Snow Forts... Not My "Fort"e
By: Shaila Murthy
When we were assigned this project, I initially planned to do a full-sized snow fort, by building it from scratch (the snow banks in my neighborhood would not be big enough to build a properly sized fort). I soon realized this would take me an extremely long time to do on my own, and being outside in the single digit weather for that long was not a good idea. So, I decided to scale mine down to 1/4 the size. I estimated the average height for a human being to be around 5'6"-8" (I may err on the side of shortness... it's just who I am), so I decided to make my fort equivalent to seven feet tall, so that someone could comfortably stand inside of it (now you see why the idea of building a full-scale one was not going to work out, I am really not that talented). I also wanted it to be wide enough for someone to be able to lay down inside of it, so I decided it should be equivalent to six feet in width and depth. Scaled down, this means my fort had to be 1'9" ft. tall, and 1'6" ft. wide and deep. Once I figured this out, I bundled up and headed out side to try and build it from scratch... and miserably failed.
When we were assigned this project, I initially planned to do a full-sized snow fort, by building it from scratch (the snow banks in my neighborhood would not be big enough to build a properly sized fort). I soon realized this would take me an extremely long time to do on my own, and being outside in the single digit weather for that long was not a good idea. So, I decided to scale mine down to 1/4 the size. I estimated the average height for a human being to be around 5'6"-8" (I may err on the side of shortness... it's just who I am), so I decided to make my fort equivalent to seven feet tall, so that someone could comfortably stand inside of it (now you see why the idea of building a full-scale one was not going to work out, I am really not that talented). I also wanted it to be wide enough for someone to be able to lay down inside of it, so I decided it should be equivalent to six feet in width and depth. Scaled down, this means my fort had to be 1'9" ft. tall, and 1'6" ft. wide and deep. Once I figured this out, I bundled up and headed out side to try and build it from scratch... and miserably failed.
It's not the clearest picture, however this is what my first attempt looked like... a roughly five-inch deep hole in the snow in my backyard. After about ten minutes of attempting to create walls, I realized my efforts were in vain. The snow in my yard would not stick together, no matter how hard I tried, and unless I wanted to destroy a bush or climb a tree, I had no branches or leaves available to me either. So, I changed my plans a bit. I decided to use a snow bank in my front yard as my base, and away I began to dig.
Here is my progress after about fifteen minutes or so... small hands plus waterproof gloves that are about two sizes too large equals very slow progress.
After over thirty minutes of digging, a drive-by from a neighbor who detailed his and his wife's adventures living in Alaska, and successfully freezing my kneecaps from accidentally getting snow on them, I finished digging my snow fort. The final touch was to put in my sheet of plastic as protection from the cold, snowy floor of the cavernous fort. However, since a tarp would have been far too big, and I seemed to lack other forms of sheets of plastic, I improvised....
...With a trash bag! The title really makes sense now! My snow fort was 1'9" tall, 1'6" wide, and 1'6" in depth. It is certainly not the most comforting or inviting fort, however if some tiny eskimos got lost I think they'd be alright. From this project, I learned that I am not good at building snow forts, and my fingers are (tragically) even worse at retaining heat.
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