Cooped Up? Get Uncooped.

 An informational tale...

“I’m going to dig my own grave,” I announced. None of the other people clustered around the fire looked alarmed. In fact, a few of them smiled.

It was late afternoon on Saturday, February 11^th, at a campsite on Boulder Lake in northern Minnesota. The others were fellow college students. We were out here for a night of winter camping. Snow trenches, or, more evocatively, “snow coffins,” are body-sized holes you dig out of the snow to sleep in. The side walls block the wind and the ground acts as an insulator.

I wanted my snow coffin ready before dark, so I dragged myself away from the fire, yanked the shovel from its upright perch in the snow, and marched into the woods.

That morning, seven groups of students from an outdoor skills class, led by students from the "Teaching Outdoor Skills" class and supervised by a professor and a grad student, drove thirty-odd minutes north from Duluth to Boulder Lake. We parked and donned skis and snowshoes. Then we trekked across the frozen lake, carrying packs and hauling gear sleds called pulks, to campsites where we would spend the night.

My group, Group 7, was assigned to Site 7.

(Coincidence? I think not.)

Site 7 was a clearing – actually a bay – blanketed with cattail-pierced snow. Aspen, cedar, pine, and spruce trees sheltered it from the wind.

The stillness made fire-building easy. This was important.

Winter camping is all about warmth. You move constantly to stay warm. You eat constantly to maintain energy stores. And, if you’re Group 7, you build a fire and spend much of the afternoon and evening standing around it.

We were fond of our fire.

Perhaps too fond. In 24 hours, we accidentally melted four Nalgenes, a boot sole, a bumper sticker, two Ziploc bags and a tube of chapstick.

But back to snow coffins. They’re quick, easy shelters that can keep you just as warm as quinzee huts.

(Our group didn’t build a quinzee, but some did. Basically, you pack down a massive pile of snow and dig out a sort of burrow in the middle.)

For my snow coffin, I dug a depression roughly six feet long, three feet wide, and a foot deep. Then I returned to the fire and melted part of my right boot.

Around 8 p.m., when darkness fell and my eyelids drooped, I used the burrito method. That is, I tucked a tarp into my coffin, laid my pads and extreme-cold-weather sleeping bag in the middle, climbed in, and folded the tarp around myself. Snow would stay out, heat would stay in.

I didn’t sleep alone. Joining me in the bag were the following items:

wool sweater

fleece jacket

chemical hand warmers (3)

Nalgene (full of hot water)

wool socks (4 pairs)

mittens

boot liners

headlamp

digital camera

Milky Way Midnight bar (for quick energy in case I woke up cold)

It was crowded in there. Good thing I’m short.

The next morning, we inhaled hot cocoa and hash brown sandwiches. We packed, filled in our graves, put out the fire, buried the ashes, and then left camp.

The whole class reassembled at 10:30 a.m. for a wrap-up.

The professor began the discussion by talking about the skills we had learned and mistakes we had made. “There’s no shame in melting,” he said. “If you winter camp, sooner or later you will melt something.”

The members of Group 7 smiled.

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• campfires