B
bigbrownlabrador
New member
For what it's worth.....
I always carry my survival kit in my backpack...and I WEAR it.
I always carry my survival kit in my backpack...and I WEAR it.
Survival in the Mountains
- Thread starter Calvin42
- Start date
Great tool to have, but keep in mind that it won't provide first-aid, keep you warm and dry, and you can't eat it. If a storm is so bad that you can't find your way without it, perhaps the best option is to hunker down until it's over. If you follow the guidelines on here about how to prepare for it, you'll enjoy that GPS a lot longer.
another option is a tin can with lid.....you can store stuff in the can and use it as a cup if needed. I also carry a tin coffee cup in my pack...very light and beats keeping water in the shovel blade.
I carry this tin in my gear, i call it my back up of chit gear, in case my o chit gear needs back up.
http://www.tmru.org/kits/description.php
good stuff, as the basics for spending the night. Even has a writeup that describes what to do and how much wood you will need on average for the night.
warning, it's hard to get all the stuff back in once it's out....i emptied it when I got it to take a look. Now it's all in there, but not so pretty.
B
BackCountryBob
Well-known member
Two of us spent the night out with one sled stuck in a shallow pond--big spring storm with limited cell service so we rode two up and hiked until we found a signal and a dead tree. My biggest concern was a wet left foot--so being wet was my big deal.
1. Found a dead tree--one of us cut limbs and the other dug a snow pit. We used the sled and a small tarp as a wind break. The snow was too light to pack into a roof so we used branches/bows to cover the pit.
2. Used a Tampon to start the fire--make sure you have a long string fastened securely to soak and retrieve. We kept the other Tampons in reserve. BTW, Tampons are excellent first aid bandages.
3. Limited cell and GPS because of the heavy snow fall. We finally got to 911 but the operator was useless--she finally gave us the Grand County Sheriff phone number and were then able to contact S&R with the GPS co-ordinates.
What I carried in my back pack: (2)50 gallon HD trash bags to act as additional clothing wind proofing, stainless cup to help start the fire and later to boil water for bullion, FRP radios to talk to S&R when they got close, (2) space blankets, extra socks and gloves in zip lock bags, trail bars, flash light, whistle, compass, 50' of parachute cord, metal avy shovel and saw, fleece hat, reading glasses, pencil and pad, water proof matches and Bic lighter, fire sticks, safety orange surveyors tape and extra large orange laundry bag to act as a flag, rigging knife on a lanyard, small first aid kit.
Things we leaned: Lots of extra batteries, carry 2 aluminum pie plates to act as fire reflectors as the fire burned lower in the snow, large zip lock bags to use as foot protectors between wet boot liners and dry socks, hand held chain saw makes a better saw, carry all the Colorado Sheriff's phone number so as to not rely on 911 since the Sheriff dispatches S&R, own a High Jacker to get out of a jam, never ride with only 2--its either 3 of us or none, new roll of TP, longer tow rope at least 25'.
Merry Christmas and a Safe New Year
BCB
1. Found a dead tree--one of us cut limbs and the other dug a snow pit. We used the sled and a small tarp as a wind break. The snow was too light to pack into a roof so we used branches/bows to cover the pit.
2. Used a Tampon to start the fire--make sure you have a long string fastened securely to soak and retrieve. We kept the other Tampons in reserve. BTW, Tampons are excellent first aid bandages.
3. Limited cell and GPS because of the heavy snow fall. We finally got to 911 but the operator was useless--she finally gave us the Grand County Sheriff phone number and were then able to contact S&R with the GPS co-ordinates.
What I carried in my back pack: (2)50 gallon HD trash bags to act as additional clothing wind proofing, stainless cup to help start the fire and later to boil water for bullion, FRP radios to talk to S&R when they got close, (2) space blankets, extra socks and gloves in zip lock bags, trail bars, flash light, whistle, compass, 50' of parachute cord, metal avy shovel and saw, fleece hat, reading glasses, pencil and pad, water proof matches and Bic lighter, fire sticks, safety orange surveyors tape and extra large orange laundry bag to act as a flag, rigging knife on a lanyard, small first aid kit.
