Has anyone seen one of these things or heard of their use in NZ. http://www.grandshelters.com/ I always say I have retired from snow but I could probably be enticed back if there was an easy way to build a snow shelter.
Never tried this, but looks good fun!
I'm just wondering how it deals with the different qualities of snow you can encounter.
New Zealand snow is quite wet due to our maritime climate which has usually made igloo construction a bit problematical here. I suspect the icebox will work better with continental snow.
Just had an email reply from Ed Huesers from Grandshelters
Hi Peter,
The only testimonial we have from NZ is a bad one, it was in the
beginning, some 11 years ago, and our manual and video sucked. He also
said his friends were more interested in drinking beer.
You are correct though that your snow would work well when it is
fresh/wet. The trouble is when/if it freezes. Then it needs to be broken
up and it turns into TG snow which requires a very delicate packing
technique. If you can make a snow/slush ball, it'll work great.
It happens on the west coast here. People use them for years,
enjoying the easy packing of the wet snow, then one trip they'll go and
it is frozen/cold and they struggle to build an igloo. Because they have
always had wet snow, they don't know the packing/feeling to pack the
delicate snows.
I am in Colorado and I have built igloos into summer with the hard
snow left over from and avalanche. It was very warm out and we shaved
1/2 inch thick sheets off the surface of the snow. If the snow had been
any harder, we couldn't have shaved the layers off. It was very
wet/oozing with water and dense. We packed the sheets into the form
while breaking them up. That was a lot of work for the packer as the
sheets were hard/tough.
Hope that explains it,
Ed Huesers
Http://www.grandshelters.com
Signed up to reply a bit.
Our spring snow storms here in Colorado are very wet and consolidate fast enough that it can be walked on with boots in a few days.
All the different types of snow work it is just that they all have different techniques in gathering and packing the snow.
It is usually a lot of work the first time before the techniques are learned but I hardly work up a sweat building the igloos. I also stay dry and don't pull/strain any muscles like one does digging a snowcave.
Every year I do a spring trip and this years trip had us building an igloo on a glacial knob where we used a few different layers of snow with most of it hard enough to cut blocks for a traditional block igloo. Here a trip report: http://grandshelters.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=201
Fantastic pictures Ed. I like the picture of the igloo doorway with the nice neatly cut door way. I can see a lot of experience has gone into perfecting your style.
Photographs looked really good fantastic views from the doorway. I was watching Discovery channel the other night Ed a program on tracking down sasquatch i think youre photos of two having a snow fight are better than their grainy examples:)
Thanks Peter, the neat doorway and steps make it much easier to move around and also to clear any accumulated snow.
Here's a video we took inside the igloo that shows how the door is shaped inside: http://www.grandshelters.com/video/MVI_2507.mov
Very impressively symmetric and immaculate!
fruitbat's husband has taken advantage of the high NZ$ and ordered one of these. I have volunteered to help him try it out. provided we get some sno of course.
