Snow caves and snowshoes

[mikethepike]

Firstly snow caves and I am wondering if walkers ever use them in Tasmania in preference to tents or is the snow generally considered to be too ‘wet’ for comfortable snow cave dwelling?
A couple of us built a snow cave on the upper slopes of Cradle Cirque in 1971 and it was a damp but interesting experience. My friend’s li-lo leaked which ensured that both of us woke every hour on the hour – him to blow it up again and me to hear his loud protestations between puffs! One night was enough!
And does anyone make igloos? Just for fun, we built a small one at Windermere near the hut and big enough for two to curl up in (though no one did). That effort was inspired by a terrific photo in ‘Rucksack’ (a late 60’s small bl&wh national publication) which portrayed a night scene of a flaring ‘rocket fire’ battle between two neighbouring igloos in the Kosciusko area!

And now for snow shoes. Does anyone use them in Tasmania? It seems that people walking the Overland Track in winter take neither snow shoes nor cross country skis as the snow isn’t deep enough or in places where it is, they just put up and plough on through. If they we’re helpful, snowshoes would be the preferred option I think as they are no trouble to carry where there is little or no snow (say on the southern end of the track) and some rocky parts of the track could be quite tough on skis. Both my winter trips to the OT were with home-made cane snowshoes (MUMC pattern) and both trips would have been far harder without them because of the deep and sometimes soft snow or braking crust.

Just to finish on a funny story, I was the only one of our party unable to put my snowshoes on at Windermere Hut because they alone had leather bindings which froze overnight (we’d already packed up before I realised this) so while the others steamed way ahead, I was left to struggle in the rear. There was a snow crust past Benson Peak and while the others left barely a trace of their passage, I broke through the crust and plunged knee deep into soft snow at every step. What a trial breaking crust is! And what a blessed relief when I was finally able to pee on the bindings and get my snowshoes in harness! I shouted like a maniac and practically ran after the others, such was my glee!

I hope both these topics generate some interest. Thanks. Mike

[Azza]

Many years ago in college we built several snow caves and an Igloo up on Ben Lomond.

Then a few years ago a mate and I cross country skied and snow caved up in the Walls of Jerusalem, over the back near the Pencil Pine Forest.
The general problem these days is that the snow is almost always melting with marginal temperatures.
and it doesn't hang around very long at the best of times, we're only a day or two after a big dump.
We ended up carrying the ski's almost the whole way into the walls, as there wasn't any decent cover until out near Dixon Kingdom.

Out there the snow depth with a couple of metres, and we made quite a decent cave on the side of the Temple overlooking the forest.
But the temperatures being a bit warm the roof kept sinking, so we ended up sleeping with our heads out of the opening
on the fear that the whole thing would bury us alive.
Infact by the morning the roof has pretty much come down 20cm or so and was pinned on my shoulder.

We had heaps of fun skiing through the forest dodging trees the next day.

These days I have a pair of 1m long snow blades which I attached to plastic mountaineering boots.
I've found these to be more practical solution for Tasmania, effectively they're a cross between snow shoes and ski's, with a lockable heel and climbing skins.
At least they're not so annoying and cumbersome, you can attach them to your pack and if you don't find any snow you don't look as silly as you would
dragging full length AT ski's around.

[Eott]

Mike your post reminded me of my one and only snowing caving experience. It was around '82or'83 up near Kitchen hut It was my mate's idea and I thought we'd end up in our tents for the night. There was a good depth of snow at the time snow level about 12" to 18" up the second story door of Kitchen Hut. My girlfriend [now wife] was on her maiden o/n walk , and we had one snowcave with a nice smooth rounded ceiling and a gutter around the base of the wall which drained away any water that dripped down the walls. My two mates had another cave , however they weren't as good friends as my wife and I, hence it was a little broader as a consequence by morning the ceiling had dipped in the middle and was only 18" high. It was quite a nice experience very quiet and comfortable as there is no wind and no flapping associated with a tent. It was on this occassion I became aware of how important an insulating mat was , I had a compressed foam mat and a good quality down bag and I slept OK but was cooler than I'd been before. My wife on the other hand had a dacron bag that was around at the time and had a great night's sleep I think because the dacron didn't compress as much.
On the snow shoes I wish we had taken some on the way in the snow had a firm crust and we only went in about boot depth. We took the face track out down thru the Ballroom Forest on the way out and we were waist deep in the snow all the way across the face really taxing stuff, particularly for my wife 5'6'' following 6 footers. I suppose snowcaving here wouldn't be allowed now as it is within the daywalking area.
It was a great experience that I haven't repeated only because the opportunity hasn't presented it's self. I susspect that although we still get the big dumps of snow they don't tend to stay around for as long.

Mark

[Ent]

Um? Snow and Tassie. The dreams of cruising on the top of snow in snowshoes came unstuck in the reality of the soft wet Tasmanian snow for me. My only decent experience was on a walk towards (not to as it turned out) Lake Meston. In some spots snow was minimal while in other very deep but all very soft. Snow shoes are good things to have, but forget Canadian imagines, image the Somme instead. Interesting though at night with a call a of nature I found I could walk across snow in slippers but in day light sunk even with snowshoes. I appreciated the Yowies more for the anti slip rather than the floatation aspect and brought a pair and plan to take them when ever snow is likely as bad as the experience was, without Yowies something tells me it would have been much worse.

