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

[cheesepuppet.livejournal.com]

While I think snow caves are wonderful and a building them a great (and possibly lifesaving) skill to have, a few of the images where people were deep in them actually had my palms sweating a bit with claustrophobia. If I ever needed to hang in a snow cave for awhile I'd definitely have to be the girl who guards the door.

[eub.livejournal.com]

Hm. I hadn't thought about that. They felt pretty big from the inside, but I know it all depends.

Snow caves turn out not to be too useful in survival situations, because they take hours and hours and hours to make, so not happening if you're just lost and caught out by sunset. If you're somehow or other days from anywhere, and not walking out, they would be more useful.

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.