24 Hours Winter Camping in Dugout Survival Shelter

We are up in the mountains about 2,000ft above the highest town in the entire U.S. and yesterday we spent the day with two experts who taught us how to build a snow shelter on st. Whoa.

I'm still pretty nervous about tomorrow.

All right.

Our training is officially complete.

And today we're going to be attempting to build one all alone and survive the night in it.

I don't like this.

We've just come out into the middle of nowhere, dug a cave in the snow, and we're about to sleep in it.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Thank you.

This is gonna look very different tomorrow.

Happy Valentine's Day.

What are we doing?

You gotta be confident in your relationship to plan a date like this.

Oh, we ate this back at the house. 180. Almost exactly £40. That's not so bad.

I have no balance with this backpack on. Three hours later.

Three hours later. Oh, this is gonna be a workout.

We're doing it. This is actually the same road that we skinned up yesterday. But the 40 pound pack makes a world of difference. Plus, we're at 12,000ft, so kind of feels like you're breathing through a small stre after all. The air is thin. We're going somewhere way up there above what you can see.

If this weight keeps up, it's going to make for a cold day. Building snow shelter. Tiny bit of blue sky, trying to pick through. But it is a night and day difference between yesterday and today.

Little tougher than yesterday. Not going to lie, but I'm strong.

All right, so we've made it up on top of the mountain. The plan is to build our snow catch somewhere in this area. At this point, we're just looking for a wind drift where the wind has piled up the snow. And that'll give us a little bit of a head start on our shelter. What we're going to do, we're going to start by taking out our probes. We'll probe the snow, make sure there aren't any big tree stumps or logs or anything under the snow mound. I'm thinking this area up here looks pretty nice. I'm going to go test out the depth with our avalanche probe. We're looking for something that's at least 80 centimeters. Oh, it was good to have that off.

I should have learned how to use this yesterday.

We're at 115 centimeters. I think we've found our deepest spot. And this avalanche probe is helpful for depth of snow. And in the unlikely event of an avalanche, we would also use this probe for a Buried skier.

Wind is brutal.

All right. I think I found a nice spot where the snow's about 115cm deep. And that'll be home for the night.

Wow, that was pretty intense. We're going to start by stomping out the area where we're going to be building our shelter to pack all the snow down really good. So we've got a nice solid structure to dig out. We gotta get this built fast so we can get out of the wind.

Nice work.

It's about 1pm yesterday, it took us two hours to build our snow cave. I'm thinking with just Kara and I and us not being experts, it's gonna take at least five. Sun sets at six. Hopefully that'll be good timing.

I don't know if you can hear me with all this wind, but we're basically just trying to pile up and pack down enough snow that we can start building the snow cave out of it. Ideally, with the base and the angle of the hill, we'll be able to dig out a space that's big enough to stand up in. Our goal is to make a mound that's probably about 8ft tall and about 10ft wide.

The crazy thing is, even with well below freezing temperatures, probably 30 mile an hour winds, I'm still warm from all the shoveling.

You need a tissue?

Do I? I can't feel my face.

Hopefully by doing this, it doesn't collapse on our head in the middle of the night.

I cannot believe how sheltery it already looks.

Yeah. Making that front wall made such a big difference.

Yeah. The next step, create sort of like a tunnel. So Nate's gonna get on top. I'm gonna start here at the front and I'm going to create kind of like the shape of a door. This is going to be our entrance. And then Nate will start digging at the top as I dig in. And the goal is to meet in the middle. I'm essentially creating a chimney. And when I can get deep enough, then my snow will start going down out the tunnel. Yesterday, this was the most time consuming step and the hardest. Go.

Don't worry.

You can't mess it up. Sweating, believe it or not. And we had two experts, so I'm just trying to set my expectations that this is going to take a while. And it's snowing again.

This is going well.

All right, let me know if you see the stick. We can use this probe to kind of make sure that both the top person and the person that's coming in from the front are digging in the Same direction, digging towards each other. Do you see it?

Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, amazing. We're on the right track. It's working.

I see you. We made a hole.

Hi. We did it.

That's Nate. Woohoo.

Woo. Oh, my goodness.

So hard. I'm so proud of us. All we have is a hole. But I feel so accomplished right now. Well, what do I do now?

Once you see blue, stop scraping, but leave, like, at least a foot. So now that we've gotten our tunnels to meet, Kara's going to work on hollowing out the inside of the snow cave. And I'm going to attempt to build some blocks to lay on top to cover the hole that we made. It involves putting back on my skis, packing down the snow, and then using our snow saw to cut some blocks. How's it going?

I wouldn't consider myself claustrophobic usually, but I don't like this. I just feel like at any moment it could all come crashing down.