Things we leaned: Lots of extra batteries, carry 2 aluminum pie plates to act as fire reflectors as the fire burned lower in the snow, large zip lock bags to use as foot protectors between wet boot liners and dry socks, hand held chain saw makes a better saw, carry all the Colorado Sheriff's phone number so as to not rely on 911 since the Sheriff dispatches S&R, own a High Jacker to get out of a jam, never ride with only 2--its either 3 of us or none, new roll of TP, longer tow rope at least 25'.
Merry Christmas and a Safe New Year
BCB
Great thread. Great tips.
The one thing that you can practice anywhere there is snow is building a snow cave - just like you were 8 years old again
I have done this with my son on those so-so riding days where it is sunny and nice but the snow sort of sux.
One comment on this line of thought is be careful working too hard on your shelter, cutting etc. Once you get wet it is difficult to dry off. Once you have a big fire you might strip some stuff off and dry it but until then you are a freezing mo-fo.
Rt
P
PalousePoo
Well-known member
My biggest concern with spending a night out is if someone is injured. I want to be confident I know enough to keep that person alive, or from loosing a limb, or whatever. I had a first aid corse years ago, but need to buy a first aid book and read it, and probably take it in my pack. Another thing to think about is how prepared are your buddies to stay out? I carry some extra stuff to help them stay alittle comfortable, but they deserve to get alittle cold if they haven't thought ahead or feel a "backpack is too heavy"!
This happened to me last year, just take a minute to read then check your gear.
Well let me start by saying we had a great amount of snow that fell in the Snowies, 40 to 60 inches in the backcountry and all untouched by anyone. The five of us left the roller coaster just northwest of the widow maker about 9:45 am. That was the last snowmobile we saw or heard for the next 30 hours. We decided to take off to the north from there to go the backcountry to ride some of the small meadows and crawl through the trees to an area we went to 3 weeks before and have some of the best riding I have ever experienced. We arrived at the big meadow around 10:30 played around until about 12:30 and decided to go to lunch. Now when we attempted to leave on the groomed trail we normally leave on, we found it was untouched by the groomer. So we decided to just go for it but there was way too much snow to climb out of the area we where in. We looked at my GPS which I have all the trails, groomed and ungroomed set as saved tracks. So we pick a route to take to go to another trail, mind you all the trails are above the valley we are in we currently where 9800’ all areas around us are 9950’ to 10000’. We left the trail and went on to the route we picked and within a ½ mile we had sleds stuck everywhere the line we picked was a climb in elevation but we chose a route which allowed us to zigzag back and forth to make a less aggressive climb and slowly move our way to higher elevation so we could drop out over the top and go to a trail. Well one of the guys Chris ran off course a bit and got stuck really bad and then Brian behind him had no choice but to try to go between him and a cedar tree and of course got tangled pretty bad in the cedar. So when no one was behind me I turned back and found the mess, in the mean time Chad was stuck on my way back to them. So I told Ben my son to go help out Chad while I helped Chris and Brian. Well not a minute later Ben called and said his was in a really bad deal with a tree as well, and then it started to snow pretty hard. When I got over to Ben he was in between a drift and a cedar tree about 8-9’ below the snows surface in bottom of the cedar, needless to say he was "edit for bad language" because he new we need to get out of there. It took a little over an hour for us to get a snow road made so he could climb out of the bottom of the drift. His sled sat so long on its side before we could dig a flat spot out for it to sit we could not get it to start after pulling it over what seemed like for ever. We jumped on my sled to see what those guys where up to and realized it snowed almost 5” in the short amount of time we worked on Bens sled. Anyway it was getting to be 4:00 pm or at least close to that time and we get back with the rest of the group and they where discussing what to do. We then made the commitment to get ready to hunker down and make a snow fort with a pit in it for a fire so we could survive for the night. Making the decision is the hardest part of the overnight stay. The unknown that was in front of us made it seem really bad and the helplessness of not being able to leave. The first 4 hours went really fast after all we had a lot of work to do. We had 4 shovels with saws, after the first hour of preparing for the long night we had 1 light duty saw and one regulars saw that the tip broke the other 2 where bent and would not pull through trees at all. So needless to say that worried us considering we had to cut wood all night to keep a fire burning. Oh yea the wind stopped and it quite snowing within 5 minutes after we decided to stay for the night. As you can imagine the night goes by really slow, and it was too cold to sleep with any comfort, as soon as you would sit back or lie down the heat from the fire rose strait up and within 5 minutes you would start the shivers, not like shivering at home, these where violent shakes of cold. Which would make you sit up and take in some of the fires warmth. I had 2 space