Closer to my end of the deal!

markhait

markhait

Joined
Jan 14, 2007
Messages
297
Here's some pics I just took of my snow cave.
BF2.jpg

I just built it, but I had to cheat.
See the snow blower?....yeah I needed it to make my pile.
BF1.jpg

Pretty messy job digging a snow cave, but I was really surprised when I was all the way inside on how quit it was!
BF5.jpg

This is my part of Put up or shut up challange.
I've always wanted to sleep in a snow cave, primarily to see if I could survive in the winter without any mean of protection except for digging a snow cave.
I put a vent hole through the roof as some insurance against carbon monoxide.
BF3.jpg

I can sit up in it when I have my back against the rear wall and I'm 6'2".
I guess I could have made it wider, but I wanted to keep the strength of the cave. My roof is 15" thick and the walls are probably more like 24-30"!

I still have to come up with a door, but I have a bit of time for that as I can't sleep in it till next week. I have to wait till my kids are at grandmas :D

Thanks again Doc for keeping me going by reminding me of my promise!
I'm charging my video recorder now and I want to go to REI and buy a couple of thermometers. I want one inside with me and keep one right outside the entrance. That way when I sleep in it and make my video, I can show you what the temps are and how much they differ.
BF4.jpg


What do you think? Like it? Suggestions? Do I need a ventilation hole some where to let fresh air in?
 
Great, I love it, just remember sleep higher than the floor, cold air sinks, warm air rises.

Kepp it safe
 
No, its not big enough for a fire. I may try some of my alcohol stoves in there as a test though. I was just worried about sleeping in there and not waking up because of a build up of carbon monoxide for my breath....am I being paranoid?
I'm a bit claustrophobic and had to open her up a bit in the rear. I may snow blow some more onto her and open it up even more. I can go up a bit more, but no more to the rear. The sides could be slanted down quite a bit, but I don't think it is necessary.
It may be interesting getting into my sleeping bag without knocking a lot of snow on me.
I'll have to carve a shelf out for my boots and a little spot for my candle lantern or my l.e.d lantern...not sure which yet.
 
Breathing produces carbon dioxide -- carbon monoxide is from combustion, and is far more dangerous.

Your doorway is really big -- and an ideal snow cave has the door below the level of the interior floor, to maximize your retention of body heat. Hanging something over the opening will definitely help.

Nice work!
 
Carbon dioxide then....yes, thats what I mean.
Should I make a vent in the rear wall? It faces west and I know I would get a breeze from it, or would that offset why I'm staying in a cave?

Being claustrophobic prevents me from having too small a door opening.
I think I'm just going to make a groove on either side of the door opening and insert
a large piece of cardboard. That will keep the wind out and also the coyotes and raccoons!
Actually haven't seen many coons, but I have seen the coyotes. Not something I want to be awakened by at 2 a.m.

I really wanted to have an elevated sleeping platform, but I just don't have enough snow. I'll double up on the closed cell pads. My bag is rated to 0 and I have a GoreTex bivy over that. As usual I'll probably make myself too
warm :-)
Thats ok though....I'd rather unzip my sleeping bag than shiver in it!
 
I used to make snow caves all the time. When on climbs, especially if I was solo, I would often build one at the base of the mountain so that I had an emergency shelter to escape to if things turned ugly, gear was lost or destroyed or I was injured but still able to crawl. I kept food, water (bury it in the snow in the cave upside down in your insulator. Water freezes from the top down so if the water doesn't freeze completely then the mouth is free of ice and you can access the water that isn't frozen. Get some Hunnersdorf Expedition Water Bottles if you can find them, they are by far superior to Nalgenes for extreme cold, are lighter and are much easier to open with gloves or mittens), disposable handwarmers, spare ultralight bivy sack, spare Dachstein boiled wool mittens, extra trauma gear etc. in here. This also allowed me to lighten my load before heading to advanced base camp or for my summit bid. Mark it with wands and carefully on your map, and with a GPS if you use one, then pick up your gear on the way out or when you need a resupply.

Looks pretty good. I think this is more of a quinzee than a snow cave, but same effect. Quinzee's are great when there's little snow. Cut a bunch of branches the thickness you want your walls (I usually go 2 feet), throw your pack in a garbage bag (I always carry several contractor bags, especially during the winter), tie some cord around it and run it out past your wall diameter so you can find it and start shoveling snow on top of the pack until it's the desired thickness (if you're going to keep doing this kinda thing consider getting a Snow Claw. It's a flexible shove without the handle so it's great for the confined spaces of a cave. Has several uses too. Alternately you can remove the handle of your shovel). Let the snow settle for an hour or 2, and shove the sticks into the mound to establish the thickness of your walls. Pull out your pack and you have your interior space partially dug out and some space to maneuver, then dig out the center until you reach the sticks. Pull out a few of the sticks for ventilation. You now have a relatively fast snow shelter, with not tooooooo much effort. Also wear waterproof clothing (which means you run soaking through with sweat), or have a dry set ready to change into when you're finished with the shelter, cause it's going to get messy.

