If you think most of your time will be spent digging the hole, take a look at all that lumber that's cut to size. There's a lot of time and energy in building something like that.

Still, it looks like something I'd like to try, myself.

I've done debris shelters, lean-tos and similar, but nothing as stealthy as that.

+1 A scout pit is getting awfully close to being a fox hole. Been there done that!

Not trying to bump the thread up here. I've been meaning to ask, what do you do with the entrance hole? Do you pull something over it after you get in or what?

Thanks,
LW

Yes, ideally there should be a cover. Camouflaged if concealment is a factor. Obviously you will have a hard time concealing the entrance from inside the pit yourself so that's one thing to keep in mind.

During my second month-long deployment to Alaska we were required to spend a night out in an improvised shelter. One squad spent the better part of a day making a super lean-to, only to find out that they all didn't fit.

I showed my guys how to make a simple snow grave. Lie down, stand up, make it 2 feet longer and 2 feet wider than your imprint. Shovel the snow out with your snow shoe, then pack down what's left. We had air mattresses back then and insulated our sleeping bags with our extra clothing underneath. We put some sticks across the hole, draped our ponchos over the sticks and used some snow to pack down the edges. To close off the entrance, we used our wet weather jackets (no one carried the pants). Snug as a bug in a hole.

This was a really quick and dirty survival hole as it were. No telling how long we "could" have used them for. But for the one night, they were fine.

The ones I have constructed/lived in have a hole you slither into. The entrance is camoflauged, but you only go into/out of it one time each. You typically do thee under the cover of darkness, preferably with no moon. That all being said, you also have dirt you need to conceal. Top dirt is almost always lighter in color than the deeper stuff. You have to spread it over quite a large area to effectively hide it. Normally, these are constructed by 4 men-keep that in mind. It spreads the work out.
A quick, effective cover for the bolt hole is a poncho-but it has to be kept tight. Fluttering causes noise and, if it breaks loose, its a flag.
There really is quite a lot to think of with these. You have to consider shadows, terrain, orientation to your target, distance, etc.

Thanks guys,

I wondered about that although at the time I was really thinking about how you put something over the entrance more from a protection kind of viewpoint. I looked at the site referenced and they seemed to place an emphasis on using logs big enough that is someone walked over them, they wouldn't realize anything was under them. I started thinking about the entry hole and had visions of Earl Bassett and a prairie dog hole in the movie Tremors. Just made me wonder how to handle it.

Thanks,
LW