Winter Survival Shelter: The snow trench

It has been snowing since yesterday morning, and seeing as this is the first real snow we have gotten this winter I decided to make a snow trench.

The snow trench is a short term, quick to build shelter.  It consists of 3 walls made from packed snow, with a roof over top.  The roof can be made by laying long branches on top of the walls, and then covering with pine boughs or a tarp.  Snow is a good insulator, so as more accumulates on top of the shelter it will become warmer.  With this shelter heat is lost mainly through the door, but that can be fixed by lighting a fire in front of the shelter. 

I was building in my backyard and didn't want to harvest a pile of pine boughs just for this project.  So I cheated and used a survival blanket for the roof instead.  I also used some boards I had lying around as rafters, because I didn't have enough long sticks to do the job.  I also used a snow shovel, but one could easily use a snowshoe, rubbermaid lid, or the plastic plate from a backpack instead.  However, if you are making this shelter because your vehicle is stuck in the snow somewhere then you should have a snow shovel anyway.

To make the shelter dig a trench just a little bigger than your body when you are lying down.  Pile the snow from the trench around you to make three walls.

Next, make the walls higher by piling snow from around the shelter onto them.

Once you have piled up and packed the snow into solid walls it will be time to put the bed in.  If you have a sleeping pad then use that, if not then put down a layer of conifer boughs.  These boughs from a Christmas tree.

Once the beds made it's time to put on the rafters.  I used 4 pieces of wood I had lying around.  To make the roof good and strong you really need more material than I used.  Next time I will aim for a rafter spacing of 10'' or less.  Putting small sticks on top of the rafters will make the roof even stronger.

Once you're happy with the rafters, put on your covering, be it pine or plastic.  The wind can be problematic if your using a tarp or something similar, so be sure to have weights ready to pin it down.  Once the covering is on it will look something like this.  If it is likely to snow more later, then save energy and don't bother piling snow on top of the roof.  An added bonus to letting nature do the work is that the gradual accumulation of snow is less stressful on the rafters.

Obviously you would need a door, or a fire in front of the shelter.  The shiny foam pads that you put in car windshields would work well as a door, or a sleeping pad.  If you are backpacking then pulling your pack into the door may work.