Natural Shelter Solo Overnight

Alright guys, this is going to be my first natural shelter solo overniter, specifically without the dog. I've done a natural shelter solo overniter with my dog, but to get the full experience and as per the rules, this is what's going to go down. I'm here with this fallen down cottonwood, there's lots of bark around it, and I'm going to use the bark along with some reed and grass as a bed, and then I'm going to shingle it with the bark and some logs. Alright, I've got that bark platform down where I'm going to lay, the shadow's been in the way. That bark is a good, I don't know, inch and a half thick, now I'm going to go get my other bedding. This is the first load. That's an extra little windbreak there. Those are the sticks. I'm putting on the back I'm just starting to lean to part of it. I stuck the extra hay or whatever long grass in behind there So that'll be like on my back So it goes about as high as my back does so that'll be a nice little insulation thing there too for me Alright, there it is with the bark on it. This won't be bad at all So it's higher in the middle and my head kind of my head and my feet kind of sink down at the bottom lower and I don't really mind if my feet do but I kind of want my head elevated so I got a bunch more of that grass it's so easy to collect it's just a matter of pulling it over the ground it's awesome I'm gonna put some in so that my my head is elevated like a pillow don't get me wrong I definitely brought a pillow I'm a softy that way that's my one luxury item that and my wool blanket All right, so there's my stack of firewood, and I've got some prep down in there. I'm going to get some twigs for a squaw wood fire. That's my whole setup there. I like it. It looks pretty good to me. I've got all my clothes out there ready to put on, and I'll take you around. So it's a piece of dead cottonwood that I'm using as a ridge line, I guess, ridge pole. I came off of this big guy and walked around. That's the roof. You start to see the back of it, and I was, I'm not going to lie, I came and picked this place out a couple days ago, scoped it out to find out where it would be a good place to set it up. I actually got all this bark off of this tree, so it's not like it was a, you can see there where I stripped it off, it's not like it was a far walk to get it or anything. If I did have to walk to get it, it would have been a lot more labor intensive, I believe, but still really useful. It's 20 after 5 now, and it's getting dark. The sun's gone down. It's just the residual light now My wood pile is behind me. They're expecting to need more before the night's through as you can see I put on I put on all my clothes except for my wool my wool jacket now. It's getting chilly and I'm gonna wait till it gets just a little bit darker start my fire and then cook some food Wow, I couldn't I couldn't make this up if I wanted to this is frickin ridiculous I was chopping a piece of wood. It turns out it was holding the whole shelter up I don't know if you can see this but my the whole Thing is just it's done. It's decimated. It fell. There's my my my blanket. There's My roof and my backing. Oh my god It's flattened. That's the frickin Lean to part of it. This is horrible. Oh my goodness. Damn. This is This is horrible. I'm gonna try i'm not leaving i'm i gotta try to move this this is like a freaking huge piece of wood uh i gotta move that off and then i'm gonna try to push the roof back onto there and just oh my god i cannot believe this it it was sturdy i was trying to cut a piece of cottonwood limb off my saw got bound but got stuck in it bind it up and i chopped it with a machete to get it down and as soon as it broke the whole freaking thing oh my goodness i can't believe this i spent all day out here everything was fine and i was getting one more piece of wood before i started the fire and this happened oh my god i can't believe it i was able to get that huge piece off my stuff that's it over there but unfortunately i'm not going to be able to make this into a shelter now it's too the log is too wide around for me to lay poles across they're not even going to cover my my my bag or nothing on my blanket or me so i don't know i'm not i'm not moving and i'm not going home i'm going to spend the night and uh i got this log here as my back and i'll it's not going to rain i know that i want to stay relatively warm with the with the fire but i don't think that can make this into a shelter again which really sucks because it was very good i was really happy with it all right i let the fire die down a bit and i'm cooking my gluten-free sausages on my sweet grill that donk and josh made for me all right i got those sausages almost done i stuck some cheese on there delicious almost makes me forget about the tragedy that was my shelter it's so hot i had to take off my shoes and socks well i'm over the fact that the shelter broke it It was a big deal to me, for real. Spent all day doing it, and I was really happy with it, really thought it was gonna work good. But even if this doesn't qualify for a shelter now, because it's not really one, it's just a windbreak with a fire reflector in front of it, I did learn a lot, especially about the bark. The bark really, really goes a long way. If you can get ahold of it, the big, thick cottonwood bark is what you look for in a hardwoods environment, in my opinion. And this grass, this grass is really, really easy to uh gather and i'm sitting a good six inches off the ground still after the tree fell on it actually i think i imagine it's not gonna get any more compressed than that but uh i'm taking off layers the fire's hot everything's everything's comfortable so uh still having a good time all right so it's 10 to 8 and i'm laying here and i'm just i can't stop thinking about the fact that i'm not really in a shelter and that's what the whole point of this thing is so i'm going to go out and i'm going to cut two y branches and a ridge pole and put them up in front of where i'm laying and then make a roof and thatch the roof with bark all right those two uh y branches are the start of what i'm talking about i don't know how well you can see it but uh that's pretty much it it's same deal that Ken did. I just got forked sticks instead of tying it with vine. So there's my bed and if you look up I'm all covered. There's the ridge line and sticks and bark and it's pretty good. I'm just going to try and get a little bit more on this side here and maybe try to close off that side a bit but I'm really happy that I decided to do this i was i was going crazy thinking that i wasn't actually in a shelter so and that's the whole point of this that's what i mean like i was fine sleeping out next to it it's not not that is the fact that i was supposed to be under a shelter uh natural shelter and i use still haven't used any man-made materials with the shelter the only man-made materials i have are my wool blanket and such with marshmallows i fixed my watch now it's the right time it's 10 30 and i just put put a bunch of wood on the fire, and I'm heading to bed. I keep hearing odd noises that I have never heard before. I think it's some kind of bird, it's pretty cool. All right, guys, see you in the a.m. All right, so it's 5.30 in the morning. Woke up pretty much every hour on the hour, like clockwork to stoke the fire. It worked out really good. I got a nice amount of sleep. I went to bed about 10.30, so got a good night's sleep, that's for sure. fire kept me warm and didn't get down too cold maybe about nine or eight degrees above freezing and that's good as a good night so I'm walking out now it's just after seven and that's what happens when you don't look where you walk it okay all right guys I'm heading out now it's just after seven Sun's starting to come out looks like it's gonna be a nice day too so I had a really good time I had enough sleep I feel rested and ready to go so the only thing that could make this better is if my car is still there when I get there great success