blankets I thought would be really good to share so each of us could sleep a few hours, they do nothing except when folded up you can sit on them and keep a little of the cold off your buns. We had cut enough green cedar branches to cover the bottom of the snow fort to keep your body off the snow. I had a jet boil and 2 survival meals so we shared one between us and decided to save the other one if we needed it later. Those meals I had where 6500 calories so some good long burn carb energy. We where able to melt snow with the jetbiol stainless cup also throughout the night. Anyway by 1:30 we needed more wood to burn, oh did I mention its so dark out there you could not see your hands in front of your face if you got mare than 20 yards from the fire, and that makes it difficult to look for dry dead trees in the forest. Anyway we found a really good slow burning dead dry tree to cut down the only bad part is was about 12-14 inches across with a 8 inch saw blade. Brian and I cut at it for about ½ and hour before it dropped on the trail below, we then cut about 5 foot pieces to throw in the fire pit which was now about waste deep which was nice cause you could now sit on the edge of the pit and have your feet and legs in the pit and sit on the edge and lean forward to stay toasty warm. That tree was the real blessing in all of this, with out that one tree our night may have been a lot worse. We put the last 5 foot piece on at about 5 am and by 6:20 it started to get light and we started to get moving around. We where now going to get out of this area one way or another, First thing we tried was to follow the trail up and over but it turned strait up the hill after about ¼ of the way up and we decided not to waste our day making a trench up another long pull only to find another one beyond it. We made the decision to go down the creek to the south and come out near a main trail we used the radio to signal back to he others when to move ahead and within a mile we had issues I came around a sharp bend in the creek only to find this was a beautiful place for a 10-12 foot waterfall which I launched to the other side but didn’t have the momentum to carry up all the way to the top so I hit and slide back down into the bottom. Not good It was now 10:20 and we had at least an hour or two worth of work to get me out of this pickle. So I radio back to the others to go back up and had a couple come down to help me when they arrived the look in there faces was of utter disbelief. Here we where again, I turned my Garmin 530 to scan and we started to work on getting my sled up on the top of the creek bank, mean while my son went to let the others know we would be a while. As we where working someone came over the radio and said looking for the 5 from Nebraska and we happen to hear him and answered told him our location and asked him to come down the trail so we could climb back out. He assured us he would be there shortly. An hour later we called for the search and rescue team that had talked to us earlier and someone else answered and said they had me located on there Garmin and would be there in ½ hour. Again we said make sure to come down the trail rather than boondock down from cross country, we needed a way to climb out of the bowl we were in. About 40 minutes later we heard our first sound of another sled in the area and in the next 30 minutes we had about 12 guys there, 4 from search and rescue and some of them just heard us on the radio that were near the trail I referred to earlier and came down to help us out. Wow what a relief to see another bunch or riders and the best thing was when they came down the trail they single filed there way down so we had a good run to get out of the bowl. I drank a liter of water ate 3 or 4 bars and a red bull in about 40 seconds I think. Any one who knows me knows I always have a lot of stuff to eat that is of value nutritionally. Protein bars, sausage sticks, jerky etc. Forgot it all in the trailer, to excited to go out and play in the fluff. Anyway I guess I wanted to share and to let everyone know its not so bad if your prepared. Just think about it, what if you had no shovel, no lighter, no extra gas, no extra dry gloves and hat, no food , no water, and last but not least NO CHANCE. So I would like everyone to check to make sure you and your buddies have survival gear, if you don’t think you need it what if your in the epic deep and your buddies sled breaks down and you cant pull him out, then you realize you cant get out with both of you on a sled what then, to make things worse now your sled blows a belt or fowls a plug or just quits what then. Be prepared you know it may never happen but if it does you will feel a lot better making the decision to stay. All of my buddies are getting a survival pack together now so what if you add an extra 5 lb on your sled you’ll appreciate it when you need it. I would like to thank Carbon county search and rescue as well as the Laramie sheriffs office for taking our wives calls all night and most of the morning, also the guys who just showed up to help someone out. Anyway just thought this story may push a couple people into checking over there survival gear to make sure all is good and they have everything they need. If we didn’t have a lighter all of my wooden matches that are in the waterproof container shook around so long there was no sulfur on the tips. I am sure there are many stories out there that may have had the missing pieces and made the night a lot worse than ours but I just wanted to bring it up since you don’t read much about stuff like this.
