How To Build A Shelter In The Wild

Okay, so here is the scenario. You are in the woods for whatever reason when you get lost and cannot retrace your steps. Whenever lost, the number one rule is to stay put, but you still will need a shelter for sleeping in overnight. You should plan on starting to build a shelter by late afternoon. It will always be time consuming to build a shelter from scratch, and it may take longer than you expect so it is always a good idea to start building earlier rather than later. An easy way to tell how much daylight is left in the day, is to hold your arm stretched out all the way, with the bottom of your hand adjacent to the horizon. Count how many “fingers high” it takes to reach the setting sun. Each finger represents fifteen minutes, so for example, it there was a spacing of three fingers between the horizon and the sun, there would be 45 minutes of daylight left.

The next big decision is where to build the shelter. Make sure you do not start building in a dried out river bed or near a river for obvious reasons (you might get wet!). Also, try to pick a relatively flat surface so that you do not roll out of your shelter in the middle of the night.

Next, you have to decide what kind of shelter you want to build. If the area is infected with bugs, you may want to build a shelter suspended in the air. This can be done by building a hammock between two trees. You probably will not have any rope with you, so search for vines on trees to use; make sure you do not grab poison oak by mistake! (http://z.about.com/d/pediatrics/1/0/P/5/poison_oak.jpg) Tie the vines from one tree to another and interweave large leaves on top for comfort. An overhead structure should always be built to further protect you. Lean large sticks into an “A” formation overhead. Again, interweave with large leaves and smaller sticks. If you decide to not sleep in the air, do not directly sleep on the ground! The earth absorbs a lot of your body heat from simply lying on the ground. Place a layer of leaves or any extra clothing you are not sleeping in on the ground. If you stumble upon a cave, use it, but just be careful there are not any animals that live there. Throw a rock in the cave to scare off any any animals or check to see if there are any large animal tracks inside prior to calling this your shelter. Just like before, you should still make a layer of leaves between you and the ground.

After finishing the construction of your shelter, build a fire. It will be good for you physically and mentally. I will not get into detail about how to make a fire, but once you build it, it is a great feeling of accomplishment along with your shelter. Fire provides warmth, a repellant from nasty bugs, cooks food, and purifies water. When building the fire, make sure it is under control or else you will wake up in a ring of fire destroying your well-built shelter. Lastly, when about to go to sleep, make sure you have long sleeves and pants on. If not, your legs and arms will be all chewed up.

Have fun and be safe!