My First Attempt Building an Emergency Debris Shelter - No Tools or Gear

Hey y'all, Dixie here. I am doing a little something different today. I've been wanting to get more practice with survival skills and one of the things I talked about before was doing some sort of makeshift shelter in the woods. If you're out for a day hike and you end up lost in the woods, you should have the 10 essentials in your day pack. However, maybe you want a shelter that's a little bit more insulated or you know offers you a little bit more comfort even than like the garbage bag you have in your pack as a makeshift shelter. So I thought trying to get out and make one of these survival shelters that I've seen people do with nothing but what I can find randomly on a trail in the woods would be good practice and you all can watch me and laugh at me because I'm sure that I'm going to struggle more than the people that I've seen in these videos that make it look super easy. I do not have a machete. I actually didn't even bring a pocket knife today. We're just going to go with what I can find here in the woods and see how I make do. I'm also going to note the time because I am curious as to how long this will take me. Of course if I was just chilling in the woods because I was lost and needed to build some kind of shelter then at least you've got time to kill and it'll keep your mind busy. The type of shelter that I'm trying to build today is what they call a debris shelter. From what I can tell on just the couple videos that I skimmed through, you basically have a ridgeline branch and that can be propped up several different ways. You stack limbs on that ridgeline then put some finer and finer sticks and then you cover that structure with a bunch of leaves or whatever other insulating materials you can find. And it is a warmish day in Alabama so let's go get red bugs together. This looks like home sweet home just as much as any old spot. Basically I'm going to use the V on this tree that's it is it does kind of look like it's dead but it's pretty sturdy. But there's a little V here that I'm going to hook another branch on. I don't know that I would necessarily need this much clearance or want this much clearance especially if it was really cold and I'm wanting to keep a small area warm as much as possible but haven't really seen anything better. So again beggars can't be choosers and you just kind of got to go with the best that you can find. So far this is the best that I found in this find this piece so this is going to be my ridgeline. I don't think it'll give too much with all the stuff on it. I thought I had found a better spot but it had the V too low to the ground and it was right beside the water which everything's cooler at night right beside the water and things get more damp so this is probably the better spot. So I'm going to start building Hmm I guess I could. Who says I can't have a double ridgeline? I can stack flat I guess. I don't know. I don't know if that'll work or not but we'll see. I have the ribs on one side some of them. I'm gonna have to put more smaller pieces but on this side before I get it closed in I think I've got to put ribs down this part too but I need to work on some bedding. I need to get some leaves raked up under there. So after an hour and 45 minutes I've got one side more or less done. Looking back on this side I think I should have spent more time with the ribs like getting smaller and smaller spaces so that my insulating material would be more supported. That way it couldn't fall through but I was lucky enough to find this dead grass stuff that worked pretty well for a webbing. Now if I was in a true survival situation I wouldn't be worried about just using downed material so like these ferns and things like that. I could use some of that to kind of block some of those holes but in the colder months when you would really want to be insulated you should be able to find enough dead stuff. I haven't had a problem finding dead materials. So let's check out this side. Ta-da! Looking pretty decent I reckon. You can definitely see some holes through there that can be filled in. I would say that when I do this side I need to make sure to slant them enough. I notice the more they're slanted the easier it is to keep webbing or insulating material on them so when I'm doing this side I need to make sure they're slanted enough to give me enough space too. But don't want too much space because again don't want to be warming you know a bedroom and a living room and whatever. This is just to get by and I have my initial plans here for this to be my doorway. I don't know I might need to move that. My booty might not fit through there. But anyway you want like a little hole allegedly to climb through and then you can fill with you know mossy like stuff or that grassy stuff. You don't want a big gaping doorway. At this point I feel like I'm in a with the sun but it's coming along and I have to say that my past kid self would be so proud of my present kid self because this is the coolest fort I have ever built. Well here she is. That's my front door. There is the right side I guess you would call it. The second side that I built. And the back of it. Definitely see up there in the V it could use some extra fluff on top. All around probably it could. And I said that over here on the second side I was going to make sure I didn't make that too steep. Definitely got a little steep with it so those leaves and stuff could just kind of slough off of there. Especially if like a hard rain came probably so. But lessons learned again. This is my first go at it and it's standing so that's that's the first step. I kind of balled up some bamboo twigs that I found so you know well but you get the idea. If I made something bushier it would kind of cover that hole and then from the inside if I had extra leaves I could push out leaves to insulate it better. But you know the best I could find for now. Okay where's my door? Gotta keep my door handy. Feels like something's gonna bite my legs off. Oh man can actually kind of sit up in it. Not that I'm I would really be aiming to just you know hang out but hey creature comfort. So I do have one of these because I always have one of these backpacking. At this point I mean the bed of leaves that I have is pretty good. It could have been thicker so I could have one had more comfort but two more insulation and then ball up in this. But I did I did fairly well on the sides. I would definitely make it thicker next time but and you know this hole in the roof would need to be not existent. But still if just on a cold night to keep the wind off of me and you know have a little warmth this is really not not a bad idea. Okay the door could use improvement. So this is the part where you would pull whatever your door material is to cover that space and then you know you could use like leaves to make it thicker I guess. Kind of block the wind from your head. But that's probably what needs the most improvement. Otherwise just some thickening and and the angle of this wall over here. All right so a recap there are definitely things that I could have done better. The angle of the walls been a little flatter not so much because I needed more room but because that way things don't fluff off so easily in heavy winds or rains. I mean this isn't supposed to be like a bomb-proof shelter but just something in my opinion to kind of insulate you keep the breeze off of you. You know keep you from freezing to death. Give you a little shelter a little comfort. It was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. You know sometimes YouTube videos make things look super easy. I thought it was going to take me at least five or six hours. It took about half that time so I'm kind of proud of that. I feel like I could go a little faster with it next time just because of the site selection. I would kind of have more of an idea of what I'm looking for but then again it might be harder to find next time so it's hard to say. And the reason I'm even mentioning a next time is I really want to spend the night in this thing tonight. I would have to make the changes to it like insulate it a little bit more except it's supposed to be a pretty warm night. But one I would like to stay in it on a colder night probably just to see how well it really insulates. But two I'm having to pump every two to three hours right now to keep my supply up for my uh sun. Oh my god people are coming. You're gonna think a hermit's living out here. I just don't want to answer this question. What are you doing? I think they're gone. But I do want to come back out at some point and I do really wish that my first time building this I was staying in it. That was the plan originally when I had uh planned on doing this. But man it was really nice to get out here in the woods today and just decompress and get my hands dirty and like break sticks and stuff. This is the therapy that I have needed. This has really been wonderful to be out here. So props to my mom who is babysitting today. Um but anyway I guess I need to crawl out of this hole and head on back home now and start preparing for the Arizona trail which is going to be it just a whole two months of therapy in itself. Okay I need to be quiet. I feel like Jim Carrey being born out of the rhinoceros in Ace Ventura.