Snort

The main entrance of the Snort, which faced the path between the Deece and Noyes House.

A 3D scan taken of the Snort Feb 6, 2026

The Snow Fort (Snort) was a large quinzhee (snow cave) on the Noyes Circle (Nircle) in the winter of 2025–2026. It was lovingly built by Fia Marrison, Cormac, Etta, Quin, and other friends. In its later stages, it contained four chambers and an outdoor courtyard, with various connecting tunnels.

It snowed. We built. It melted.

Building

Tools

Many tools were used to construct the Snort over time. The following is a list of all of the tools and their uses in the order of when they were acquired:

• One large plastic shovel (Fia and Asher went on the bus to buy one at Adams on the first day that it snowed): to pile snow
• Snow-appropriate clothing (thermal layers/long johns, thick shirts and trousers, sweaters, scarves, snow boots, snow jacket and snow pants): to stay warm and dry
• Gloves (some waterproof skiing gloves, some leather gloves, some wool gloves, and some socks)- to handle shovels, pick up snow, sculpt and pack areas carefully
• Multiple large plastic shovels borrowed from Facilities: to pile snow
• Flashlights (initially used iPhone flashlight, and after Fia's (fairly old) phone stopped working from cold damage regular flashlights and headlamps were used): to cave and tunnel at night. This was important because most of the work was done between 5 and 10 pm.
• Deece hot chocolate: to keep energy and spirits high
• Plastic Deece cup: to scoop snow and to rest flashlights in
• Noyes metal frying pan: to scoop, tunnel, and move snow while tunneling, before small shovels were acquired
• Large plastic bags: to stay dry, occasionally to carry snow
• Outing Club small metal shovel: to more effectively tunnel and move snow
• Outing Club ice pick: to break into compacted snow and ice, immensely useful when tunneling out of the already solidified bench room
• Wagon: to carry snow from further away once the immediate area (20 ft radius) had been used
• Two small but sturdy metal shovels: for multiple people to tunnel at the same time, and to be able to dig through more dense snow
• Knee pads (from roller blading): to prevent bruising and pain while kneeling and tunneling for multiple hours
• Snow plow: on two days (one December and one in March), members of Vassar's Grounds team used snow plows to powerfully give extra life to the Snort

Time

The group spent about 32 elapsed hours on the Snort in December, 41 hours in January, 24 hours in February and 2 hours in March working on the Snort.

Technique

We shoveled naturally fallen snow from the Nircle into a pile. We allowed it to sinter, and then hollowed the pile out, putting the spoil on top to increase the height of the cave. To maintain structural stability and safety, upon reaching certain chamber sizes, we tunneled new chambers rather than expanding the current chamber. For the construction of the first two chambers, there was fairly dense and sticky snow, so many builders made large snowballs (inspired by the Snocks by the Deece) to incorporate distant snow to the mass of the pile.

Stages

The Snort underwent many changes, which can be understood three main stages. These stages were primarily characterized by snowfall events.

Stage 1

On December 2, it snowed about 5 inches, the first two chambers were built. The entrance chamber was tunneled with the Deece cup and Noyes frying pan, and the bench room was tunneled with the Outing Club's metal shovel and ice pick.

Stage 2

During winter break, the Snort partially melted, such that some dirt and grass from the rolled balls melted through. Later during break there was a snow event of 8 inches, and Grounds plowed some snow to the Snort to give it life. On January 16th Fia, Asher, and friend Cordelia went back to campus and had a sleepover to work on the Snort. They tunneled out the elevated chamber and began the council room.

The image of the 3D scan printed out, then drawn on as additions were made. There are also labels of the various entrances and of the four chambers.

Stage 3

On January 25, it snowed over 12 inches, and the group gathered a lot of people and spent time piling snow into a courtyard on the Deece-side of the Snort. Throughout February, they made the council chamber larger, and made tunnels from various chambers to the courtyard and through the courtyard walls. Throughout February they piled more snow and rearranged entrances and exits, up until it melted.

