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On the slopes.
The Outdoor Program trip to the Wallowas
attracted about 20 students including Greg
Gisaler and Pat Mueller. (photo by M.
Stewart)
Home lor the night.
To escape the winter breeze during the
night. Pat Mueller digs a snow cave for
shelter. Although the caves protected
students from the wind, they were soggy.
(photo by M. Stewart)
creating a SIX foot high face that
woUld serYe as the front wall of the
snow cave. At the bottom of the
wall, we dug straight back horizontally,
tunnellng in about three feet
or so for an entrance to our sleeping
quarters. The entrance tunnel
was only slightly wider than the people
who'd be entering through it -
definitely not a job for those suffering
extreme anxiety from
claustrophobia.
Once the entrance tunnel was
dug, we carved out a room that
would be large enough to sleep
three to five comfortably. The larger
the better, of course, but since time
was a factor, things were more
cramped than one would normally
tolerate. But no one seemed to mind
as "cheek-to-cheek" took on new
meanings in the cav.e. Besides, getting
to know folks with similar interests
is one of the aims of outdoor
program activities.
Inside the cave, we carved our
beds - which were more like
shelves - into the walls of the room
about waist high. They were higher
than the floor and the cave entrance,
so occupants would stay
warmer, since colder air traveled to
the lowest spots in the cave.
Snow is a wonderful insulator; the
Eskimos have known that for years.
They still make igloos in some of the
"uncivilized" areas of the frozen
North. Water freezes at 32 degrees
Farenheit, and when we dug down
into snow, the temperature became
constant, around 28-30 degrees.
That seems pretty warm if it happens
to be 0 degrees with a 20-mile-perhour
wind blowing on the surface.
A tent would seem like a flimsy ice
box under UJ,ose conditions.
In additiqp, sleeping in snow
caves introduces the unindoctrinated
to a sil-"UCA that is
aownright.serie. It's too quiet. Snow
seems to deaden sound better than
the highest quality acoustic tillng.
A person standing outside the cave
shouting, trying to be heard by someone
inside is in for a real exercise
in futility. From the inside, you
couldn't have heard a bomb blast
100 feet away. It could have been
snowing with a 50 mph wind howling
outside, and we wouldn't have
known the difference.
As we dug, we all got to experience
first hand a problem Rennie
had warned us about at our pretrip
meeting. Digging snow caves
means getting wet and there's no
way around it. Extra, dry clothing
is a necessity.
That damp apparel will not dry in
the cave, unless you sleep with the
damp items in your sleeping bag.
Some cave occupants - particularly
those who'd dug their caves in
fresher, less packed snow - had to
deal with dripping and slumping
ceillngs. In a couple of caves, dug
in more consolidated snow, the inside
glazed over quickly and dripping
was kept to a minimum.
However, as exhausted as most
folks were after spending the better
part of the day digging the caves,
a swamp probably would not have
been that uncomfortable.
But as Sunday morning dawned
bright and sunny, and as Rennie
made his rounds to see how well the
night went, there were even some
shouts of "fantastic" heard from a
couple of the caves. "Tolerable" was
the worst comment heard. We were
all believers. Mlke Stewart 0
36 Outdoor Program Trip