Snow holes

  • Hey Guest, Early bird pricing on the Summer Moot (29th July - 10th August) available until April 6th, we'd love you to come. PLEASE CLICK HERE to early bird price and get more information.

arctic hobo

Native
Oct 7, 2004
1,630
4
37
Devon *sigh*
www.dyrhaug.co.uk
The year after next I'm hoping to spend the a lot of the winter outdoors. This includes sleeping, and as I'm hoping to do it in Norway and it gets kind of cold there it means snowholes or igloos. From experience I've found they rarely go below -10 celsius, which reduces your sleeping kit quite a bit :) , although they can be an awful lot of work. I've started this thread to look at snow hole designs, see what you lot think is best.
When I first dug one, it was like this: Dig a hole down, maybe 5-6 feet (1.5-1.8m). Then get in the hole and dig sideways at the bottom, eventually making an L shape hole as shown. This is hard work to dig and is still quite exposed, and the cold air will sink into it. Also the roof may fall in if you're not careful digging it :eek:
design17ec.jpg

The second one is like the first, but solves the roof problem. Instead of digging so deep, you make the roof out of ice blocks - if you have a leuku it is very effective at cutting squares out of packed snow (I'm sure this is sacrilege to knife nuts :D ). If it's not very hard it helps if you jump on it first to compact it, or you can compact it in your hands if it's quite small. You need to build them like a bridge - so they support each other with a keystone in the middle. This also means you can cover up slightly more of the entrance and you have a thinner roof so should it collapse it might be less likely to suffocate you :eek:
design36ki.jpg

The last one I know is just the traditional igloo design - I've only done this once, and it took a very long time. However as it is not sunk into the ground it can be warmer, although you must be careful to pack snow into the gaps or the wind will come whistling through. If you make it large it can be a really impressive structure, you can build in a firepit (if you have wood available), seats, a raised bed, and if you put a snow anchor in the ceiling (depending on how firmly you built it) you can hang all sorts off it, meat and fish to dry and smoke or just a torch or lantern. You might want to put in a chimney - this isn't easy as you are taking a stone out of the bridge structure and it's apt to collapse, but can be very well worth it. You will of course need a doorway because packed snow doesn't let much air through ;)
design42op.jpg

If anyone has more designs and tips they'd like to share I'd love to see them. After all, that's what the forum's here for ;)
 

leon-1

Full Member
There are a couple of main methods for digging snow holes from recollection.

First there is tunnel method

This is where you tunnel in at right angles into a snow drift, you then take a right angle turn heading up. when you start going up you develop this out so that you have a hole coming up through the floor at one end of a snow room, there are raised shelves on either side of the room. This way the air sinks down into the trough in between the two sleeping bays.

A little niche is carved out of the wall and a candle is set in it, this is for safety as if the carbon monoxide / dioxide levels get too high the candle goes out. The candle will also raise the ambient temperature of the snow hole to around 0 degrees C.

The roof of the room that you have carved is curved for strength and a ski pole is placed through the roof this allows air to ventilate in and out of the snow hole.

Outside of the snow hole skis are crossed above the entrance to the hole, this is for safety, one reason is to stop others from skiing over the snow hole and the other is so that if it should collapse people can find you quicker.

Second there is Block and Cave

With this you carve blocks out of the snow drift side which correspond directly to the size of the main chamber of the snow hole. The shape of the snow hole remains the same, but instead of having to drag snow back out through a tiny little hole you carve straight into the room.

When you have finished the room with the sleeping bays the entrance hole is tunneled out and the blocks that you carved out in the first place are then replaced to form the outer wall of the hole and the gaps are sealed with snow.

You still need a ventilation hole with a ski through it, a candle is still burnt for safety and the skis are still crossed above the snow hole to act as warning to others.

Arctic hobo the method that you describe above has been described to me in 2 ways before one is snow trench the other is snow grave :) .

I'll try and find some illustrations if you wish and put them up, I have a few for that enviroment :)
 

Abbe Osram

Native
Nov 8, 2004
1,402
22
61
Sweden
milzart.blogspot.com
The only one I did was a quinzee, snow iglo type of thing.
Here is a picture from the inside of the shelter, I am laying in the sleeping bag shooting the picture in the direction of the exit.
inside_shelter02.jpg


My experience:

1. A lot of work
2. Not fast to build
3. Have to wait so the snow is sinking down and packing together
4. Very wet work of carving out the cave into the snow pile
5. Then you will notice that you build the thing to small and will have to spent the night in a claustrophobic condition.
6. The shelter gets smaller and smaller every day.

BUT

it kept me ok in minus 25 outside

What am I going to change.
I am going to build the thing much much bigger
then I am digging into the shelter standing not crawling in, rather carving out a door which I am closing later. That laying on the stomach thing and crawling in and out sucks big time.

cheers
Abbe
 

arctic hobo

Native
Oct 7, 2004
1,630
4
37
Devon *sigh*
www.dyrhaug.co.uk
leon-1 said:
Arctic hobo the method that you describe above has been described to me in 2 ways before one is snow trench the other is snow grave :) .
I can believe that :eek: The entrance is most definitely the head end.
Pictures would be great :cool:
Abbe your Quinzee reminds me a lot of leaf mud shelters. I can see why you'd want it a lot bigger ;) What did you do for a floor?
 

