I really want to thank Jeff and the ESEE team for this contest, it gave me the incentive to get out and try to build a shelter, when I have never built one before.
Since I like to kayak, sometimes going on rivers that have a little current, I decided I would use the scenario of a kayak mishap, for instance if I turned over in rapids and lost the kayak and gear downstream, only having my PSK attached to me, and whatever I could grab, such as my ESEE Lite Machete
I kept a paracord-wrapped Izula around my neck (with a bit of glow-in-the-dark cord tied on). Yes, after being wet for several days, it got a bit of rust on it, which I have since cleaned off.
I did bring a small first aid kit just-in-case, but fortunately didn't need it. It has things like medical tape, gauze, band-aids, disinfectant, poison ivy meds, Imodium, pain reliever, etc.
My PSK is a small pack
with a space-blanket, aqua-pouch and water treatment tabs, ESEE Fire Kit with cotton inside, multi-tool, another fire rod, mini pry bar, mini hacksaw, a quark mini-123 flashlight, flexible braided stainless steel wire, and about 18" of thicker electric-fence wire I thought would be handy, and my fishing kit. I had lengths of both 30-lb test and 80-lb test braided fishing line, since it can be handy for things besides fishing. I also keep a Fenix E01 AAA flashlight in my pocket, it gives 21 hours of run-time on a single battery, very handy.
Not pictured in my PSK are several packets of salt in a zip lock bag. A little salt really helps the flavor for any fish or game being cooked.
I had never been to this location before, although I have been on this river, farther downstream. I didn't know what type of trees would be there, although I was pretty sure there were trees, from scouting satellite photos. I arrived later than I had planned, getting there about 15 minutes before the sun went down below the opposite bank, with maybe another 20-30 minutes of useable twilight. Oh well, we don't get to choose when accidents happen either, right? Here is the island as I came up to it, with a near-full moon already rising.
The side of the island with the main current had a pretty steep, 6-foot high bank to climb, but on the calm side I found a nice sandy beach.
Just as a kayak mishap and struggling to get out of it will take a lot of energy, I was very tired from paddling as hard as I could for half the day to cover the seven-mile trip upriver. I figured I would not have time to build a proper shelter for the first night, but needed to scout around for the best spot to spend the night, and get a fire going (forecast was for a clear night, not much wind but temps around 33 degrees).
The closest spot I found was on a little rise, under some willow trees.
Some places just had bushes/brambles, without decent level ground.
I thought maybe I could use the long straight "weeds" (I don't know what kind of plant they are) for filling in the shelter.
Some parts of the island obviously flooded frequently, with the current carrying away any living vegetation.
I kept scouting around for a good spot before I ran out of light. Here there was a lot more shrubs, but the ground was very uneven, and it was difficult to make progress through tangles of sticker-vines and bushes that were close to the trees, trying to avoid the abundant poison ivy.
Then I realized that the uneven ground was from animals rooting around in it, I figured feral pigs, but I couldn't tell how long ago they had been here. I really didn't want to camp right in the middle of where a bunch of pigs might come rooting through in the middle of the night.
I was running out of light fast, but I couldn't see anywhere that I could just scrape up fallen leaves to use for a shelter, I decided I would be having to just cut branches/bushes.
Found a couple of good firewood logs, but they were to big and heavy for me to be able to drag, and too much work to chop up with a machete into small enough pieces to carry.
I decided the first location I looked at was best. Walking across the sand back to that location, I found a can that had been washed up there in the current the last flood. The outside looked clean, I thought I could use it to boil water, so I could save my water purification tablets, and brought it back with me.
I noticed places where the high water pushed logjams up against the trees. I decided I really did not want to be camped too low if the river rose (it sometimes rises as much as several feet in a matter of hours, even without rain, when they open the dam upstream for whatever reason). At least it had been awhile since the last flood this high, so the wood was nice and dry for use as firewood.
By now it was getting pretty dark, and cooling off. I found a sand bank that I hoped would serve as a reflector behind my fire. The sticks and leaves from the logjam were so dry I could almost light them directly; I just grabbed a handful,
then cut a few shavings with my Izula, and with my fire-steel and a bit of cotton, had a fire going easily, no petroleum jelly or anything else needed.
As it got colder, the only thing I really craved was a cup of hot cocoa, but since my PSK had neither cocoa nor a cup, I just tried to keep the fire going nice and high.
I'll admit I really didn't sleep much that night. I'd never even camped in a tent when the temps were in the 30's, and here all I had was my space blanket. They are designed to reflect heat, which means if you wrap yourself up in one, you are reflecting the fire heat *away* from you. I found that the sand, which seemed so soft when sitting on it, really seems hard and lumpy when trying to lay down on it, and my firewood was so light and pithy that it didn't last long. I would build the fire up nice and warm, sit next to it while holding the space blanket behind me to try to reflect the fire's warmth back to me, and try to doze off, while hearing the coyotes howling on the other side of the river, and pigs somewhere down the bank. Within less than an hour the fire would die down and I would be shivering, sometimes violently. I had taken my boots off so my feet could dry off, and walking around barefoot across sand looking for more firewood was no problem, except when I had to cross sharp gravel (and sometimes stickers). The nearly full moon at least made things "seem" warmer, until it set about 4:00 a.m. Fog rolled in, and dew covered everything, including my space blanket. I don't know that a space blanket is worthless, but it sure isn't *much* help
. I was just glad there was no wind - I had postponed my trip by a day since the day before it was blowing as much as 35 mpg gusts.
Once the sun came up and I could see where things were, I knew I really needed to get my shelter built. I found a log I could use for the ridge pole and cut it with the machete.
There was this sandy hill under the willow trees, with a bit of grass growing, right near the log.
I cut a Y-branch and another pole to use as support for my ridge pole. I *thought* I was being clever by building it on the mound, with the ground sloping away in all directions, since that way if it rained I wouldn't have water running down into my shelter. I found out later there were drawbacks to doing it that way...
I kept filling it in, also placing leaves on the ground for cushion.
It turned out to be a lot more work to build the shelter than I thought it would be. There were only a few trees close to where I wanted the shelter, so I kept having to walk across the sandy wash over to where there were other trees, then fight through vines and bushes to get to the branches I wanted, then drag them back to my shelter. Did I mention that I'm also very overweight and out-of-shape, and I was still very sore from all the paddling the day before?
At least it was warming up to a beautiful day, and the lows the next night were only supposed to be in the 40's.
Those "weeds" that I had thought would be great for filling in the shelter were also quite a bit of work; looking at them from a distance, they seem like there are a lot of them close together and easy to gather, but there was usually a distance a several feet between the usable ones, and their "seed pods" turned out to be sharp thistles that hurt when stepping on them. So it was
walk to one, swing the machete to cut it (they had pretty good roots so it was more work to try to pull them up)
then walk several more steps to find another good one, cut it... all for thin little sticks a half inch or less in diameter. It would take a *LOT* of those to fill in my shelter I decided.
So I thought I would use more willow leaves to fill in the shelter. Initially I was cutting the leafy stems off from the rest of the branch to try to pack them in more tightly to make it water tight and shut out the wind, but that was taking a long time to do also.
After awhile I started using the whole willow branch with leaves attached, and then adding the weight of whatever branches and sticks I could find to compress them together.
(Continued next post...)