All right, it's shutting you in.

Sorry.

It's a start. All right. Incoming.

Huh?

For a little over two hours in the building.

I need some food and caffeine, calories and caffeine. I'm not even sure this could be considered food, but it's quick and easy. We brought a stove and, like, a hot lunch to cook because we thought that would be nice. But we definitely don't have time for that.

Sunshine. Beautiful.

Almost took you out.

How's it going?

We're doing pretty good. It's almost eight feet wide.

I think it's almost finished. I just have to get it nice and flat because we're going to leave it for an hour or so, let the ground harden up, and then that's all sleep on. So if I leave a big hump in it, that's what I'm going to be sleeping on tonight. All right. I think the inside is finished. I'm being honest, it's not quite as tall as I hoped it would be, but definitely enough room for us to sleep in there. I'm going to just leave it alone for a little while and let everything harden up. That way it doesn't cave in on us tonight. And now I'm going to spend a little bit of time building a hangout area with a kitchen and a bench. I think I've been shoveling for three hours straight.

Look at that view. Oh, my goodness. After all the crazy weather today, we're just getting a sunset over the most beautiful mountain range you've ever seen. One of those mountains out there is Mount Albert. Which is the tallest mountain in all of Colorado. Two years ago in January, we climbed to the very top of that mountain. We are the tallest people in the continental US with our feet on the ground. And I think this is harder.

So fun. I think the glove is frozen. Listen. They're frozen from where they got wet digging out inside of the igloo.

That's crazy. These have never froze before. We are officially moving in.

You're really tidied up down here. Nicely done.

Home sweet home.

Here we go.

Whoa.

Oh, it's steamy. I think that's a good sign if it's steamed up in here.

Yeah.

It means it's warmer in here than outside.

It's much warmer.

Wow. What do you think?

I love it. I love being out of the wind. We have so much space to spread out. This is epic.

Generous.

It's the best part of the day.

Our first meal.

Dinner time. Our first hot meal of the day. And I. I am clearly very excited. However, I don't know how to use this. Can you show me? Nate's made me a beautiful little kitchen. I have this nice table area. Nate grew up backpacking and doing all this stuff, and he knows everything, and I do not. Here's the propane. Do we have a lighter?

Did you bring it?

No. Just kidding, Nate.

It's in there.

Oh, I've got one in my pocket, too.

Sweet. Double lighters. I brought another propane tank, too, just to in case.

Hey.

Hey.

And then now just take snow and put it in.

Are you serious?

Yeah.

What? Awesome.

Oh, my gosh. I'm cooking with snow.

One pro of camping in the snow is you don't have to carry a bunch of water.

I wonder how long that's going to take. To Mel. On the menu tonight is one of my personal favorites. Stove top stuffing. And drumroll, please.

Instant mashed potatoes. Happy Valentine's Day, baby.

Okay, walk. Here is cooking, and before it gets dark, I'll give you a full tour of the shelter that we spent all day building. Pretty simple, really. Three key components. Over here we have our kitchen. This is our bench. That's the sleeping pad that I'll use later tonight. But for now, it's gonna insulate our butts from the snow, and hopefully this is starting to harden up nicely. Wow. It's really hard to give you any perspective. Oh, my gosh. Kara, you see the yellow line right there at the back of our shelter?

Kara, What?

Did you pee behind the shelter?

Yeah.

No, it seeped through.

No way.

There's a big yellow Line.

Oh, no.

Oh, my gosh.

I'm so sorry, E. Okay, so the.

Ground'S still pretty soft inside, so I'm not going to crawl around in there and mess up our flat surface. But we move the sleeping bags and pads in there, you'll get to see the sleeping situation. For now, we're going to eat and enjoy this incredible sunset. This has been like a two hour long sunset. Oh, Cara. What? I almost forgot a.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Thank you.

All these extra layers of stuff that I brought that I almost left because my backpack was so big. I'm now so grateful that I have them. Tell me about it. Oh, this is going to be game changer. Double puffy.

Just heating up the canned wine a little bit.

We decided since it was Valentine's Day.

It'S bubbly ros in a can. Cheers.

Thanks for doing crazy things with me.

Anytime.

Warm wine is weird. Better than cold wine.

All right, time to make our gourmet meal. Hopefully there aren't any wild animals around who like mashed potatoes. It's perfect. It's so good.

Oh, my gosh.

I'm so excited. Oh, this is gonna be so good.

Nice. I love it.

Okay.

Oh, wow.

Cheers.

Bon appetit. I love you.

Definitely the most memorable Valentine's Day dinner I've ever had. I honestly could not think of another. Can we talk about how good the weather is right now?

