Snow can actually make winter survival in the wilderness easier.
The 37 students at the Westwide Snow School in Tahoe City learned that the hard way earlier this month as they dragged old Christmas trees, brush and logs to make shelters to spend the night in.
Normally, the students would be sleeping in comfortably insulated snow caves as part of their lessons.
Snow surveyors from across the West attended the course Jan. 8-13 at Granlibakken Resort to learn survival techniques, avalanche awareness and surveying.
The school happens once a year at rotating resorts in various western states.
The year it happened to be in Tahoe is the first year in decades they haven't had any snow.
"I'm in a T-shirt for God's sakes," said Brian Horner, a survival instructor who's come down from Alaska to teach at Westwide for the last 16 years. "I've never seen anything like this."
The Westwide training is exclusively for snow surveyors who work for or are contracted by the government. Though the snow was missing, the skills taught at the school are still applicable, Horner said.
"What we try to teach primarily is safety," said Westwide instructor and National Resource Conservation Service snow survey supervisor Randy Julander. "The job we do has higher consequences if something does go wrong."
Sometimes with the assistance of snowmobiles or helicopters, snow surveyors have to measure snowpack miles into the wilderness.
If a problem does occur on the job, surveyors need to know how to survive on their own in arctic conditions, Julander said.
One of the lessons of the school is to teach students how to build a snow cave and have them spend a night in it.
The Westwide students still had to spend a night in the outdoors, but without the insulating power of snow.
Nathan Lurie, a snow surveyor in Elko, dug into a dirt hillside using a snow shovel.
He created a structure frame from branches and used old Christmas trees — substituted for real trees one would cut down in a survival situation — and pine needles to cover his shelter.
Dan Garrigue, a fellow student who does snow surveying in the Kings Range, covered the end holes of his tent-like tarp shelter.
"I've slept in a snow cave before," Garrigue said. "It's definitely warmer than this will be. It stays around 32 degrees."
Other lessons included learning the difference between white gas and butane stoves, the burning capacity of chicken nuggets and how to make mukluk boots from snowmobiles.
"This is all pretty normal stuff in Alaska," Horner said as he stomped around in an improvised boot he'd made of plastic and foam.
The group also learned how to identify avalanche danger and how to rescue people caught in an avalanche.
Granlibakken even blew some snow for the students to work on their surveying techniques.
Even without snow to work with, the group seemed to be enjoying themselves.
There's a lot to teach about survival that doesn't necessarily rely on the physical conditions, Julander said.
"Quite frankly, survival is a mental attitude just as much as a physical condition," he said. "What we're trying to teach here is not only the physical skills, but the mental and emotional pieces, as well."
___
Information from: Tahoe Daily Tribune, http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/
