Snort
PAGE IS CURRENTLY UNDER CONSTRUCTION!!
The Snow Fort (Snort) was a large quinzhee (snow cave) built by Fia Marrison and their friends on the Noyes Circle in the winter of 2025-2026. It contained four chambers and an outdoor courtyard, with various connecting tunnels.
Building
The Snort went under many phases and changes.
Tools
The Snort was built with.... After the majority of the second chamber was built, the builders used a metal shovel and the ice pick from the Outing Club. Later they also used a large plastic shovel from them as well.
Time
According to Fia's spreadsheet schedule, they spent ..... hours on the snort.
Documentation
The Snort was featured on Vassar's socials in a video: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7NQtd_cEzvw
The Miscellany News made a video and published an article on the Snort: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jDTelj1cio https://miscellanynews.org/2026/02/05/features/building-a-snow-fort-with-a-pan-a-cup-and-a-dream/
Notebook
Fia kept a notebook for the duration of the Snort.
Community Engagement
Many people collaborated on building the Snort. Fia, Cormac, Quin, Etta, Sophia, and Reave were the main consistent builders. Other collaborators included: Xander, Melody, Asher, Valentin, Parker (as secretary), Rache, Este, Ziva.
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 March ? there was a guestbook in the Snort that people could write notes in.
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.
History
....
Current state
Fia collapsed the Snort over spring break, and the very final remnants melted on March 25th. Fia is currently doing an independent study on Snow Architecture, and they will post the link to a digital zine here once it is completed.