snow cave

On January 30, 2005, Eli and I dug a cave in a snow drift at the side of our driveway, and slept in it that night. Many ideas from Snow Caves for Fun and Survival, by Ernest Wilkinson.

Here’s what it looked like around us …

Icycles!

Here we are digging.

After it was dug out, we got all the gear in – 2 layers of pads beneath, a green polyester sleeping bag folded double underneath, a sleeping bag each to climb into, and blue polyester sleeping bag on top as a quilt.

Then we walled it up. The idea is to have a large door while excavating and getting the gear inside. Then wall the whole thing up, and when the snow has hardened, cut a new, smaller door. 3 hours later, about 5pm, we cut the new door.

Inside about 9pm that night, getting ready to sleep. The temperature got down to 23F (-5C) that night.

The cardboard door …

The view towards our feet. The green is my down jacket on top of us. I was actually too hot that night, and had to keep shedding layers. After an hour or so of working this out, I had a long sleep.

A view from inside the next morning about 7:30am, out the entrance …