Abbe Osram

Native
Nov 8, 2004
1,402
22
61
Sweden
milzart.blogspot.com
arctic hobo said:
I can believe that :eek: The entrance is most definitely the head end.
Pictures would be great :cool:
Abbe your Quinzee reminds me a lot of leaf mud shelters. I can see why you'd want it a lot bigger ;) What did you do for a floor?

I was laying on a snow bench and on the bench I put spruce twigs, much to few too. It was a hard job to get them the forest was dark and I was messing around with my huge snowshoes. After a while I thought thats enough but surly it was not, it got quite cold in the night. That was before I got my nice reindeer fur. Now the story would be different.

cheers
Abbe
 

Wayne

Mod
Mod
Dec 7, 2003
3,750
642
51
West Sussex
www.forestknights.co.uk
here is my prefered method of building a snow hole.
 

Attachments

  • snow hole 1 (Medium).jpg
    snow hole 1 (Medium).jpg
    31.4 KB · Views: 46
  • snow hole 3 (Medium).jpg
    snow hole 3 (Medium).jpg
    29.1 KB · Views: 39
  • snow hole 2 (Medium).jpg
    snow hole 2 (Medium).jpg
    18.3 KB · Views: 36
  • snow hole 4 (Small).jpg
    snow hole 4 (Small).jpg
    25.8 KB · Views: 36

Rod

On a new journey
Hi AH,

My experience of building these was in Scotland, and I suspect like Wayne's as dug into a bank or good sized drift of snow. A tunnel with a raised sleeping platform, arched roof. Some tips:
  • Invest in a good sized snow showel with a lightweight aluminum blade. Voile and Black Diamond are good solid brands. Ray Mears also used a large handsaw also. You can cut large blocks of compacted snow easily for not much effort - under a £10er in a hardware store. This can save a lot of time and sweating/swearing! :)
  • The roof interior must be as smooth as you can get it otherwise it will drip onto you/your sleeping bag/bivy bag :(
  • Make an airhole to the outside in the roof and keep in clear. A candle or candle lantern will act as an early warning if it start to block. :)
  • Digging a hole is hard work - strip off your warm mid layers and work in your baselayer & shell layer. Put your warm layers back on when you're moved in :rolleyes:
  • Pick your site carefully! I heard a story about 2 lads who build a hole to try out the concept, They found a really deep drift, dug in and settled down. They decided as it was a lovely night to get up and go look at the stars. They wandered a short distance off from the entrance to their hole and became aware of a rumbling noise coming up behind them..... When they turned round they saw a snow plough cruising out their front door! Their site was in the middle of a road :eek: They were OK, but most of their kit got trashed :(

A good book for more info would be Mountaincraft & Leadership by Eric Langmuir - now in its 4th edition.

Have fun!
 

baggins

Full Member
Apr 20, 2005
1,563
300
49
Coventry (and surveying trees uk wide)
I'd have to agree with what everyone above has said, but, you must take into account the geography of where you are planning to spend the night and the snow type/ conditions. Like the rest of bushcraft, let the conditions dictate the type of shelter you use. Dry powder is no good for caves ( except quinzes??) or any type of snow block work (unless you're prepared to spend hours reforming the snow) and hard neve takes alot of energy without a good saw and shovel. The best night i spent in one was in NZ's southern alps (a cave into the side of a bank) however, i was in a rush and made it too shallow and woke up with frost nip on two toes, ouch! Enjoy your trip!
 

Jon

Need to contact Admin...
Oct 28, 2003
99
1
England, half way down

Meaghaidh

Member
Aug 10, 2005
23
0
Peak District
Hi Guys,

Good advice from all the guys.

On flat ground with loose/ poorly compacted snow and possibly not very deep (6''), a shovel-up method is good. Like all shelters, do it right 1st time.

Place kit in a pile, and then pile snow on top of it, you need a large pile. when you feel the pile is big enough, leave it to settle for a while, the more powdery the snow the longer you leave it.

Then using the large snow shovel as mentioned earlier, start tunneling. You should only be wearing your waterproof's at this stage NO Thermals. On thin snow you are down to the floor pretty quick so use it as any other shelter.

If on deep snow leave a sleeping platform and dig a trench to the outside (a cold sink). 6'' thick walls should be plenty. Follow the other advice gegarding smooth walls and ventilation.

Mark your shelter if you go wandering you will not spot it in the flat light of winter. If you go out for a pee do not wander too far, it is easy to get disorientated and loose the entrance to the shelter.

Also make yourself aware of the area above you and around you, what risks are there? Avalanche, cornice, rock fall etc.

Drainage ditches/ gullies low down provide good places to build shelters as the gullies fill with snow and you have a near vertical face to dig into. This is much more energy efficient compared to the shovel-up.

Any queries please ask, as I have spent many nights in the white stuff.

Paul B.
 

BCUK Shop

We have a a number of knives, T-Shirts and other items for sale.

SHOP HERE