Snow Caving in a BLIZZARD

This weekend started out with disappointment because our long planned snow caving adventure got snowed out! We had planned for a group of 20 people to go snow camping on Friday night, but the canyon was closed because of all the snow fall. We were bummed because we had rented all of the camping gear and gone grocery shopping for our big adventure. Luckily, there were still a few crazy ones (me included) that decided to get good use out of our plans and we went up on Saturday night instead. With 2 cars with 4 wheel drive we made it up the snowy canyon and our adventure began. It ended up being me and 4 of my roommates along with our friend Matt. Matt told us we were crazy for going, but I reminded him he was crazy taking 5 girls up camping in the canyon during a snow storm. All in all, the evening and night was a blast. We were resourceful and survived the night in the warmth of our little snow cave. This is definitely a story for my journal. Here are a few pictures from our camp trip in the blizzard:
Here is the cave all 6 of us slept in. We were snug as 6 bugs in a rug. I think a part of keeping warm in the cave is being stacked one right next to each other. Kelsey and I had fun digging out this cave and were proud to call it our camp.

Here is a picture of our "shanty" shelter we set up for cooking dinner (delicious chicken and beef fajitas) and for keeping our gear dry as we shoveled out our cave. We actually found this neat ski-sled up at our camp buried in the snow.

Kelsey and I in the shanty. I know we look like marshmellow woman... and we felt that way too because we had so many layers on.

The snow never stopped falling from when we arrived in the evening to when we left in the morning. Here are two more of my roommates, Gen and Suzie.

We had to carry all of our gear and food in on sleds. It was about a 1/2 mile hike in, but that 1/2 mile sure feels longer when you are tromping through a foot or two of snow.

This is the whole group right after our satisfying dinner. You can see the blizzardy snow surrounding us. I don't know how Matt got so lucky to spend a night with us 5 girls... or how we got so lucky to have him as our boyscout and snow caving guide. Overall we had a great time and made some great memories.