I'm pretty cold, but you're right, it could be worse.

It was a blizzard earlier today.

The winds died down. It's not snowing. This is amazing.

No, this is actually amazing.

I just realized something. In our last video, we slept underwater. And in this video, technically, we're also sleeping underwater.

Yeah, that was a lot warmer.

Just with no fish or a real mattress or climate control. Can we get personal for a second? Always. The first video that we posted this year was our 2024 Life Update video. And in that video, we said, basically, after eight years of full time travel, we're a little tired and we need to take some time off. And we were scared of how that was going to go or how it was going to come across. We have an amazing life. We get to do cool stuff like this and call it our job. And I was really nervous to hit publish on that video, but all the comments were so nice and supportive. So I just wanted to say thank you. We're super grateful for your understanding. We had an amazing break. Obviously, we're both feeling rested or we wouldn't be doing this. We slept in the same bed for over 40 nights, which is the longest that we've been in one place in eight years. And we're both feeling ready to go again.

Yeah. Thank you for giving us the.

Are you crying? They're going to freeze. Don't do it.

Thank you for giving us the time and space that we needed and all the encouraging and loving messages.

I didn't realize this was going to make you so emotional.

I think I'm just cold.

And tired.

And I am just so happy that I'm able to do this and actually enjoy it.

Your tear is literally gonna freeze to your face.

I know.

I think we both did have this fear in the back of our minds that after we took this break, we would still feel just as tired and not ready to come back. So the fact that we're out here and we want to be out here doing this.

Feels good. At least one of us wants to be out here doing this. The other one tolerates it.

Happy to be here.

Now for the cold part.

Now for the cold part.

It's fogging up in here. I'm being honest. That picture is laying like this, but I think this is going to work better.

This is awesome. Yeah, it's way better in here at night.

Yeah.

Whoa. Okay, I'm ready for it now. Nice. It's kind of annoying getting stuff in and out of here because we made the hole at the entrance really small, so that way no wind would get inside or minimal wind will get inside. Frozen again. Well, it's as uncomfortable watching it as it is being in here. A shovel? Yeah. Just in case it collapses tonight. It's terrifying. Man, this place is cozy. I couldn't have my gloves off outside for more than 60 seconds without my fingers freezing. And weirdly enough, even though I'm completely surrounded by snow, it feels way warmer in here than it does out there. Let's say we ended up with, like, an 8 foot by 8 foot snow shelter that's maybe average 3ft tall. But if I really want to stand on my knees, I can go out the little sunroof that I built. All right.

This is the sleeping bag that took up half of my backpack. I think I'm going to be very grateful for it tonight. Wow. This is great. Negative 15 fah. So we've just been wearing our ski boots all day, which keeps you surprisingly warm. But I'm very excited to put on these down booties that we brought. Ski boots are also heated.

All right, here I come.

All right. Come on.

Hey.

Whoa.

How good is this?

Epic. It is so much warmer. In here.

It's crazy.

It's not even funny.

I think we may survive.

45.

It's gonna be a long night.

We started cardio at 1045 and have not stopped. Wardrobe change. I'm taking off all of my cold, wet, soggy clothes, and I'm putting on insulating down layers before I get in my cozy sleeping bag to hopefully stay as warm as possible tonight. I'm still very cold currently, but I'm warmer than I thought I would be at this point, if that makes sense.

I appreciate you trying to be positive. This is absolutely crazy. Kara and I were having the discussion earlier that, like, most things that we do that seem extreme are actually designed to be safe. Like. Like bungee jumping, you know, like, it's scary, but, like, you're not supposed to die. We've just come out into the middle of nowhere, dug a cave in the snow, and we're about to sleep in it.

Can I ask you a question I'm scared to ask?

Yes.

Out of 10, how confident are you?

Don't ask it.

Okay, never mind.

Just turn your avalanche beacon on. All right.

Full battery. Crazy.

I know that there are going to be people out there who say that we should just be sleeping in, like, thermals because the sleeping bag will do all the work to keep our body heat in. But the thing that you need to understand is that we're basically sleeping directly on the snow. We have a tiny pad, so the more insulated layers that we can have on our body, that provides more. More insulation between us and the ground. And the ground is what's going to suck the heat out of us tonight. So we're bundling up in everything we have. Also. It is so much more livable in here than I anticipate it, especially at night, having the lantern reflecting off all the white snow. This is, like, way better than any tent I've ever stayed in. This is pretty sweet.

This is the best sleeping bag I've ever experienced. It is so thick.

Oh, my gosh.

I. All right, light me up when the sun comes up.

This is the only pair of ski socks that I have and Carrie taught.

