I'll look forward to your post.  I went looking on the intranet and found this:<br/><br/>http://www.greenhomebuilding.com/QandA/adobe/localities.htm (http://www.greenhomebuilding.com/QandA/adobe/localities.htm)<br/><br/>Which I take with a grain of salt.  The guy posting it is obviously an adobe enthusiast.  Other sites I read said adobe works best in hot dry climes, but wears in cold wet climates.  They're in a cold but dry climate as indicated by the way the trees hug the river.  Most of the water is locked up in glaciers.  About 100,000 BC when the climate was warmer and wetter the entire region was forest.<br/><br/>Also our characters don't have internet access so what they decide will be colored by what they believe to be true, not what we can determine with our access to internet.