Make sure that you smooth the interior of your cave as much as possible, especially over your sleeping area so it's not dripping on you all night. I keep my sleeping bag in a bivy sack when snow caving. I also like to burn a candle inside to form a nice ice shell inside (if you're not using a fire inside). It's amazing how well a candle will keep you warm in a snow cave, especially if you have nice thick walls.

Is there a cold well? If you're floor right now is right on concrete you can build a snow shelf inside to sleep on and the cold air will settle below you. This is important in cave construction for keeping you warmer.

To plug the door you can always throw your pack in a contractor bag and use it as an easily movable plug for the door.

If you want to build a fire you can just lay down some thicker green branches as a base for an open fire, or you can use a hobo stove or wood gassifier to help contain the fire, or an alcohol stove, sold fuel stove or conventional backpacking stove. Sure beats stepping out into the cold to cook. Use a 1-quart Gatorade bottle for a pee bottle and you never have to leave!

I always put a hole in the top of my cave and another somewhere on the downwind side wall. I'm paranoid about falling asleep and never waking up. With carbon dioxide poisoning you get drowsy and fall asleep and that's all she wrote. Same reason you never want to zip yourself up completely in a bivy sack (although I think there are now some materials that claim it's safe). Climbers die every year from this.

Hope this helps!
 
Wow...thanks for the input Kage!
The floor of the quinzee is right at ground level.
Would it be to my best interest to try to elevate it a bit?
Like how much? 1", 6" ? The cave is pretty narrow though...not too much bigger than I am wide. Can I still elevate the sleeping pad?
What if I angled the floor so that the low side is at the entrance?
Would this cause the cold air to dump?
 
This is awesome! I have messed around with snow caves, but never overnighted in one. Ca't wait to hear your results.
 
Nice work!! I like the ingenuity of using a snow blower as a means to accomplish your goal! Well done sir!!

A few pointers, if you wouldn't mind too terribly.

Depending on how wide the cave is, elevate a platform in the middle about the width of the outside of your shoulders to sleep on. Then, dig two trenches - one outside of each shoulder - about 6 to 8 inches deep and 4 to 5 inches wide down the length of the shelter. These will be your cold air troughs, and will help the colder air divert down and away from your body.

The ceiling should be almost concave from side to side... in other words, if you're lying down, the ceiling should be a constant curve from your left side to your right side with the highest point being the centerline of your body from head to toe. Rub the ceiling and walls down to the point that the inner surface becomes like an ice slick. This will keep the surface smooth and will assist in moving water away from you and down the walls and into the cold air troughs instead of dripping onto you. Makes for a very long night if you get a drip of 32 degree water on your forehead every ten minutes or so! ;)

Keep in mind that you want the snow cave to be as small as possible inside while still maintaining your psychological comfort. Your body heat and body volume displacement both help to maintain a warmer air temperature inside the structure. As the percentage of total volume that your body displaces gets lower (i.e. if the total volume of the cave is too large) the air inside will be colder.

Let us know how it goes! Glad you found a way to make it work!
 
Hey Mark,

If your shelter is already hardened and icy inside it'll be difficult to add more snow on top and dig out the interior more, so you may just have to work with what you have. Cold wells need to be at least 6" to be effective, in my experience. If I have really good snow I'll dig into drifts and I can make my shelf 12-24" high, which allows for a lot of cold air to settle, but it's probably overkill. Sloping it would help, but you'll be warmer if you can plug your door.

It's all a learning experience so experiment and have fun and don't take it too seriously. Snow is great because you can sculpt it. Make a shelf for your stove, cut seats and use your sleeping pad to sit on and lean back against. Dig an alcove for your candle lantern. Dig a pocket in the ceiling or wall and put your headlamp in there and the ice will work as a diffuser and light your shelter beautifully. Dig shelves to store your food.

20 or so years ago I spent a few days just digging snow shelters. I went up to the mountains and right on the side of the road where they plow the snow are perfect conditions for snow caves. The snow is piled high and deep and more solid than naturally falling snow because it's piled. I experimented with traditional designs, modified those designs with my ideas, dug snow trenches (I prefer caves and quinzees as they are much warmer than a tarp over you with the snow trench designs I've tried), snow pits, etc. I probably dug 8 or 9 of them to play with and learned to improve my technique and become more efficient.

Years ago I spent time in Yellowstone cross-country skiing with some friends and we made a giant shelter near a hotspring. It was basically a huge open pit partially covered with tarps and we cut small cubbies into the walls for our individual sleeping quarters, we made a table with a bench, we made a kitchen with counters at the right height when standing up with places for our stoves, wash tub, food storage, etc. Then we made some snow women for companions. It was a blast and we ended up using that as our basecamp and went on day excursions, instead of moving everyday like we planned.

