How to Make a Roof Stronger for Snow

Produce a roofline with steep angles so most of the snow weight is transferred to the ground via the supports of your tent or shelter. In addition, angles greater than 45 degrees shed snow more readily; thus, less snow will accumulate on the roof.

Use the strongest materials you can find. When building a classic brushwood shelter, reject thin, punky or knotty wood. Instead, use straight, solid, disease- and rot-free branches. Use more supports than you would in summer and space them more closely together. The more supports you have, the more routes there are to transfer the snow weight to the ground.

Design the roof to be as small as possible. Maintaining a steep roof angle while keeping the roof area to a minimum means building a low roof. To do that, you must reduce the area under the roof to the minimum necessary. For example, building a shelter with a 45-degree roof slope that is 4 feet wide rather than 8 feet wide, you reduce the roof height by 4 feet.