When you are lost or stuck, you absolutely must prioritize your activities. Everything you choose to do will take up time and expend calories. Perhaps you were hiking and left the trail getting lost in the woods. Maybe you fell and broke your leg leaving you unable to hike out. You might have just hiked too long and let dark sneak up on you. The circumstances do not matter.
The four pillars of survival are fire, food, water and shelter. The human body can last up to 3 weeks without any food. It can also last up to 3 days without any water. But, we can only survive 3 hours without any warmth from a fire or a shelter. Hypothermia is the number one reason for death in a survival situation. It is especially dangerous when your clothes are wet as this brings on hypothermia 20 times faster. This is a condition in which your internal body temperature drops to 95F or below. You will notice confusion, disorientation, nausea, numbness, and uncontrollable shivering. As the condition progresses, you may feel a warm or hot sensation right before death.
Fire is always a great way to get warm quickly, but fire is not always easy. You may have no fire starter. All the wood in the area may be wet. And in some situations, you may even be in an area that has no wood to burn. Keep in mind that it takes a massive amount of firewood to keep a fire going all night. This leaves shelter as your best option to keep warm. A quality shelter insulates heat, blocks the wind, insulates from the ground and the sky drawing heat from your body, and protects against predators.
Natural Features for Shelters
One of the best ways to build a shelter is to use the natural resources around you. This may mean using a rock face or fallen log to support your shelter. It may also mean completely sheltering in a natural resource. Caves are and excellent example as they block the wind and rain. However, you must be cautious with caves. You need to make sure to check for animal signs such as fur, tracks, bones, or scat. Many animals including predators will make a cave their home. Be sure water is not dripping from the top as this may make it as bad as being outside. Try to insulate yourself from the cold floor by building a bed. This could be a framed bed or could just be a pile of leaves, grasses, or spruce boughs. Finally, be careful with fires inside a cave. A large fire can heat the rocks above and cause rocks to dislodge.
In heavy snow you have other options to get out of the weather. In a wooded area, a spruce tree can be a great shelter. You will notice that there is little or no snow underneath the tree. The boughs above catch the snow and hold it there, so little gets through. The effect this causes in deep snow is a lip where the snow meets the boughs and drops to the ground. Crawling in under these boughs gives you a natural wind block as the deep snow around the sides shields you from the wind. In addition, there is a bed of dead spruce needles at the base of the tree. This not only insulates from the cold ground but provides a soft bed upon which to lie.
In some cases, you may be so far north that there are no trees to use for shelter. In this case a snow cave may be the best option. A snow cave uses deep snow to block the wind and insulate your body heat. Snow actually makes great insulation. You need snow at least four feet deep. If there is none, look for drifts or pile up snow to get it high enough. You begin by digging down to the ground. Then form a door large enough for you to just barely crawl inside. Next, find sticks about a foot long and shove them all over the roof of your cave. This is to ensure the roof does not collapse on you trapping you inside. As you hollow out the inside of your cave, you will stop any time you reach the end of one of the sticks.
Get back to the doorway and start hollowing out your shelter. One of the best ways to do this is to pile up snow on something flat and then push it out of the shelter to dump it. Keep digging until you have enough space to sit up, turn around, and lie down in all directions. Next you want to make an elevated bed. This will allow cold air to sink down below. It will also insulate you from the frozen ground beneath. You can either dig out the bed deeper in your shelter, or you can bring back some snow and pile it up. You want to be at least six inches above the ground. Be sure to lie on your elevated bed to verify that it is large enough. Finally, pull your pack into the doorway to block wind. You can then light a candle which will slowly fill the space with warmth. This is another reason the elevated bed is needed. Carbon monoxide can fill the space, but it will sink to the bottom leaving you safe to sleep in your elevated bed.
In addition to sheltering inside natural resources, it is also smart to use them in building a shelter. Every step that you can take that saves time and calories will help you survive. Rock faces are a great resource. You can build a lean-to against the rock face simply by leaning poles against it and then piling debris on top. The rock face is the best wind block that you can ask for. In addition, if you build a fire against a rock face it will reflect the heat back to you. A fallen log can be a great resource as well. You can use this as a natural ridge pole to build a lean-to or double lean-to. Both of these scenarios give you a shelter that is even more stable than if you were to build a free-standing shelter.
The Lean-To Shelter
The shelter that I most often use in my survival challenges is a lean-to. This is a simple shelter design that can be assembled quickly with minimal resources that are all natural. No cordage is needed if you build it correctly. This shelter will protect you from wind in one direction, will shed rain, and can reflect heat from a fire. As stated above, building a lean-to against a rock face is your best possible scenario.
However, I want to cover how to build a lean-to without a rock face. You will start by finding two trees about eight feet apart with some low hanging branches. Ideally you will build your lean to with the roof blocking the wind. Check the wind direction and place your ridge pole perpendicular to that. You will then want to clear the area on one side of these trees about eight feet out. This gives you and eight by eight square that should be clear of rocks, sticks, plants, and any other debris. Next, find or cut a ridge pole that is sturdy and about ten feet long. If you need to shorten a pole that is too long and it is dead wood, you are best to find two trees close together, place the pole in between, and walk forward applying pressure until it snaps. This is much safer than jumping on it, stomping on it, or trying to break it across your knee. It also requires much less energy than sawing or chopping through the pole. This pole will need to support some weight, so make sure you find a good one and test it out before using. Wedge the ridge pole in next to the trunk of the trees on branches that are sturdy enough to hold some weight. You want it to be fairly level and about four feet off of the ground.
