skyclimb Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 With winter appearing everywhere around us..... What is your most trusted winter shelter: a cave, a mounded igloo, a igloo proper, a trench, or a tree well. Stories are welcome For me, it is, and always will be the cave. When you have a nice drift, there is something about the size and safety of a cave! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cluck Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 I like a cross between a cave and mounded igloo. Pile a bunch of snow on top of a drift and then dig it out. After hollowing out the mound, you've got a central area with a high ceiling and then you dig sleeping benches in the drift. I love hanging in a snow cave but it's hard to keep your gear warm and dry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alpinfox Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 I like my snowcaves PIMP STYLE!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cpt.Caveman Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 cave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lummox Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 a palapa on the beach in mexico. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bug Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 A cave will keep you warm and dry and noise free. The extra vent holes are for the drying period. Water will pool if you do not have a sloping floor and/or drainage ditches. After a snow cave has been use for a night or two and refroze, it's insulating abilities are ice-like. When a snow cave is fresh, there is a lot of air in the snow in the walls and ceiling which provides insulation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dru Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 skyclimb said: With winter appearing everywhere around us..... What is your most trusted winter shelter: a cave, a mounded igloo, a igloo proper, a trench, or a tree well. Stories are welcome For me, it is, and always will be the cave. When you have a nice drift, there is something about the size and safety of a cave! My favorite winter shelter is: The Lillooet motel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattp Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 From now 'till about Feb 15th, I'm with Dru in that if there is a hotel or hut available, that is where I wanna be. It is cold and dark outside for many hours at this time of year and even if the long hours in the sack don't get you down, the inability to dry everything out probably will. Second choice is a snowcave over a tent, though, particularly if someone else digs it so I don't have to get MY clothes wet (my friend KJ is the man to have on your team). But in the Spring months when most people do their "winter" camping, and if I'm camping at or below treeline, a tarp erected over a show hole with benches is the way to go! For winter camping in particular, a tent is my last choice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jon Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 The few caves I've made I have gotten completely soaked. It also requires a trustworth shovel. If your only shovel breaks and you aren't done and don't have an alternative your screwed. Unless it's really howling outside I like using a tarp, you aren't trapping the heat under it but having your clothes drier more then makes up for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beck Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 a tree well is a nice shelter, too bad you're not supposed to cut boughs off trees anymore, you can always make killer evergreen bough and snow roofed shelters that are warm and dry. a trench is easiest, particularily if you have snow that can be cut into blocks to make the roof. don't forget to put a cold 'sink' for gear storage and a place for cold air to leach down into. digging a actual quinzee is way too much work and time IMO. but letting your buddy dig it is acceptable. Having dug far too many of those bastards as places to sleep, its best left to the greenhorn who thinks wasting four hours making a shelter is worth it. Up high in Patagonia might be a different story though... I'm experimenting with a betamid with two megamid poles for a winter circus tent. looking forward to more field tests this winter. and a tent isn't too bad if it's lightweight and you've got a snugglebunny. Then the 14 hours of winter darkness don't seem so bad....me and this swedish girlfriend, we used to LOVE going winter tent camping! And I remember the time, me and another girlfriend and a german girl we knew, it was a dark and stormy weekend in a VE-24... oh, wait, not those types of stories... pyramid shelters are great for winter too. I have also see the fly from a Sierra Designs clip flashlight set up as a roof over a big snow 'cave' dug up at Castle saddle in the Tatoosh... If you wear the right soft shell, you can just dive right into a snowbank and do just fine... I've never tried it with a bivy sack and sleeping bag, but i'm betting it works just fine. and lightweight tarp thingies are the way to go. I've got a funky siltarp thing that sets up like a four sided tent over skis as well, with peak vents for a sub one pound viable winter shelter for two. i think digging a snow shelter should be done as a survival exercise if you haven't done it before, and that's pretty much it. I wouldn't build an igloo unless i was hunting polar bears and had a woman with an usik chewing on my mukluks when i got back with the umiak and a haul of narwhal blubber. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catbirdseat Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 Snow caves are a lot of work and you get wet digging them, but they may be worth it if you are going into an area for several days where you can use it as a base camp. If you need somewhere to escape the wind for say an hour so break, you can dig a snow pit in about ten minutes and get a tarp over it. It can be a pretty good place to take an extended break. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattp Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 You get wet digging them if you are wearing goretex but not if you have real rain gear. Also, as I indicated in another thread, I rarely ever see people dig one in a place where the snow falls out the door rather than having to be shovelled out - this dramatically decreases the work involved. For a short night as in on a weekend peak climb, though, I agree that the cave is probably not worth it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bug Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 Use a snow saw and a rigid shovel. Not one of those folding jobies. The army surplus shovels actually did fine but no one has reproduced the rigidity in aluminum. You guys sleep in your cold air sinks all you want. Nanook can build an igloo for four in fifteen minutes witha walrus jaw. There is a black & white from 1912. Truely amazing footage. We are all posers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catbirdseat Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 When the snow is of just the right consistency, igloos can go up in a hurry - if you know what you are doing (like Nanook). The last time I built one, it took me two hours. