Thanks Ladies!

Have you ever wondered what three girls do late at night in a snow cave in the dead of winter?

Here is video to give you a glimpse into our world. This video was taken around, oh let's say 10pm but the same footage could have been captured around 3am.



We did have a great time, sleeping wasn't easy but I never sleep well the first night of camping, so I figure that had we stayed another night we would have slept quite nicely. There was a full moon that lit up the world outside the cave. We took moonlit strolls for a bit before bed, the world was so beautiful.

The hardest part of the whole night was going to sleep. The second hardest part was getting out of a mummy bag, finding shoes, squeezing ones tired body through the tiny entrance and crawling out the tunnel to use the little girl's room. When one little girl has to leave the snow cave in the middle of the night, naturally it follows that the others will have to leave too.

From here the hole might not look so small.


But now you can see, once it is crammed full of person, that the hole is not the roomiest thing ever.

Queso had loads of fun too. I like that I got a nice tongue shot of her. She could navigate the tunnel and entrance quite easily, like the cave was made just for her. She took a few trips out and back during the night. We were worried that she was going to wander into another cave and scare the occupants.


This was a snapshot of the ceiling. We couldn't see it when the lights were off, but I think I hit my head on it enough times to know it existed.

Morning shows itself only through the doorway. Those caves are dark. I never would have guessed that morning had come if it hadn't been for the stirring of my companion. I had just gotten to sleep when it was time to wake up.


Apparently the snow drift we chose to sleep in is a highly sought after location for boy scouts all over Cache Valley. We dug our caves on Wednesday with the intent to sleep in them on Friday night. When we got up there Friday evening there was almost no place to park, we got a little nervous and could not imagine where all the occupants of the trucks and cars would be sleeping in this neck of the woods if not in our snow cave. We took our little hike to the cave and found that indeed a whole troop of boy scouts were preparing to sleep in our snow caves. It took a bit of discussion and talk to remind them of snow cave property rights. He who digs gets first dibs. But in all fairness, we should have left notes in all the caves with the date of our use. Luckily there were plenty of caves in the drift for the other boys to use, those caves were a little older and needed a small amount of renovating to make them live-able. In the end everyone had a place to call home. (But I think it is kind of strange for a boy scout troop to do a snow cave trip and not dig one's own cave. They got up there after dark planning on using caves already built, had they built them that same night they would have dug until after 10pm. What is the scouting program teaching the kids if not how to build a snow cave?)

These are my tips to those who may go next year, or even this year (as long as you aren't backpacking into some remote location):
Take two, or three, sleeping bags.
Don't put hay or straw in your cave, no matter how great an idea it seems.
Take a sled.
Have enough room to put your boots, jacket and snow pants near where you sleep.
Take a DVD player to watch scary movies late at night when you can't sleep.