Now you will want to collect smaller poles to lean against your ridge pole. These should be about five to six feet long and do not need to support nearly as much weight. Start leaning them against the ridge pole while also pushing them together tightly. You want roughly a 45- degree angle on these poles. Now you will need to insulate your shelter. This is absolutely vital. The more insulation you have, the warmer you will be. Because of the angle of the shelter, you will need at least four feet of insulation if you want to be protected from rain. Insulation can be leaves, grasses, or spruce boughs.
Finally, it is vital that you build a bed to get up off of the ground. Sleeping on even dry ground will suck the warmth right out of your body. Sleeping on damp ground is even worse. Your bed can be a platform build with poles. It can also simply be a pile of insulation. Again, you can use leaves, grasses, or spruce boughs. Either way your body must be at least four inches off of the ground. When piling insulation, keep in mind that it takes much more than four inches to stay four inches off of the ground. It will compact with your body weight so pile it up, lay on it, check your height, and add more if needed.
The Debris Hut
If you have no way to start a fire and it is getting cold outside, the debris hut is your best option. This shelter completely surrounds your body with insulation, so it works like a sleeping bag. If built right, it should hold in most of your body heat in the coldest conditions. To build you will need to start with three poles. As with the lean-to, the first is the ridge pole. It should be eight to ten feet long but does not need to support much weight. Your other two frame poles need to be four to five feet long, but these need to easily support the weight of the ridge pole.
If you can find poles with a fork at the end, that is even better. This would just add more stability to your frame. You do ideally want some cordage for this shelter, but not much. Lean the two shorter poles towards each other so they meet at the top forming an upside-down V. These poles should be at about a 45-degree angle. Then position the ridge pole perpendicular to your other two and rest it on top. If you have forks at the end, you can rest the ridge pole on these forks. Either way, you want to use a simple lashing to secure this joint. If it is windy and this joint fails, you will have the ridge pole drop right on your face.
You next want to build your bed. In this structure, a raised platform will not fit. Instead use leaves, grasses, or spruce boughs to get your body at least four inches off of the ground. Once the bed is built, you can finish the frame. Like the lean-to, you will find smaller poles of various lengths to lean at a 45-degree angle against both sides of the ridge pole. Again, you will push them tightly against each other to form a wall.
The final and most important step is the insulation. On this shelter you must pile at least four feet of insulation on the frame. Again, you can use leaves, grasses, or spruce boughs. If you can get more than four feet of insulation, it is advised. This should not only hold in your body heat but also shed any rain or snow that comes down. You can then use your pack to block most of the opening, or you can build a triangle frame door. However, this is strictly a wind block. Heat rises, so the insulation will do its job even without a door. Be aware that the dimensions for this shelter are the ones I use, and I am a big guy. You want as little extra space as possible, so reduce the length of the shorter frame poles if possible.
Tarp/Emergency Blanket Shelters
It may seem like cheating, but in survival there is no such thing. If I found an abandoned cabin, I would use it. Therefore, knowing how to use a tarp or emergency blanket for shelter is important. I carry an emergency blanket with me almost every time I enter the wilderness. In my first survival challenge it saved my life. I had been able to start a fire just before dark but did not collect enough wood. Then a nasty storm blew in after dark. I had built my shelter assuming the rain would come straight down. However, the strong winds were blowing it inside of my lean-to. This is one reason it is vital that you factor in wind direction when building a lean-to. The fire went out quickly and my clothes were wet. I was shivering and entering the first stages of hypothermia. In desperation I pulled out my emergency blanket and wrapped up. It warmed me and kept the rain off. I was able to make it to morning and finish several more days to win the challenge.
To build a shelter with an emergency blanket, you have two primary options. One is a lean-to. Many emergency blankets have grommets at the corners for this purpose. If you have no grommets, find a small stone or piece of stick. Place it near the corner, wrap it around, and then tie cordage around the lump created. Either way, you can then tie two corners to tree branches about four feet off of the ground. For the other two corners you can make stakes out of sticks or just use rocks to weigh them down.
Your other option is a pup-tent or double lean-to. This blocks wind and rain from both sides. You can use a ridge pole between two trees, but you will need to lower it below three feet or you will run out of material from your emergency blanket. You can also tightly run cordage between two trees to accomplish the same thing. Drape your emergency blanket or tarp across the ridge pole or cordage so you have an equal amount of material on each side. If you make it low enough, you can just stake down or weigh down the corners. If not, you will need to tie cordage to all four corners and use stakes to stretch it tight. If you know you have wind and rain coming, this is the way to go. It should be mentioned that emergency blankets are designed to reflect 90% of your body heat back to you. That being said, you can always add insulation. Just be careful to avoid ripping the blanket.
Building emergency shelters does not have to be time consuming or complicated. On television you see people building these large elaborate shelters that take several days. However, most people do not have several days. You want to spend as little time as possible. You want to burn the fewest calories possible. Most importantly, you want to keep the shelter small so you have less air space to keep warm. With these few simple designs, you can get creative and come up with the best option for just about every scenario. I do implore you to practice building these shelters. You can do it on a camping trip, while hiking, or in your back yard. Take it a step further and try sleeping in your shelter. This is the only way you can definitively know that you will be ready when your life depends upon it.
Ryan Dotson is a survivalist, writer, photographer and prepper. Mr. Dotson was raised in the Ozark Mountains. His interest in survivalism began with the Boy Scouts. His father, uncle and grandfather continued to teach him how to hunt and fish. Currently living in Mid-Missouri, Mr. Dotson has begun to write about his experiences of survival here at SurvivalistWarrior.com.