Cheers Brett

[mikethepike]

It’s been really interesting to read the posts so far concerning snow caves and it’s giving me a much better picture of Tassie snow though it rather confirms my earlier thoughts. I never considered slumping ceilings though!
Eott wrote:

we had one snowcave with a nice smooth rounded ceiling and a gutter around the base of the wall which drained away any water that dripped down the walls.

We had the same experience and smoothed the rounded ceiling as you described so that no free falling drops ever had the chance to form.

Concerning snowshoes for the OT, I recall reading the experience of a solo walker with no snowshoes who did a N to S walk with shallow snow covering much of the track and which gave no real difficulty but he managed to get up only one of four or fives peaks (Barn Bluff) attempted because as he went higher on each approach, the snow just got deeper and the going too hard and slow.
On just what to wear on the feet, aljscot wrote:

These days I have a pair of 1m long snow blades which I attached to plastic mountaineering boots. I've found these to be more practical solution for Tasmania, effectively they're a cross between snow shoes and ski's, with a lockable heel and climbing skins.

t
What exactly are these snow blades alj? They remind me of one of the Park rangers saying in 1971 that two of them were at Pelion Hut when all that snow fell (see my original post) and while his mate had X-C skis to get out, he didn't, but managed to fashion something out of two lengths of wood used for hut repair.
Brett wrote

I appreciated the Yowies more for the anti slip rather than the floatation aspect and brought a pair and plan to take them when ever snow is likely as bad as the experience was, without Yowies something tells me it would have been much worse.

I had to google Yowies to see what they were and they look just the thing! And the bindings, I like. Unlike Yowies, our cane snowshoes had a single pivot point at the ball of the foot which was fine but on the days when we kept falling into bushes, I tied cords to the toe of each snowshoe and walked along holding the cords as if walking a couple of dogs! Most comical looking I'm sure but no-one was in sight apart from the party members. The idea was to help in retrieving them from the snow and not just leaving it all up to leg power or lack of.
When I started this topic, I wondered whether snowshoes and snow caves should be on the same post or not but I can now see that it is appropriate because if the snow is deep enough for caves, you’d certainly benefit from having something extra on your feet.

[JamesMc]

I used snow shoes on the OT last time, and was glad to have them, at least in the north. Snow varies tremendously in consistency as well as depth. Some can be easy to walk in without snow shoes, some can be incredibly difficult.

There's nothing worse than bad snow shoes though.

JamesMc

[mikethepike]

JamesMc wrote:

There's nothing worse than bad snow shoes though.

You're absolutlety right James. The guy I was with on my second OT trip did an obviously very rush job on his home-mades and the first thing he did when we got to Waldhein was to take them off and thrust them in the bin (and I mean thrust, it was to emphasize his disgust!) I wish I could find that very perceptive and funny articles from uni days where someone wrote a treatise on homemade snowshoes, everything from the rough and ready to the (the little bit I remember) 'mythical Mark IV Orange Outrage with full synchromesh and 3 speed gearing'.

[Azza]

On just what to wear on the feet, aljscot wrote:

These days I have a pair of 1m long snow blades which I attached to plastic mountaineering boots. I've found these to be more practical solution for Tasmania, effectively they're a cross between snow shoes and ski's, with a lockable heel and climbing skins.

t
What exactly are these snow blades alj? They remind me of one of the Park rangers saying in 1971 that two of them were at Pelion Hut when all that snow fell (see my original post) and while his mate had X-C skis to get out, he didn't, but managed to fashion something out of two lengths of wood used for hut repair.

Probably easier to explain with a few pictures.
The bindings have a standard crampon attachment, which works with plastic mountaineer boots as shown or even standard ski boots.
As mentioned the heel is lockable, i.e. they can swing free or be locked to the base for downhill.
I figured they were probably the best thing for Tassie, short enough to maneouvre around rocks on marginal snow cover.
As you can probably see the bases are a bit scratched...

Cheers

Aaron

[mikethepike]

Thanks for that the reply and the photos Aaron - most helpfull! That gear is new to me and they look ideal and while they obviously do the job, I wonder how they compare with Yowies or moderrn plastic/alloy snowshoes. Maybe I should give up fooling with bamboo cane shoes and the sometimes frustrations that tend to go with them.
cheers,
Mike

[corvus]

Thanks for that the reply and the photos Aaron - most helpfull! That gear is new to me and they look ideal and while they obviously do the job, I wonder how they compare with Yowies or moderrn plastic/alloy snowshoes. Maybe I should give up fooling with bamboo cane shoes and the sometimes frustrations that tend to go with them.
cheers,
Mike

Our Strollers Group have used Yowies to good effect they are expensive but light and easy to carry when not in use.
corvus

[Azza]

Thanks for that the reply and the photos Aaron - most helpfull! That gear is new to me and they look ideal and while they obviously do the job, I wonder how they compare with Yowies or moderrn plastic/alloy snowshoes. Maybe I should give up fooling with bamboo cane shoes and the sometimes frustrations that tend to go with them.
cheers,
Mike

Compared to the snow shoes - downhill you'd get an absolute flogging I reckon.
I have skiied them downhill at Ben Lomond, on the 4wd track at Mt Field, and across part of the Eliza Plateau.
The only things I've noticed (not being a particularly good skier - I'm a snowboarder..) is that due to their shorter length they're a
little more difficult to get the hang of at speed, but a lot of fun...

I'm looking forward to getting out on a few touring missions this winter if/when the snow happens.