At the other extreme, the survivers of a plane crash in the Andes Mountains (a book and film called 'Alive' was made based on this crash) used foil from the wrecked aircraft to melt snow. They spread the foil out at an angle so that it had maxium sunlight on it. they then spread VERY THIN layers of snow on the foil, and had a bottle underneath it to catch the water that came off.

It probably sounds like another'solar still', but some of them survived to tell the tale. They also resorted to cannabalism to survive <img src="images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />.

Read the book, it is very interesting:
"Alive - Piers Paul Read"