Wiffle igloo!

[Banff Martin]

Long story short, the Town decided the igloo was an liability risk and insisted I take it down. I conveyed that the walls were in fact not thin, but someone's mind was made up. Before taking it down however, I decided to get creative with it, and carved a series of square holes in the walls & roof. This was the 3rd day of above freezing temps and following the 2nd night of same (heat wave #3). While of course I was disappointed in this turn of events, at the same time this has been a lousy winter and I was getting tired of the # of hours spent reinforcing the walls from the series of heat waves.

I might have tried to get even more creative with this, but I couldn't leave the igloo as the snow was relatively soft and it was during a long weekend in our tourist town; the roof supported my weight before I cut holes, but I doubted it would after and especially not the wind-thinned West/SW side. It would be just too tempting to climb.

I also took a short video while walking around the inside plus from the inside. It was a neat way of showing the space with the walls still 'up'. In the 'Facing East' pic, the small hole above is the original air hole, and the entrance trench can just be seen at the bottom of the pic.

The walls were 6-8" thick due to my repairs, and far thicker near the bottom 3 levels due to how much extra I put there. The final snow was made more of slush than normal snow, so it was stronger when frozen than the day it was built. The pad was maintained as well to insulate the igloo. Part of the repair process was making the igloo climb-resistant by smoothing down the walls & ensuring there were no handholds possible. When the slushy material froze, one could not get more than a couple steps up the pad without slipping off (I watched).

Many lessons learned, including transportation of 'repair' snow-slush from nearby parking lots via wheelbarrow. =)

[Igloo Ed]

Well, that igloo had a long life considering the weather and all the visitors.
It's also pretty amazing how it held it's shape and apparently height too. The shape can easily be seen with all the holes you cut through the walls. It looks like a piece of art to me.
I'll finally get up to build a camp igloo the last weekend of Feb. We've been getting some snow in the high peaks recently and the conditions should be great.
Hope you get some more winter and a chance to build another one for yourself.

[Banff Martin]

I think its keeping its height after the initial heat wave sag of about 1' was due to the use of week-old snow that had self-compressed down to half its original height on the ground. After the first heat wave it just couldn't compress any more.

our weird weather continues... I have my doubts about another igloo locally this season, but I won't rule it out.

Glad to hear you'll have a building opportunity soon!

[Banff Martin]

Now that Photobucket hosts videos I can share the 1m 18s video of the outside & inside of the wiffle igloo:
http://vid1276.photobucket.com/albums/y ... p4yh1i.mp4

[Igloo Ed]

Cool effect with all the openings and it being a video.
I suppose it came down pretty easy when you did knock it down.

[Banff Martin]

The West side was easy as the wind had eroded it to only an inch or two thick. The rest put up a fight and I almost hurt myself striking it; with so many repairs using near-slush snow the wall was more like ice than snow and was very hard. As you can see from these other photos, the walls were still fairly thick. =) (I destroyed the remaining arch over the entrance for safety after the photo)

The remains didn't melt away in place. The Town used equipment to shove most of it off into the grass to speed things along. Even after that there was a couple inches left of the pad that they also had to help along. No sun to speed it away.

I'll miss not having an igloo I can see from my living room, though the campus one should need less cleaning...

[Igloo Ed]

They should put in a circular flower bed for the igloo to set on. It'd have lots of water in the spring.
Cool pics.