Snow Caving

I got the opportunity to help out the scouts on a winter camp out. Matt and I thought we were going as support on Thursday to build the snow caves, but it turned out that we were the only adults with the four scouts. We went up to The Spruces camp ground in Big Cottonwood Canyon. We hiked in a ways to find a good spot, Matt and I with our snowshoes and the boys trying to not make too many post holes in the snow. We spent about 3 hours piling the snow for two caves and started digging out one of the caves. We had to go shortly after it got dark. Friday we gathered again with the boys along with two more blazer scouts and three leaders. The work began again on the caves. Four boys slept in one, Matt, Jaden and I slept in the other, one leader had a tent and rest slept wrapped up like burritos in tarps. The meals of evening ranged from tin foil dinners, chili, a Quizno's sandwich, and I had black bean tamale pie (freeze-dried). It was actually one of the best freeze-dried meals I've ever had. I had to wake up early in order to go to our second child birth class. The ironic part is that I did not sleep much at all. The cave was warm but I just could not get comfortable. When I slid out of the cave at 5:30 in the morning, it had snowed a couple of inches and was still snowing. The weather was really nice, never dipping below freezing. Which is not best conditions for snow caves. They settled and melted a bit during the night. The overnighter was a lot fun and I'm gald I had the chance to help out. Here are some more pictures.