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forrest_m Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 catbirdseat said: When the snow is of just the right consistency amen. good snow = easy igloo, bad snow = impossible igloo and frustrating coldness despite his amazing survival skills, nanook starved to death two years after that movie was made. website the arctic plays for high stakes. on a totally unrelated topic this is my 500th post . i guess i can no longer consider myself an "occasional user" (jon, you'll be hearing from me via paypal...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dru Posted October 31, 2003 Share Posted October 31, 2003 my second favorite winter bivi is the Lillooet motel. my favorite winter bivi is : a friends' cabin 3rd on the list would be: illegal occupation of plywood shack in the woods near Canmore . 4th would have to be tenting it at the Terzaghi Dam brrrrrrrrr. a -20 bag with overbag and a down jacket and syntho parka as quilts works pretty good. the big problem is when it is so cold there is ice crust on sleeping bag around your breathing hole from frozen exhalation Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bug Posted November 1, 2003 Share Posted November 1, 2003 forrest_m said: catbirdseat said: When the snow is of just the right consistency amen. good snow = easy igloo, bad snow = impossible igloo and frustrating coldness despite his amazing survival skills, nanook starved to death two years after that movie was made. website the arctic plays for high stakes. on a totally unrelated topic this is my 500th post . i guess i can no longer consider myself an "occasional user" (jon, you'll be hearing from me via paypal...) If you are implying that Nanook would have troubles similar to yours you missed the point. Practice will help you to build a better igloo. Or to build something else if conditions warrant. Nanook actually disappeared and was never found according to the records I read. But regardless, that was in an environment without MSR or REI. Starving to death was common amoung those people. There just isn't much food in the arctic. Ask any polar bear why he is willing to stalk you for weeks. There was a ship that wrecked up there somewhere. Someone will know what I am talking about. There were about 50 men who ended up starving to death. In their journals was an account of a chance meeting with a couple of eskimos. They tried to get the eskimos to help them but the eskimos "refused". The tale told through the generations of eskimos was of a chance meeting of a bunch of white skinned men travelling in too large of a group During a time of Annuk's anger. They tried to convince the white skinned men to split up so they would have a chance of finding enough food but the white men "refused". There is not enough food available in the artic in the winter to support a group of 50 men. Eskimo families were rarely more than three or four. There was a great polar bear hunter who became too old to hunt. This wa in the thirties when they had really started settling down in the villages the government provided. He told all his stories to his sons and their sons and then became quiet for many weeks. Finally one morning, his wife woke up to find him walking out the door to go hunting. They said their normal passing things and he went on his way. After two days he had not returned and his wife became worried. She asked her sons to go out and look for him. They set out that morning, the morning of the third day and followed his tracks for four more days. After getting far out onto the ice, the tracks met a set of polar bear tracks head on. Both sets ended right there where they met. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beck Posted November 1, 2003 Share Posted November 1, 2003 "leaving the igloo" was a respectable way for native people to die in the Arctic. this is anthropologically documented and is possible Nanook acted on this social custom. When an elder got to be a burden, they would leave the igloo to freeze to death or otherwise pass away for the good of the group... what an extreme social adaption.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dru Posted November 2, 2003 Share Posted November 2, 2003 just like guy waterman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cj001f Posted November 2, 2003 Share Posted November 2, 2003 mattp said: You get wet digging them if you are wearing goretex but not if you have real rain gear. I always wet inside out (sweat) when building a snow cave. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bug Posted November 2, 2003 Share Posted November 2, 2003 There are over 300 words for "snow" in eskimo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beck Posted November 2, 2003 Share Posted November 2, 2003 actually, bug, that is incorrect. The inuit peoples have over 100 words for snow in their language inuktitut, which means, rather redundantly, "To sound like an inuit" here are some examples of inuit words for snow. Aput -snow piqtuq -blowing snow quinzhee -snow shelter sitilluquq -snow making cracking noise pukak -first layer of snow imalik -wet snow additionally, ikuktitut was the subject of as famous anthropologic scam and resulted in a contrived, made up inuit language to be legitimized with anthropologists. I'm not refreshed on the whole story, but a couple british researchers made up a language with over three hundred words for snow, and this is where that misconception came from , bug. but the real inuktitut language still has over 100 different words for snow and ice in its many forms- let's get the ukiuq (winter) started -some aniuvak (snow on hillside) will make for fun skiing... just don't fall in the quaminiq (tree well!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnny_destiny Posted November 2, 2003 Share Posted November 2, 2003 My favorite bivy is between my girl friends legs in a nice warm motel after a day of climbing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattp Posted November 2, 2003 Share Posted November 2, 2003 If you are sweating, CJF, you are obviously wearing too many clothes. You gotta stop for a miniute and take a sweater off, then put your shell back on. It's that easy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cj001f Posted November 2, 2003 Share Posted November 2, 2003 mattp said: If you are sweating, CJF, you are obviously wearing too many clothes. Gee Matt - which should I take off? The Goretex jacket? Or the liner underwear? Thanks for the advice! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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