The best one I know about in the snow is learning how to dig a snow cave. There are many ways you can do this to survive a bad situation but the best that I know of is to dig into the side of a snow bank horizontally. It's better if you have a plastic Ground cloth and a Sleeping bag and a candle to stay warm.
It's amazing just how much warmth you can get from a candle if you hold your hand where it is warm but doesn't burn your hand. Between a sleeping bag and a candle often you can bring the temperature up in the snow cave to around 50 degrees. But, any more than that and your cave starts melting and pooling. So, learning how to conserve warmth while not melting your shelter from the cold and wind is the real trick here.
Also, you have to be able to breathe fresh enough air in order to not suffocate while you are asleep in a snow cave too. Everyone is different and it depends upon what altitude you are at in this snow cave too on how much air (oxygen) you need to let in to make sure you can breathe enough fresh air to survive the night. If you are awake you can often tell if there isn't enough air and maybe stick your head out of the cave to get more air or make a little hole where the hotter air can exit above you and some inlet of air closer to the floor of your snow cave.
However, in 1970 a snow cave saved my life and the lives of my two climbing buddies from college.
At the time, I knew nothing about Snow Caves that you built with skis or snow shoes where you use the skis or snow shoes like shovels shoveling out your cave to survive the night temperatures or any time of the day or night when you are in a white out or low temperatures where you need emergency shelter from the cold cold wind.
One of my climbing buddies had just taken a snow survival course at Sacramento State university where he attended so when we got into a white out blizzard on Mt. Shasta between Bunny Flat and Horse Camp Sierra club emergency Climbers lodge we realize we were in trouble. This was in 1970 when I was in college in that era and there were no GPS handhelds going to be invented or available for likely 20 years or more at that time where we could have actually found a way to navigate out of this white out on Mt. Shasta from a heavy blizzard. Also, we all were about 20 to 22 years of age and used to taking a lot of risks like many young men then and were sort of clueless just how dangerous what we were doing was until it was sort of too late.
So, the friend who knew how to build a snow cave for shelter helped us learn to use our snow shoes as shovels as a last ditch effort to survive the night in the white out. However, I had only at that time an army surplus world war II Army sleeping bag and not even a ground cloth so during that night I almost froze to death without a plastic Ground cloth to keep me and my bag from melting snow into ice cold water. Also, an air mattress or foam of some kind to act as insulation would be helpful between your plastic ground cloth and sleeping bag. And of course a candle will help you not only warm up your body through your hand but help you read something if you want to too to help you through the night to survive whatever you are going through at the time.
The next morning I was the closest to the doorway to the snow cave. Unfortunately, 3 or more feet of snow had fallen on top of the snow cave during the night. So, as I started to dig us out because I was on the doorway side of the cave we had dug I started to panic when I didn't find the edge of the snow because of all the newly fallen snow. Also, I had been convulsively shaking all night because I was wet from melted snow and no ground cloth and no air mattress or foam between me and the snow. So, finally three feet of digging later I finally broke through to the surface of the snow.
However, we realized then we were in about 3 to 4 feet of powder snow on top of another 2 to 3 feet of more packed snow. Then, instead of freezing to death in the wet levi Jeans we wore that were wet from melting snow, since it was about 20 degrees out our pants froze solid except at the knees and hips which actually provided enough insulation so we actually could survive this situation and not just die there.
But, as we tried to head back to the my car which was a 1966 VW Bug Seablue in Color with a white interior we found out that one of us had to lead while packing down the powder snow or even with snow shoes we would fall in. So, each step one of us had to pack down three times before we could move forward. So, we took turns packing down and being in front as it was exhausting to do this for the mile or more back to the car even though it was mostly on the level or a little downhill.
When we reached the road we were not sure that this was the paved road we drove up on because the snow had drifted so much we couldn't be sure this was the road or not. Finally we decided to dig down through the 8 feet of drifted snow to see if this was the paved road or not. It was. So, actually digging down to make sure where we were also helped save our lives.
Then in the distance we heard the 10 foot tall or more snow blower headed towards us blowing snow on the way to the old Mt. Shasta Ski lift then that used to be above Panther Meadows in 1970. This also saved our lives because we knew some of the people who worked at the ski lift and were able to jump into their 4 wheel drive and warm up. They were angry at us for almost dying doing something stupid which is reasonable because they were late 20s and early 30s. So, we understood that they were afraid that they almost lost us to the mountain snows. So, we rode up to the ski lift and went into the bathroom there and warmed out hands with the hot air blowers used for drying hands which worked great to be able to feel our hands and fingers again.
Then we got a ride down with someone to where our car was and the snow blower had moved most of the snow around our car so we could then dig it out. All I could see of our car was the little Aerial sticking up a few inches and nothing else before we dug it out. I was glad the snow Blower hadn't chewed up my car also while clearing that parking area.
We then drove down and got a room at the Lemurian Lodge (it isn't called that anymore) but was then. We stayed there taking turns getting into the bath tub and thawing out for 3 or 4 days because we were suffering from exposure. Today I think most people would go to the hospital in the fix we were in but people were different then than today.
Then all my joints hurt for about 3 ro 4 years until they settled down. The only long lasting effect is that I cannot always sense what temperature my body is even all these years later now that I'm 75. But, this not being able to tell how hot or cold I am started with almost freezing to death in 1970 during Christmas Vacation.
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