My Snow Cave Learnings

In the late 90's, I was living in Westminster, CO, between Denver and Boulder – a truly beautiful part of the world, if you like humongous, craggy mountains, which I do. Denver is called the Mile High City because of the altitude, which means that it also gets a lot of of snow every year – a Lot of Snow. I decided, since I was living in so much snow, that it would be a good idea to learn how to survive, if I were caught in the wilds with no shelter.  So I asked to see if anyone could teach me how to do that. Rita Stagg told me to check with her husband, Derryl. A few months later, as in February, Derryl called  and said he was taking a pack of Boy Scouts up the mountain, and they would be learning how to build their own snow cave and spend the night in it, did I want to come? Oh, yeah! Count me in.

So my friend, Tom Stockman, Derryl, 2 other Scoutmasters, about ten 11-12 year old boy scouts, and me – the only female – their bow to diversity – all trekking up this mountain to spend the night. In order to prevent hypothermia, we were all encouraged to drink water … lots and lots of water … and encouraged to eat high carb food – so there were a lot of M&M's consumed. I concluded that this adventure had very high merit!

Since it takes a couple of hours or more to build a snow cave, and we wanted to be in it by nightfall, we started learning the fundamentals soon after lunch. First you shovel all the snow away till you have a little clearing, then you pile the snow back into the middle of the clearing, packing it down firmly. Once you have a pile of packed snow about shoulder height, you poke foot-long sticks (which you have to gather and cut yourself) all over the dome of the snow pile. Then comes the fun part. You get down on your belly and start making a tunnel into the snow pile. When you have a tunnel about 3/4 as long as your body (the diagonal of the snow pile should be at least a couple of feet longer than your body),  you start excavating the snow. You know where to stop excavating when you reach the tips of the sticks. If you keep going, the snow pile is likely to collapse, and you get to become a better snow cave builder – with more experience under your belt.

With a lot of expert guidance and support from Derryl, I had a genuine snow cave, my very own … and it even had a little furniture in it – a bed shelf – albeit a cold one. That done, we all played, snow-shoeing, cross-country skiing; lying on the frozen river, watching the fish swim beneath us. It was good fun.

Evening, time to get settled into our little snow caves. Because we were all drinking a lot of water, we were also peeing a lot. Derryl and the other scoutmasters talked to us about making sure, that if we had to go during the night (if?), be sure to walk away from your snow cave, cuz urine is salty, animals need salt during the winter, and you could attract animals into your snow cave – not a good idea. I scouted a secluded spot far from the young men and my snow cave, where I could be sure not to attract a hungry mountain lion into my cave.

I had my water jug, my trail-mix loaded with M&M's (you gotta keep your carbs up), my really excellent sleeping bag, and my stocking cap – I was set. The thing about snow caves that they forgot to mention is that every time you accidentally brush against the sides or the top, which is hard not to do, cuz it's a tiny space, you knock off a little snow which never failed to find that space between my stocking cap and the collar of my coat. So there was a constant dusting of snow, which was melted by my body heat and absorbed by my clothes. Wet clothes, cold night, brrrrr. So I got in my sleeping bag, and stripped down – this takes a while and requires the skills of a contortionist. Eventually my body heat and the down of the bag did their thing, and I got warm. Ahhhh! Uh oh. Yep, I had to pee.

I couldn't wait too long, cuz the process of dragging my ice-cold clothes back into the warmth of my sleeping bag, doing my contortionist act, sliding out of my bag, belly crawling out the tunnel of my cave, walking to my private place wasn't a quick turnaround. Then when I got to my private spot, it was a partial reversal of the clothes ordeal. To really top it off, I realized I had left the toilet paper back at the main part of the camp. Not good. Snow is a system-shocking substitute for toilet paper. Enough said.

Clothes back in place, back to the cave, belly crawl, more snow down my back as I wrestle the sleeping bag, ditching my clothes, slowly warming up again … feeling thirsty now. Which is worse? Hypothermia? or going through that routine again? So I drank more water, and repeated the above scenario three more times before dawn.

At the time, the night seemed grueling. In retrospect, it's all rather funny. What I learned is that I want to enjoy those times while I'm having them. Do you know what I mean?

PS The temperature that night went below 0 degrees Fahrenheit, so everyone got a Winter Survival Scout Badge – including me!