--------------------
If you hunt go to www.FriscoSpices.com
Well let me start by saying we had a great amount of snow that fell in the Snowies, 40 to 60 inches in the backcountry and all untouched by anyone. The five of us left the roller coaster just northwest of the widow maker about 9:45 am. That was the last snowmobile we saw or heard for the next 30 hours. We decided to take off to the north from there to go the backcountry to ride some of the small meadows and crawl through the trees to an area we went to 3 weeks before and have some of the best riding I have ever experienced. We arrived at the big meadow around 10:30 played around until about 12:30 and decided to go to lunch. Now when we attempted to leave on the groomed trail we normally leave on, we found it was untouched by the groomer. So we decided to just go for it but there was way too much snow to climb out of the area we where in. We looked at my GPS which I have all the trails, groomed and ungroomed set as saved tracks. So we pick a route to take to go to another trail, mind you all the trails are above the valley we are in we currently where 9800’ all areas around us are 9950’ to 10000’. We left the trail and went on to the route we picked and within a ½ mile we had sleds stuck everywhere the line we picked was a climb in elevation but we chose a route which allowed us to zigzag back and forth to make a less aggressive climb and slowly move our way to higher elevation so we could drop out over the top and go to a trail. Well one of the guys Chris ran off course a bit and got stuck really bad and then Brian behind him had no choice but to try to go between him and a cedar tree and of course got tangled pretty bad in the cedar. So when no one was behind me I turned back and found the mess, in the mean time Chad was stuck on my way back to them. So I told Ben my son to go help out Chad while I helped Chris and Brian. Well not a minute later Ben called and said his was in a really bad deal with a tree as well, and then it started to snow pretty hard. When I got over to Ben he was in between a drift and a cedar tree about 8-9’ below the snows surface in bottom of the cedar, needless to say he was "edit for bad language" because he new we need to get out of there. It took a little over an hour for us to get a snow road made so he could climb out of the bottom of the drift. His sled sat so long on its side before we could dig a flat spot out for it to sit we could not get it to start after pulling it over what seemed like for ever. We jumped on my sled to see what those guys where up to and realized it snowed almost 5” in the short amount of time we worked on Bens sled. Anyway it was getting to be 4:00 pm or at least close to that time and we get back with the rest of the group and they where discussing what to do. We then made the commitment to get ready to hunker down and make a snow fort with a pit in it for a fire so we could survive for the night. Making the decision is the hardest part of the overnight stay. The unknown that was in front of us made it seem really bad and the helplessness of not being able to leave. The first 4 hours went really fast after all we had a lot of work to do. We had 4 shovels with saws, after the first hour of preparing for the long night we had 1 light duty saw and one regulars saw that the tip broke the other 2 where bent and would not pull through trees at all. So needless to say that worried us considering we had to cut wood all night to keep a fire burning. Oh yea the wind stopped and it quite snowing within 5 minutes after we decided to stay for the night. As you can imagine the night goes by really slow, and it was too cold to sleep with any comfort, as soon as you would sit back or lie down the heat from the fire rose strait up and within 5 minutes you would start the shivers, not like shivering at home, these where violent shakes of cold. Which would make you sit up and take in some of the fires warmth. I had 2 space blankets I thought would be really good to share so each of us could sleep a few hours, they do nothing except when folded up you can sit on them and keep a little of the cold off your buns. We had cut enough green cedar branches to cover the bottom of the snow fort to keep your body off the snow. I had a jet boil and 2 survival meals so we shared one between us and decided to save the other one if we needed it later. Those meals I had where 6500 calories so some good long burn carb energy. We where able to melt snow with the jetbiol stainless cup also throughout the night. Anyway by 1:30 we needed more wood to burn, oh did I mention its so dark out there you could not see your hands in front of your face if you got mare than 20 yards from the fire, and that makes it difficult to look for dry dead trees in the forest. Anyway we found a really good slow burning dead dry tree to cut down the only bad part is was about 12-14 inches across with a 8 inch saw blade. Brian and I cut at it for about ½ and hour before it dropped on the trail below, we then cut about 5 foot pieces to throw in the fire pit which was now about waste deep which was nice cause you could now sit on the edge of the pit and have your feet and legs in the pit and sit on the edge and lean forward to stay toasty warm. That tree was the real blessing in all of this, with out that one tree our night may have been a lot worse. We put the last 5 foot piece on at about 5 am and by 6:20 it started to get light and we started to get moving around. We where now going to get out of this area one way or another, First thing we tried was to follow the trail up and over but it turned strait up the hill after about ¼ of the way up and we decided not to waste our day making a