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SHELTERS |
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QUINZHEE |
| SHELTERS.
Building and using snow shelters can be dangerous, so be sure to find out
the nature of the risks before you try it yourself. You don't want to die
of suffocation or wind up buried under a huge load of snow. Don't try it
for the first time on a solo trip! Research the subject; identify resource
people and talk to them. Think about the principles involved. Use common
sense. If you've grown up in snow country, you probably have intuitive knowledge of the physical properties of snow and how it behaves at different temperatures. You may know whether a pile will set into a cohesive mass immediately or needs to sit until the next day, or whether it's just too darn cold for cohesion to occur in a reasonable amount of time. You may realize that if you dig into a large pile, that a cave-in could be very serious. There are winter camping books, Web sites and even classes that give guidance on how to build a quinzhee, or snow hut. When I built my quinzhee on Lake Kapkichi outside of Pickle Lake, Ontario [see the account of my 1997 camping trip on the Field Trips page], I found that immediately after I had built up a sufficiently large pile of snow, I could not dig it out, because the snow had not "set" and simply caved in as soon as I dug into it. I had to leave the pile to sit overnight and dig it out the next day. While I was sitting near it cooking my evening meal, I heard a deep bass "grunnnch" and stood bolt upright, thinking a large bear had just arrived. It was the pile of snow scrunching down or "setting" under its own weight. For a description of another type of winter shelter, see the story of my 1998 field trip to Ontario on the Field Trips page. |