holes and shovel snow over the wall. Finally, put your vent hole over the doorway, and you’re done. Climb in and enjoy. Here’s a cut of the next morning with a student laying inside, so you can see how it looks from the outside.