trench up another long pull only to find another one beyond it. We made the decision to go down the creek to the south and come out near a main trail we used the radio to signal back to he others when to move ahead and within a mile we had issues I came around a sharp bend in the creek only to find this was a beautiful place for a 10-12 foot waterfall which I launched to the other side but didn’t have the momentum to carry up all the way to the top so I hit and slide back down into the bottom. Not good It was now 10:20 and we had at least an hour or two worth of work to get me out of this pickle. So I radio back to the others to go back up and had a couple come down to help me when they arrived the look in there faces was of utter disbelief. Here we where again, I turned my Garmin 530 to scan and we started to work on getting my sled up on the top of the creek bank, mean while my son went to let the others know we would be a while. As we where working someone came over the radio and said looking for the 5 from Nebraska and we happen to hear him and answered told him our location and asked him to come down the trail so we could climb back out. He assured us he would be there shortly. An hour later we called for the search and rescue team that had talked to us earlier and someone else answered and said they had me located on there Garmin and would be there in ½ hour. Again we said make sure to come down the trail rather than boondock down from cross country, we needed a way to climb out of the bowl we were in. About 40 minutes later we heard our first sound of another sled in the area and in the next 30 minutes we had about 12 guys there, 4 from search and rescue and some of them just heard us on the radio that were near the trail I referred to earlier and came down to help us out. Wow what a relief to see another bunch or riders and the best thing was when they came down the trail they single filed there way down so we had a good run to get out of the bowl. I drank a liter of water ate 3 or 4 bars and a red bull in about 40 seconds I think. Any one who knows me knows I always have a lot of stuff to eat that is of value nutritionally. Protein bars, sausage sticks, jerky etc. Forgot it all in the trailer, to excited to go out and play in the fluff. Anyway I guess I wanted to share and to let everyone know its not so bad if your prepared. Just think about it, what if you had no shovel, no lighter, no extra gas, no extra dry gloves and hat, no food , no water, and last but not least NO CHANCE. So I would like everyone to check to make sure you and your buddies have survival gear, if you don’t think you need it what if your in the epic deep and your buddies sled breaks down and you cant pull him out, then you realize you cant get out with both of you on a sled what then, to make things worse now your sled blows a belt or fowls a plug or just quits what then. Be prepared you know it may never happen but if it does you will feel a lot better making the decision to stay. All of my buddies are getting a survival pack together now so what if you add an extra 5 lb on your sled you’ll appreciate it when you need it. I would like to thank Carbon county search and rescue as well as the Laramie sheriffs office for taking our wives calls all night and most of the morning, also the guys who just showed up to help someone out. Anyway just thought this story may push a couple people into checking over there survival gear to make sure all is good and they have everything they need. If we didn’t have a lighter all of my wooden matches that are in the waterproof container shook around so long there was no sulfur on the tips. I am sure there are many stories out there that may have had the missing pieces and made the night a lot worse than ours but I just wanted to bring it up since you don’t read much about stuff like this.
--------------------
If you hunt go to www.FriscoSpices.com
Great thread. I picked up one of these snobunje kits a few years ago, and it never leaves my sled. I carry other essential gear in my pack, but at least I know I have a minimal kit always on my sled in case I forget or lose something. It packs in a 2x8 tube, to it stays together and dry under my seat. I hadn't heard of the cotton balls/vaseline idea before, I'll be making some for my pack. Thanks to everyone for posing their experiences.
http://www.snobunje.com/store.php?crn=66&rn=284&action=show_detail
I also started carrying a stainless steel canteen. Much easier to melt snow directly in the bottle than trying to melt snow on your shovel and pour it into a bottle. The stainless steel canteen is also virtually indestructible.
http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/t...h/search-box.jsp.form1&_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1
http://www.snobunje.com/store.php?crn=66&rn=284&action=show_detail
I also started carrying a stainless steel canteen. Much easier to melt snow directly in the bottle than trying to melt snow on your shovel and pour it into a bottle. The stainless steel canteen is also virtually indestructible.
http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/t...h/search-box.jsp.form1&_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1
One thing I haven't seen mentioned here is carrying an MRE (Meal Ready to Eat). I bought a few cases of them when I joined search and rescue. I always carry one or two in my search pack, my flight bag, and of coarse in my sled pack. It comes with a high calorie meal, electrolite mix for your drinking water, instant coffee, sugar, salt, a fork, ect. You can also buy chemical heaters for them, just add water and in a few minutes you have a warm meal. My pack has a camel back in it which is very handy.
