UKC

I spent most of yesterday afternoon digging snow tunnels with Little Ent up on Mont Ventoux.
On the way home she said "Daddy, do you think we could spend the night in a snow cave?"
We'll I've found a place which is suitable and in terms of safety it's about 50m from where I could park the van until we get a little bit more adventurous.
I found this article which looks pretty interesting:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/outdoors/articles/snowholing/

Has anyone got anything to add to this? Any do's and don'ts? One thing I'm bothered about is keeping sleeping bags dry as I don't have two goretex bivvy bags.

Cheers,

E

In reply to Al Evans:

Probably won't be cooking. Cheers anyway.

E

In reply to Enty:

I spent a week snow-holing near the cosmiques hut early one with summer season about 16 years ago (-18 at night, warmer than a tent and cheaper than the hut) towards the end of the week we bivyed outside and used the snow-hole for gear storage as the snow started melting.

bring anything that you don't want frozen into your sleeping bag.
so have a plastic bag for your boots and bring thin inside you sleeping bag so they won't freeze (if your using plastic boots the inners only)

use ski poles crossed on the roof to act as a sign, you don't want someone dropping in on you.

make sure it's cold outside. you need at least 5 degree temperature difference between the inside and out otherwise the snow-hole will melt (as you aren't cooking it'll be easier)

you can watch youtube vides of people building snow-holes, but the main tip is strip down as much as possible and wear water proof trousers, you'll sweat alot. and don't forget to put the layers back on when you stop. you don't want hypothermia

Have a good one

R

In reply to RichardP:


Of course, that assumes that people know what it means.

I had a pair of feet come through my roof and when I impolitely asked what he thought he was doing, he replied.

Oh, I thought someone had left them, so I was going to take them.
This was in a vey popular holing area after dark!

In reply to ewar woowar:





Ha ha ha

common sense isn't always that common

I bet you had a few choice words for him

In reply to Enty:

Snow holes are not without dangers. Assuming you have a site that's safe from avalanches, groomer drivers and stray ski-pole thieves the main ones are the roof spontaneously collapsing or snow blowing over the entrance (they're often sited in drifts so that's quite possible,) and blocking your air hole. So always have at least one shovel with you inside the hole and be paranoid about the structural strength of the roof. It's thickness is important, a domed shape is good and beware of a nocturnal temperature rise.

As others have said, you're going to get wet digging it so have enough spare clothes and you'll need to find some way of keeping sleeping bags dry. If you don't have bivvy bags you might press something like a two-person tent inner into service. Oh - and seeing as you'll have the car handy, take as many karrimats as you can find!

In reply to Enty:

A little shelf for a candle is nice - gives extra light and heat, plus it goes out when the oxygen is getting used up and you're about to succumb to CO poisoning.

Making a trench/exit lower then the sleeping area helps keep colder air away, and maybe carbon monoxide too.

Stick a little stalactite of snow to the ceiling as a temperature alarm - if it drops off, go sleep in the van

In reply to RichardP:




I've always found this just makes for an uncomfortable night, and cold feet during the night as you can't warm up that space where the boots are! I put on dry socks and baselayers to sleep in, and just accept the 2 mins of frozen boots in the morning - they thaw as soon as you walk in them and they will be wet anyway from digging the snow hole, so makes very little difference. Of course, you could dig it one day, go home and dry your kit, and sleep in it the next with dry kit!

Last thing I do before sleeping is boil some water and put it in my water bottle. I then wrap that in a buff or similar and put it in the bottom of my sleeping bag as a hot water bottle, and in the morning you have drinking temperature water.

In reply to Enty:
Don't sleep at the lowest level, leave a cold trench and sleep on shelves above it.

My experience is they are pretty strong, I think collapse is unlikely if built well (but maybe I'm just used to the BC Coast range cement). What frightens me sometimes though is how much the roof can creep down in one night; you can go to bed with the roof 2 feet away and wake up with it near your nose. Plan for that.

You need a vent in case the entrance gets blocked, a small pipe the pokes through the roof.

Leave a marker outside so people know there is a snow hole there.

Lastly, and maybe obviously, snowholing in warm conditions sucks. If its above zero outside, then you will just get pissed on all night.

In reply to Enty:

Good article here by a man who knows http://heavywhalley.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/snow-holing-can-be-one-of-the-...