UKC

were going up to aonach mor in january and we're thinking of digging a snow hole to stay in for a few days .

a few people have said that if we're lucky there may be some already dug out but how are we supposed to know if someone has dug it for themselves and gone climbing for the day ?

it wont be very good if we're comfortable and eating grub for others to turn up and say this is our hole and then for us to start digging a new hole , so is it wiser to just dig our own hole from the start ??

it probably sounds like a silly question but i thought i should ask before we go

In reply to pimp.daddyo:

THe obvious would be that there would be kit left there like sleeping bags food etc which you wouldn't take on the hill necessarily

In reply to pimp.daddyo: dig your own and when you leave smash the roof in so no one falls into it by mistake

In reply to MattG: yeah i think we'll be better off building our own , that way we can make it how we like too .

should be good fun

In reply to pimp.daddyo:

As MattG says, I was always taught to cave in a snowhole when you were finished with it so that you didn't leave a manmade crevasse for someone to fall into.

In reply to Ditch_Jockey:

Indeed, same etiquette for avalanche test pits and similar.

In reply to Ditch_Jockey:

how do you do that without getting buried yourself ?

In reply to pimp.daddyo: its good fun for the first hour ,then after that !!

In reply to pimp.daddyo:
Always worth digging your own on a planned snow holing trip anyway, then it'll be much easier if you ever have to do it in extremis

In reply to Toreador:
At the risk of stating the bleeding obvious, take a shovel each.

Strip off as many layers as possible while digging, its hot wet work. You'll find it most efficient to dig a hole each next to each other and join them up later. I'm sure more handy hints will come along with a short search.

Rather you than me, I reckon you use up more energy in winter bivvying out keeping warm etc than you would returning to your valley base and walking in again the next day. In my view you get more climbing done using the latter method.

Have fun anyway

In reply to pimp.daddyo:

I have been snowholing once and find most of the above advice to be irrellevant. For example if you are digging in the dark in a blizzard you won't have to worry about stripping off to avoid overheating.

My advice is that the only way to understand the experience of snowholing is to get out there and do it.

In reply to lithos:

Eh... Maybe make sure you're not in the snowhole while caving it in?

In reply to aln:

yup - knock in the roof from above with the shovel/poles. I wouldn't recommend trying to cave it in from inside unless you really like the feel of cold wet snow entering all the gaps in your clothing.

Also, probably best not to replicate the actions of my idiot mate who, in a moment of brainlessness, decided to jump up and down on the roof - it took us a reasonable amount of time to dig him out of the waist deep pit of compacted snow he found himself in.

I was once snowholing in marginal conditions and the roof collasped just as we finished breakfast. It was blowing a hooley outside and we wnet from being cosey and warm to sitting in a blizzard in the space of a few seconds. Not nice.

What was nice though was digging in again at the back of our 'hole', to break through into another ready made snowhole! Result! We got back into cover in short order and put a brew on.
I have never heard of this collaspe your snowhole when leaving business. Sure glad it didn't happen in my day.

We always blocked up the doorway on the basis that we might use it next week, or in a few hours if all went pear shaped on the route, or for others to use.

We were never fit enough to go back down to the valley. We used snowholes a lot and got loads of routes done this way.........a walk in / out took as long as a route in most cases.

5 days/nights was about the limit for keeping kit dry: we couldn't carry any more food and fuel anyway. 3 nights was optimum, we lived like kings.

In reply to pimp.daddyo:

I agree about not smashing them be they snow caves (challenging if well made) or snow mounds/quinzee's, though I have heard a few complaints from ski tourers....

In reply to nz Cragrat:


Building snow holes in a ski area (i.e Aonach Mor) is generally bad form.
Especially if there is any chance that a piste basher might be out at night.

On a slight tangent I have also seen winter skills course's digging snow holes & bucket seats at the bottom of the flypaper at Glencoe - which is a total pain in the arse - and (potentially) very dangerous for both skier & climber.

In reply to pimp.daddyo:

It's worth bearing in mind that snowholes are potentially very dangerous things to be inside too.
If the snow you dig into is unconsolidated, has week layers etc the whole thing may collapse with you inside it.
If there is drifting snow at night it may block the entrance and asphyxiate you. Worth having someone clear the entrance every now and again.
Leaving an avalanche probe with it's bag tied to the end just uphill of the location of your snowhole both allows people to locate it if it collapses on you and warns people not to walk over the roof thus collapsing it on you.

In reply to the real dr gav:

aye but if you were digging one in the middle of the _____ glacier in chamonix (blank brain moment), then stripping off is a good idea!

In reply to pimp.daddyo:

I hadn't heard of collapsing them either, although I've never made one in a ski resort

I think as long as you use your intelligence it'll be OK. If your location is unlikely to be skied/walked over and your hole is nice and solid it shouldn't be a problem and might provide some other holer with a 'result'!

A weak hole in a highly trafficked area is a bit different of course.

Don't underestimate how much work it is. It's usually at least an hour or two of digging in my experience to build a good hole. Last year I tried digging a hole up in the cairngorms with some buddies and the snow was so hard we gave up and slept in overhung snow graves! Just as well the weather was good.

Cahotic

In reply to cahotic:

I know of two which have collapsed fairly dramatically - I saw one and a friend was digging the other. If you go digging with no understanding of snowpack in the wrong conditions...

In reply to whispering nic:

I think we're talking at cross-purposes. I wasn't talking about holes collapsing accidentally due to snowpack conditions. I was referring to collapsing them on purpose afterwards, to make sure no-one falls in. But you are right about the danger of digging a snow-hole without understanding snow-pack.

Cahotic

In reply to the real dr gav: a simple solution to me is to dig a big hole and cover it with a hap, mebees use ski poles and chuck some snow on top to stop it blowing about

or is this a daft idea? think ill try it out sometime

In reply to Erik B:

Yep. I've just bought an MSR Twin Sisters and am planning to try out the fancy-pants version of this, this winter!

Cahotic