N
nuggetau
Well-known member
Man, no wonder my pack weighs so much, I am carrying 95% of everything listed above.
I went thru a mental inventory to see what I carried that wasn't listed............ Painkillers. A moderate version like Tylenol or Advil for the minor injuries, but you also want a few Demerol/morphine derivatives in there for the broken bone or injury that tylenol will not touch.
I went thru a mental inventory to see what I carried that wasn't listed............ Painkillers. A moderate version like Tylenol or Advil for the minor injuries, but you also want a few Demerol/morphine derivatives in there for the broken bone or injury that tylenol will not touch.
couple of things, i carry a good down parka, it's easily compressed into a very small stuff sack; weighs less than 2 lbs, but when put on under my gore-tex shell, i have some serious insulation for body core.....second is a good quality water bottle with a good sealing lid, i kept my wife and i alive when we were hit with a blizzard in the wind river mtns in the summer....i heated some water to the boiling point, filled the bottles and put them inside our light-weight summer sleeping bags....the heat lasted the whole night...part of the problem of spending a night, is there will be someone or more of the riders who don't have the proper clothing for an over-niter....the hot water bottle inside the coat will let them stay warm without sacrificing the safety of everyone else...
One quick note about the pre-packaged survival kits...I was out with my wife last year and we decided (like many have said on here) to practice making a fire and shelter. One thing I learned was that the matches in the kit did not work! I had two separate types of kits with me and the second one the matches worked perfectly. Just a reminder to make sure your stuff works...making the assumption that it does may or may not work out for you!
starting a fire on top of the snow.
Starting a fire on top of snow can be tricky, if you don't do something very simple.
Most fires go tinder, kindling, bigger wood, logs. typically in that order.
What i do is lay a layer of bigger wood on top of the snow. than place your tinder on top of the bigger wood. this allows the tinder to light with out, melting the snow under neath the tinder. Once your tinder is lit, add kindling.
Now the real question to you guys who know how to start fires. Do you prefer the teepee method or the log cabin method of stacking you kindling on top of the tinder?
I have used moss, dried leaves pine needles etc for tinder. Some of the best tinder has been egg crates. Take a paper egg crate. Fill the place where the eggs go with cotton dryer lint. Take a pound of wax\parafin and melt the wax down. pour the wax over the egg crate. LEt cool and cut into 12 pieces. Each one of those will burn for about 5 minutes. You can light them in a mud puddle and they will burn.
I like fire.
Starting a fire on top of snow can be tricky, if you don't do something very simple.
Most fires go tinder, kindling, bigger wood, logs. typically in that order.
What i do is lay a layer of bigger wood on top of the snow. than place your tinder on top of the bigger wood. this allows the tinder to light with out, melting the snow under neath the tinder. Once your tinder is lit, add kindling.
Now the real question to you guys who know how to start fires. Do you prefer the teepee method or the log cabin method of stacking you kindling on top of the tinder?
I have used moss, dried leaves pine needles etc for tinder. Some of the best tinder has been egg crates. Take a paper egg crate. Fill the place where the eggs go with cotton dryer lint. Take a pound of wax\parafin and melt the wax down. pour the wax over the egg crate. LEt cool and cut into 12 pieces. Each one of those will burn for about 5 minutes. You can light them in a mud puddle and they will burn.
I like fire.
Thanks for the good post. I wonder has anyone had pride get in the way, in that, thinking "ah we can get out" and waiting much longer to get youself situated? Also, I had seen a you tube video on snow cave that I found very helpful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOJQPz1s-1c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOJQPz1s-1c
I have a Wyoming saw that a I bought at cabelas a few years ago. Very durable and it collapses down so its easy to put into your pack. Much much better saw than the cheap plastic ones that are found in the shovel handles.
Now thats a snow cave!!!!!! Better than anything I have ever dreamed of making.