Us yesterday, if you're actively drying them, you would put them not directly on your skin, but somewhere in here where it's nice and warm. The low is one.

What? So the low tonight in Leadville, which is 2,000ft below us, is one degree. For each thousand feet that you go up, you basically subtract 3 degrees. So I figured a load a night outside of our snow shelter and is minus 5 that's insane. Currently, I'm way warmer than I thought I would be. Game changer.

Whoa. Oh, my gosh. That was so beautiful. That is hot boiled snow water. Ready for this?

We've been keeping it warm next to your body.

I love you.

Thank you. We had wine, we had roses. And to complete Valentine's Day, grabbing chocolate.

Pretty good. Valentine's Day.

Oh, you're good. This is the happiest I've seen care all day.

This is pretty awesome. I feel like this is the moment after all the hard work, just eating chocolate in my warm, cozy ice shelter. Very satisfying.

We have been together for 2008. Would have been our first Valentine's Day.

Sixteen. Sixteen.

Valentine's Day downstairs. And this is the one I will remember the most.

Love you. Love you.

Okay, we'll see you in the morning. Or unless something interesting happens in the middle of the night, fingers crossed for in the morning.

All right.

We have eight and a half hours until the sun comes up.

I'm actually hungry.

You're hungry. Worked hard today. Love you. See you.

Good morning. We did.

Didn'T fall. As soon as I got my sleeping bag last night, put my arms down in it, I realized if this snow falls on top of me, I'm just not gonna be able to move. Like, I'm just gonna lay here and suffocate. Are you alive over there?

What?

You feel warm down in there? How'd you sleep? One through ten.

Okay, not bad. I'll make some coffee.

Wow.

What a morning. Check out those colors in these mountains. So we could barely see last night. And completely, completely clear backpacks that I left outside are completely frozen. This is the little cupboard that I dug out last night.

I'm being honest, it smells a little bit like stuffing and mashed potatoes. I think our coffee is going to taste pretty funny this morning.

All right, so for breakfast this morning, we've got oatmeal for Kara, Pancake and a cup for me. But most importantly, out of focus, coffee. I think the camera is frozen.

Nice.

That's what happens at altitude. I'm glad that wasn't beside my face. One heaping teen spoon of coffee. A little bit more. Since we slept in a snow cave. That's probably like five coffees in one spoonful.

Oh, that's going to be good.

All right.

Ready for some coffee?

Yeah.

Thank you.

Steven. In here.

It's the best instant coffee I've ever had. I was like, well, I woke up probably around 1:30 right here on the snow.

Her head was literally, like, right beside.

Mine, like, completely off of my sleeping pad. Oh.

So it's warm coffee in here.

Getting steamy.

All right, I'm going to go back out and cook my pancake.

Okay.

I cannot believe we made it through the night.

It just says stir in water and try not to overfill it so I don't have pancake soup.

It smells like cake batter. Oh, wow. That smells so good. Oh, and it's got some chocolate chips in. Says you're supposed to microwave it for a minute.

Forgot to build one of those. Without the microwave, it's basically just like eating pancake batter, which is not bad. It's warm and sweet. It's the perfect thing to balance out a black coffee. Man, life is good.

It's almost worth it.

Almost.

All right, Camp's all packed up. There's one more thing I really want to do. As I was laying there last night thinking about whether or not this was going to collapse on my head, I was curious how easy it would be to push in if there was some extra weight added on top.

Wow. Really hardened up.

This front part felt like the thinnest.

Okay.

I don't think there was any risk of this collapsing.

You.

No problem.

I'm exhausted.

I'm so proud of us.

Way to go. Thanks for doing crazy things with me.

As long as you keep bringing me coffee in bed.

All right. I doubt this is gonna look cool with a 45 pound backpack, but I'll do my best. You ready? Let's do it. Down we go.

Oh, wow. This is great. Beautiful. What a fun couple days. Good to be back. Thanks for having us. See you next week. In a similar setting but a much more comfortable home. We're getting back together with Earth Roamer guys. Also, we are super grateful to Carrie and Justin for taking their day and teaching us how to do this. They both work or worked at the High Mountain Institute. It's pretty cool. If anybody wants to get involved. If you're younger and watching this video is definitely something that I wish I could have done when I was in high school.

I cannot imagine how excited you would be as a 16 year old.

Literally would have been my dream. So fun. This is pretty sweet.

Yeah. Justin and Carrie are really cool people. We're really glad we got this opportunity with them. I cannot fathom the joy that 16 year old Nate would have had out here learning the stuff. It really is a cool thing that they're doing. So definitely check it out if you're interested or want to support it. I hope we can make them proud tomorrow.