Centrally Heated Snow Fort

This is how we amuse ourselves in Vermont when the snow flies. The snow was piled up with a skid steer bucket loader, and the snowbank was hollowed out by hand into a cavern with seating for 6 and enough headroom to stand up in. We put an old open fireplace hood in the ceiling with a 4' section of stovepipe, and added a raised fire pit made from an old wheel. A support pillar was made from 5 gallon bucket ice cubes to keep the ceiling from sagging overnight. We made port-hole windows by ramming a stovepipe through the wall and used more 5 gallon molded ice for windows. It looked particularly spectacular at night especially with the sparks from the fire flying out of the chimney.