Snow Fort

A Snow Fort Ready for a Fight

Materials:

Shovel

3 Sticks

10 x 10 foot tarp

A lot of snow

Construction:

Picking a Location:

The first step in any construction project is picking the location. In the case of a snow fort, this location must be one that has plenty of snow in order to create the structure. In addition to this access to snow, it is preferable that the location is on the side of a hill or a spot where a mound of snow has already been built up. This will make it easier to construct since parts of the structure will already be done. 

For my snow fort. I decided to create it on the side of a hill since there were not any large snow piles that I could utilize that were near my house. The hill I chose was backed by a large rock face that I could use as 1 of the 4 sides that I needed to make the structure.

Before:

Building up the Walls:
After deciding on a location, I began building up the three walls I needed to enclose the area. I started by doing a basic layout of the structure without little snow piles. Once the area was marked and I had made a decision on where I wanted the door, I began shaping the piles into walls that I could pile more snow on top of. While the bottoms of the walls did not take much time at all to make, it became exponentially harder as a tried to make them taller. Eventually, I built them up to an adequate height of about 3.5 ft and started mounting the tarp.

Mounting the Tarp:
In order to mount the tarp, I found 3 sticks in the woods that I could use to allow the tarp to sit on in the front of the structure. Then, I tied two corners of the tarp to the trees that were on the top of the rock face so that the tarp would not be blown away by the wind. Next, I placed the tarp over the three sticks, allowing it to fall, covering the rest of the structure. Finally, I took the two remaining corners of the tarp and buried them in the snow to secure the tarp in place.

After:

Outside:

Inside: