If you want to build an amazing sculpture or fort and don’t want to spend a lot of time doing it, this is the ultimate method. I have built several snow shelters after living in Colorado and Idaho for over 17 years (as of this writing). I also have five children who love playing in the winter snow just as much as they love swimming in the hot summer weather.
Here are the tools needed: a five-gallon bucket, a snow shovel, a person with a big foot, and as many hands as possible. As a parent it was imperative to build a snow structure quickly so the kids could play and this was the best way we found so far.
The concept is simple; Fill the bucket with snow and stomp your big foot. Empty the compacted snow cylinder and place it where needed. The buckets we use are plastic and tend to be narrower at the bottom, making it very easy to empty the full cylinder. We like to place the cylinders on their sides and stack them like logs. Because one end of the cylinder is larger than the other, you can use this geometry to help build different contours and really put some creativity into your sculpture.
Team up on cylinder making and keep making them as fast as you can. Get as many buckets as possible because when one is full someone can remove it and let you start on the next one. Keep the system moving until you’re almost knocked over from exhaustion, which is a good time for a hot chocolate break.
Pack the snow by filling in the hollow spaces as soon as one cylinder sits firmly against the previous one. Snow has an interesting feature; once it moves, it locks in tight and becomes relatively strong, making your walls incredibly strong. The time it takes for the snow to block in depends on how well the snow is packing up, so use care and patience when creating overhangs and roofs. When it’s time to arch the roof, start shifting the cylinders by moving them about 1/3 of each layer.
With eight neighborhood kids, six buckets, and four shovels, it didn’t take long to make a three-room snow shelter with an 8-foot-long driveway. The ceiling in the main room was approximately 6 feet high. The outer walls of the fort were so thick that the children were able to carve steps to reach the top and there they built more walls that resembled the bastions of the castle.
So there you have it; a method of building a large sculpture or fort very quickly. Due to the size and thickness, our large fort lasted until the season when new grass would sprout for fresh spring growth!