pics: Big Four, snow caves

[eub]

(and more pics)

And a bunch of snow-cave pictures. This was from a Mountaineers class on winter camping last weekend; we went out to Snoqualmie Pass and riddled a hillside with caves.

Comments

Re: Hmmm.

[cheesepuppet.livejournal.com]

...so not happening if you're just lost and caught out by sunset.

So in that case, what would you do? I'd thought you could build a cave pretty fast, but I learned about them when I was a kid (I was a little survivalist/secret agent) and certainly haven't ever built one myself. If you did get caught out after sunset in the snow, what are your options?

Re: Hmmm.

[eub.livejournal.com]

Well, depends what you've got with you, but I'd guess go into the trees, if there are trees, to get out of the wind, and to get shelter -- fallen logs, even propped-up ones to get under, or just a tree well (the pit that forms around each trunk), maybe with snow-covered branches bowed down to the ground -- and improve it with a tarp, piled-up snow, snow blocks if you have a snow saw.

If there's no shelter, just an expanse of snow, then you work with what you've got... a snow-trench shelter is probably the quickest to build, and could be done even solo (which I think would be very hard with a snow cave, trying to move the snow out).

I imagine it's a trade-off to make between how much shelter you expect you need to survive, and how much exhausted (and sweaty) you'd get building it.