Community Engagement

Many people collaborated on building the Snort. The main consistent builders were Fia, Cormac, Quin, Etta, Sophia, and Reave. Other collaborators include Xander, Melody, Asher, Valentin, Parker (as secretary), Rachel, Este, Mari, Ziva and others who just came for an hour or so.

Fia also collaborated with two members of the grounds team, Bernardo and Jaime, to plow snow to give the Snort some more life, and to make a small snow structure by the preschool Wimpfheimer.

Starting in March, the Snort had a guestbook for visitors to write notes in. It is included in this folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1j7c9dL2GSkMwLjVxsq7oWwgfXyc6uA2j

Documentation

Media

The Snort was featured on Vassar's socials in a video.

The Miscellany News also made a video and published an article on the Snort.

Notebook

Fia keeps a notebook (Feb 2nd-present) to write about the experience. In it they describe their building process, draw real and hypothetical maps of the structure, write about the Snort's meaning and take notes on artistic inspiration (including conversations with peers and with professors). There are also plans for future snow architecture on campus.

Artwork

Fia has made many theoretical and representative floor plans of the Snort, and has drawn sketches of the Snort in ballpoint pen. For their Color (Art 108) midterm they made three small chalk pastel drawings on black paper. As their Drawing 1 (Art 103) final they made four large chalk pastel drawings.

• Chalk Pastel drawings of The Snort
• 
  Part 1- Melting Snort
• 
  Part 2- Huddled Inside
• 
  Part 3- The Council Chamber
• 
  Part 4- The Picnic

The Chalk pastels were all on 18x24 black construction paper. In Part 1, the sky can be seen through the melted ceiling, and the pile of snow from the courtyard can be seen through the old slide. A hole on the right reveals the shadowy first chamber, and trees beyond the original entrance. Part 2 is based on a photo from the second night where we crowded Reave, Fia, Melody, Quin and Sophia into the one chamber. Part 3 shows the view through the council chamber from the latest entrance into the courtyard. Above one of the council chairs, food coloring had been added by anonymous visitors as cave paintings. Part 4 is based on a photo taken by Asher and Valentin during the Snort picnic before winter break. Fia, Parker and Reave sit inside of the bench room on top of a plastic sheet and a picnic blanket, and Valentin's boot leans against the wall.

Why the Snort?

Why did we make the Snort? Why did we continue to put so much effort into it, beyond just one little chamber on the first few snowy days?

Fia, Cormac, and other Snort builders had many fond memories of building snow forts and caves as kids, and wanted to bring this tradition back to life. Fia has built a snow fort at home consistently each year since 2020, and in the winter of 2024/2025 wanted to make one at Vassar when it snowed there, but had a fever. For them, building the Snort outside Noyes at Vassar was a very different experience from building at home, because there were no time limits of needing to be at school all day and because there are so many friends and people at Vassar who want to build too! Once we start digging together, it is hard to stop, and we have spent evenings saying "just one more shovelful" from 9pm to 2 am. The ephemeral nature of snow and ice roots you in the moment, because everyone knows that each session building could be the last, and with climate change looming before us, we never know if this is the last snow fort we will make.

The Snort has been a joyful, satisfying and restorative experience. Engaging so directly with the winter has helped with seasonal depression, and we have all become more bonded through labor. The Snort also became Fia's creative center for most of the year, inspiring drawings and writings and poems, even this page, months after it melted.

There is little documentation as to if some small quinzhees have been built at Vassar before, but in the winter of 2024-2025 the Rugby team built an igloo out of packed snow blocks at the THs. We hope that making a Nircle Snort can become a yearly tradition passed on to new Noyes residents and Outing Club members, and that people can experience and enjoy snow forts in the future!

Current state

Fia and Xander collapsed the Snort over Spring Break 2026, and the very final remnants melted on March 25. Fia did an independent study on Snow Architecture, and wrote the majority of this page. Though this season had a remarkable amount of snow, they will build another one next year, even if it only one chamber.