Snow Cave Camp - Feb 2012

Each Snow Cave camp has different challenges and hurdles.  This year our challenges were:

• The road to our usual camping location is closed due to the road being washed away last summer
• Our alternate location has only 2-1/2 feet of snow!

Luckily we were able to schedule the camp out on a day that the scouts didn't have school - so we were able to get an earlier start since we knew we would be shoveling the snow into piles, packing it down and then digging in.

We ended up working together to pile the snow up while 2 people walked on the pile with snow shoes to pack it down.  It was warm enough we were digging in short sleeve shirts to pile the snow up.  Once we got one pile done we moved to the next one and let the first one freeze.  That way by the time we got back to digging the caves out, the snow was set and we didn't have any problems with cave-ins or collapsing the caves.

My snow cave

We were able to get one big enough for 3 boys and another for 2 boys, plus each of the leaders dug their own caves.  Two of the leaders dug a quasi trench/cave.  They dug down to earth and then dug a shallow cave large enough to cover 1/2 of their body.  Then they slept with their legs and body inside the cave and their faces out (with a tarp over).

The Trench/Cave

One of them stayed warm, while the other one was cold.  We'll have to experiment more with them.

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