Demeljoch

[Cloggie66]

On December 13th and 14th 2008, Robert and I went for our first Igloo of the season. We traveled south from Munich, Southern Germany and after about an 1,5 hour drive we stopped at the Sylvensteinspeicher, a reservoir in the Bavarian Foothills of the Alps. We hiked up in southern direction from the parking lot at 800m / 2625ft and around 1:00PM and at ±1450m / 4757ft we stopped and started our build. Because I am 6'5" we made a 9' to accommodate the 2 of us and our gear. The build started out smooth, but since we only had 35cm / 14" of fresh powder to work with, things got difficult from the 6th ring onward. Blocks started collapsing at ring 6; ring 7 was very hard to build (the snow did not compact properly and would just sprinkle down after removing the IceBox). Ring 8 was almost impossible. The roof kept collapsing. In the end we just left the pole with Inner Panel up to support the snow. And that did the trick; when we removed the Inner Panel the next morning, the igloo had set nicely and we were able to climb on top! Because we had only 35cm / 14" of snow, digging a trench was not possible, so we closed the opening with a backpack. Sleeping was good, especially on my new Exped DownMat 9 DLX sleeping mat. 9cm / 3.5" of sleeping comfort till -38°C / -15°F!

[Igloo Ed]

The build started out smooth, but since we only had 35cm / 14" of fresh powder to work with, things got difficult from the 6th ring onward. Blocks started collapsing at ring 6; ring 7 was very hard to build (the snow did not compact properly and would just sprinkle down after removing the IceBox). Ring 8 was almost impossible. The roof kept collapsing. In the end we just left the pole with Inner Panel up to support the snow. And that did the trick; when we removed the Inner Panel the next morning, the igloo had set nicely and we were able to climb on top!

Glad to hear you had a good time, the area sure looks nice.
A couple pointers on the blocks breaking problem. One is the loose snow that is laying all around the igloo. That is some very good snow to work with once it's been walked on. Here's a thread on gathering the snow: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16
That should help and then the blocks breaking and sprinkling down tells me that the blocks are being broken while building them. Here's a thread on how to fill and pack the higher blocks: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=13
"Packing snow to snow, not snow to form" is important.
I hope you keep learning and it gets easier.
Welcome to the forum.