How to Build a Shelter

When choosing a place to build your shelter, try to stay near a source of water. If your scenario is a crashed car or a small airplane, stay as close to the wreckage as is safe. If it's heavily shaded from view, stay close but visible. You should also avoid natural hazards like dead tress that could fall, cliffs and dry river beds. Heavy rains can turn a dry bed back into a rushing river very quickly. Your shelter should be no bigger than necessary -- the larger the shelter, the harder time you'll have holding in the heat.

If possible, don't sleep directly on the ground. Piling grass or pine needles can go a long way toward helping you retain body heat. Your shelter should be ventilated, especially if you plan on having a fire inside or near the entrance. Use large rocks or tree branches to block the door. This prevents heat from getting out and animals from getting in.

Let's say you swerved off the side of a mountain at night and can't reach the roadway. The most important thing is to make it through the night with a temporary emergency shelter. All you want to do is to provide some basic protection from the elements. If it's dry, you can simply dig a hole in the ground and cover it with large sticks, followed by smaller, dense boughs. Fir tree branches make excellent insulation from the cold. If it's raining or wet, avoid burrowing in a hole and get off the ground. If this isn't possible at the time, make cover on flat or sloped land so rainwater can drain.

Other ways to find emergency shelter:

Just remember, in an emergency your goal isn'­t comfort. It's to get through the night until you can assess your situation and build a proper shelter. It's also important to be careful whenever you're dealing with caves. Stay close to the mouth so you don't get lost and be very aware of other creatures seeking shelter alongside you.

­­In the next section, we'll look at how to build shelters with on-hand materials.

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It's vital in any survival situation to make use of anything you find or already have with you. You can often find useful materials left behind by others. A bit of discarded climbing rope, some ripped plastic sheeting or even an old hiking boot can be of great use in the woods. You should always gather whatever you have or find and keep it at your base camp. Items like ponchos, nylon hammocks or parachutes can serve as shelter materials.

If you have a poncho or any kind of plastic sheeting, you can build several different types of shelters. What you want to do is mimic the shape of a tent. For a basic shade shelter, all you need to do is spread the material out so you can get under it. If you have some rope, you can tie it between four trees to form a canopy. You can fashion a tent shelter by running rope down the center of the poncho between two trees, then staking the sides into the ground with sharp sticks to create an A-frame. Another simple lean-to shelter can be made by tying two opposite corners of the poncho to trees. The other end slants diagonally to the ground and can be secured with stick stakes or heavy rocks.

If you don't have any rope, build a one-person tent from tree branches:

If you have enough material and want to suspend yourself from the ground, you can create a cot. Find two long, sturdy branches and roll them into the material on each side like a long scroll, leaving about a foot of wood exposed at each end. Then simply lash the cot to four trees a few feet off the ground. Proceed aboard slowly, but your body weight should pull it tight as long as it's wrapped with enough material.

Combine this above-ground cot with a cover to form an elevated platform. If you can't find four trees in close enough proximity, use a single forked tree at one end to form a "Y"-shaped base. If you have rope but no tree to tie into, tie it around a medium sized rock and bury it 6 to 8 inches into the ground. If you tie rope or twine higher than the shelter, you should attach drip sticks. Just get a 6-inch stick and attach it to the line a few inches from where it meets the material. This allows the water to run down the stick instead of into your shelter.­

In the next section, we'll look at how to build a shelter using only natural materials.

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The U.S. military's term for using natural objects to accomplish a task is field expedient (FE). If you're lost or stranded in the wild and you have no materials at all, you'll need FE tools and shelter.

FE shelters employ the same methods as ones built with ponchos or tarps. The only difference is what you use to cover the frame. After you build the frame, use branches and thicket to make up your roof. Pine boughs make for good insulation, but as long as you stack and weave lots of leaves, branches and twigs, you'll have adequate shelter. Think of your shelter roof as being shingled like a house. Work in layers from the ground up and keep the branches pointed toward down for rainwater runoff.

A debris hut is an FE shelter that's easy to build and provides great protection from the elements. To build one:

­If you're in deep snow and have large evergreen trees around, build a tree-pit snow shelter:

Some other tips to remember:

Whatever your emergency scenario, the most important thing is to remain calm and in control. Panic will get you nowhere and knowing some rudimentary survival skills can be the difference between lif­e and death. Basic shelters are easy to build and crucial to surviving the harsh elements of the great outdoors. If you're an avid camper or hiker, you should practice building a shelter on your next excursion. It can be educational, potentially life-saving and a lot of fun.

For more information on building shelters and other survival techniques, let the links on the next page guide you.

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