If you use an inflatable sleeping pad combined with a closed-cell foam pad, you'll be warmer. I haven't found a backpackable self-inflator that is suitable for sleeping directly on snow yet. I use thin evazote pads combined with my self-inflator in the winter and it works for directly on snow or ice.
 
I never have built a snow shelter as we get very little snow around my parts. However, ray mears makes them by carvint a T shape into the snow. This works wll because the cross in the T act as a bed for yourself and one other person. The line through the middle acts as a cold air dump. Looks like it would work very well.
 
I know you can't tell from the pictures, but the "main" portion of the quinzee is a pretty good size. Like I said before, I'm 6'2" and can sit upright. I did round the ceiling, but I think I might try again tomorrow. I'm real curious how the snow will be from sitting overnight.
Its supposed to be 14-18 deg F. The snow is REAL powdery right now and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to build it.
I thought of the snow blower not because I'm lazy, but I felt that if this powder snow is thrown into a pile, it may make it set. It did. I let it set for 1 1/2 hours and the shell was hard. As I was digging, the center was still powdery, but not like before snow blowing it.
I know I didn't mention this before, but I cheated with digging. I was thinking of a easy way to make this as I've been working many hours lately at work.
What I did was place 2 square garbage cans atop each other (laying down)with their lids on and then placed 1 more garbage can in front. I shoveled snow onto them to set them
and then snowblowed.
All I had to do was locate the first garbage can, take the lid off, grab the handle and pull it out. The second one behind the first came out just as easy. When I got to the upper can, I was really surprised how solid it was anchored into the snow. Had to do a lot more digging to get it out, but with very little effort I had basically 165 gallons of snow removed by removing 3 garbage cans.
I though of that on my way to work this morning at 4:45 a.m. and before my first Mt Dew! :-)
 
Good stuff, Mark. I'm glad to see you're getting to it. :thumbup:

Some excellent advice from the above posts, and as far as cheating by using the garbage cans go, that's just working smart. Some people chop down a few small conifers and cover with a tarp and shovel snow on top of that. Then they remove the conifers and tarp, and dig out the place. (I'm not recommending this, just reporting it.)

Looking forward to the rest of the story.

Doc
 
thats sweet. me and my 3 y/o little girl built one today but it sucked because the snow wouldn't pack. so i basically cut pieces with a shovel and built them/stacked them up. the only problem was i couldn't really make a roof like that so i found sticks and old boards and then layered the snow over it but my front wall was garbage and allowed to much air in. but my daughter loved it and we had a blast. though i definitely think the snow blower is much better than my shovel way lol. have fun sleeping in it i played in mine alot tonight and it was much warmer inside than out but was still cold
 
I was really amazed how quiet it was inside. I've read that comment many times before, but to actually hear it or not hear it I guess, is really cool!
I'll do a little more work on it today after church, but I think I'm ready. Video recorder is fully charged, sleeping bag is packed and I even took out my old backpacking clothing that I used to wear when we went in the winter.
I really like the idea of the gaterade bottle for relief! I almost always get up in the middle of the night to pee and was thinking how I would pull that off in a quinzee.
It must really suck to be a chick :D
 
Funny story about pee bottles, Mark: I had a female climbing partner that I was really close with, as you often are when in dangerous situations in very remote places. She was always jealous about pee bottles and usually had to get up twice a night to go pee. We were in the middle of a blizzard and she didn't want to go out so she wanted to try using my pee bottle. I'm sure that you can see where this is headed.

We were in a tiny mountaineering tent that is approximately the size of a coffin, so there wasn't much room to maneuver. She had me hold the pee bottle while she squatted over it and then she proceeded to try to pee into it, but succeeded in peeing all over my hand and hosed down my sleeping bag in the process (mental note, next time get out of the sleeping bag and roll it up out of the way). Epic fail! The next day when I wasn't in my sleeping bag it froze because of the pee. Every time I got into it it would thaw and I stank of pee for the next 2 weeks of the trip. She thought it was hilarious though, and had I been meaner I would have peed on her sleeping bag out of revenge. Good thing she was insanely hot, somehow that makes it less worse!

Just remember to mark the bottle well, so there's no confusion and nobody tries to drink it. I wrap mine in duct tape and put a skull on it or some other such warning.

Did you sleep in it last night? If so, what improvements do you need to make or what would do differently next time?
 
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Thats way too funny kage! If she was stupid hot like you say, yeah...I guess I would put up with it, but I'd NEVER let her forget! Maybe even mention it at her wedding :D
No improvements yet....just got home from church and lunch and will head out soon. Pretty much all I think I want to do is put a few more vent holes in and build a couple of shelves. 1 for my boots and something for my candle lantern.

I love that little candle lantern! Used it all the time backpacking. Just say it at Wally World for $15! Its great to see that some great products don't go away and they even go down in price a bit.

I have to think of when I'll sleep in it now...my sister-in-law is coming home with her new baby and so the grandparents can't watch my kids this week.
I may just have to go out after I put my kids to bed.

I'll be shooting video of it....it will happen this week!!!
 
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