Yet another contest.

Wow rain and HIGHS in the 50s. I'm going to have a looooonnnnggg cold night if my shelter doesn't hold up. Going to try to post all night with my phone, ill add pics tomarrow morning
 
Looks like rain most of the night lows in the 40s added more leaves to the top plus some evergreen branches. thing is still water tight only had to take the very front out which had gotten alittle damp. Added a fire reflector and soon ill have fire( as long as I can get one going). Gotta save phone battery...check back later.
 
K its 1030 I'm warm in front of my fire eating some noodles and waiting to go to bed. A nor'easterner is moving thru my area and getting spouts of rain and some colder winds, possiblity I'm told of sleet, taken some pics with my phone and will be posting in this thread in the morning. Night guys and gals...

Doug(live from the woods in VA)
 
Its 730am and Im at my inlaws where theres a real computer and not my "smart phone" that doesnt allow me to upload pics...

It was a loooooonnnnnnggggg night! I got rain off and on and wind on and on. Actualy got hot in my shelter and had to strip off a layer, only to put it back on a hour and a half later.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/whitehawk_darkwaters/
 
Last edited:
Wish had more action shots and better pics but this was a one man opperation. Might have some kinda action shots when my wife came down to see what I was doing. Even with the additions I did yesterday looking at maybe 4hours of work. Hardest part is I think getting in and out of the damn thing. Next time I'm going to make it alittle taller in the "foot" my big feet were jammed up in the ceiling. Going to make a 2 person stacked debris lean to with 3 sided fire reflector when I camp with my brother next month.

Jeff man I had a blast doing this can't wait to see what the next contest is going to put us thru.

Doug RP#375
 
adaman04 said:
So did you manage to catch any Zs?
Click to expand...

About 4 hours. Wind kept me up a lot even though there weren't any dead limbs above me I could here them falling every where else was afraid I would wake up to a giant tree limb impailed in my head
 
The most productive thing during today's 12 hours of deer hunting was watching a squirrel build a derbis shelter, I mean nest. It was pretty impressive. He could fit about 8 big oak leaves in his mouth at once. Then back up the tree with them.
 
Hmm... I want to start work on my debris shelter today. However, it's raining and everything in the woods is soaked. Any tips for building a debris hut in the rain? :confused: Everything I was able to google and learn off of this thread is that the debris needs to be dry to be effective. Wondering if I'll need to try a small fire near the hut to help dry it out. Hmm... :confused: Would also help with my fire making skills, especially in the rain.
 
Wet materials are not a problem. Build it anyway. It will work.
 
Finished the shelter. Not counting the walking time to the area I built it, I'd say it took me around 3 1/2 hours to build the dang thing. :eek: Holy hell am I tired. And soaked 'cause it decided to rain on me for about an hour while I was working. Pictures to come real soon (gotta fine the camera cable so I can send the pics to my computer).

Gotta say though, that was quite the experience. I'm a big guy and that was a ton of work. Pictures don't nearly do justice to the work required. I' hungry now. :D

scaled.php


scaled.php


scaled.php


scaled.php


scaled.php


scaled.php


scaled.php


scaled.php


Continued in next post.
 
Last edited:
scaled.php


scaled.php


So overall I say it's not bad for my first time ever making any sort of shelter. There's some weak points. I should have made it just a little bit bigger. I was able to slide on in, but once in, I had absolutely zero room to move. It was a real pain in the rear trying to wiggle back out of there to take a picture.

Good experience overall. I really learned that if I ever need to build a shelter out in the wild in a life or death situation I'm going to need to make sure I start it well before night time. 'Cause I had to deal with a lot of wet rotted wood. Plus it just takes time to gather it all, and set it up.
 
Sounds like same problem I had...making it to small. Every where I read they said don't make it to big smaller spaces heat better. I agree but gave my self no room to be comfortable.
 
Must have been reading the same articles I was. ;)

I guess in a true survival situation, I'd want it as tight as possible and get myself into a small ball inside it. However, in order to do that, I'd first have to be able to bunch up my knees and I was pretty well pinned inside of it.

Like I said though, I'm really glad I participated. I've learned a few things.
 
Nice work gungho.

Looks like quite a few people have learned something with this contest, myself included. Maybe Jeff will whip us up some RAT merit badges to put on our sashes. :D

Not making it big enough was one of my concerns, so I spent a little extra time measuring everying out. The reason I propped my ridge pole up on a forked stick was because when I made it long enough for me, it was too short for my big skis.

My other thing was making the door big enough but not too big. I made the "entry way" so that I could stuff it with debris and trap more heat instead of having the opening right on the main structure of the shelter. I thought it might trap more heat that way, but I'm as new at this as you are, so what do I know!
 
The night I slept in mine I passed on the door but had small fire 3 or so feet from my door with a refector behind it. My shelter stayed toasty to the point I just had a t-shirt on to sleep in.
 
gungho,

you might try leaving the evergreen branches out next time. The secret to debris shelters is to let all the debris sort of pack on top of itself with its own weight. It makes it more waterproof that way. if you have sticks and branches sticking out then it leaves space for water to get in. If built right, these shelters will actually last a long time and can be re-used repeatedly by just adding more debris to the top.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top