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Safety—Is the site safe from falling branches, marauding animals (including insects), flash floods, land-, rock-and snowslides, and collapse? If you can’t remove the hazard, move on. Other safety issues to look out for: Are you close enough and/or far enough away from other people? Is it legal to camp on this site? Is there enough space for your activities, such as lighting a fire or working on projects?
Shelter materials—Are all the materials you need available in generous amounts, or could you expect to find sites with more resources nearby?
This is probably the requirement most often overlooked by my course participants when they choose to build shelters in hastily found sites that appear picturesque but consequently spend hours dragging materials from another area, often leading to a miserable night ahead.
Drainage—Is the ground on your preferred site nice and dry, or is it muddy? Is it far enough away from streams to avoid most of the dew and insects? Will it collect rain?
Weather—What is the prevailing wind direction? Where would the more violent storms come in from? Are there any natural features in the terrain that could block incoming weather systems? Sharp rises in the landscape, a forest or valleys may offer protection. On the flip side, while offering protection from bad weather, will your shelter site provide a good amount of daylight? There’s nothing as demoralizing as living in a deep spruce forest where you barely see the sky and where the day starts hours later and finishes hours earlier. Your site must be open to plenty of daylight.
Resources—Are there many resources available nearby for use once the shelter is finished? Think water, food, fuel, etc. This priority is in fact closely interlinked with the shelter materials one discussed above. Most usually, the sites with the best available resources will be found at transition areas where one type of terrain gives way to another. For instance, where a deep wood gives way to a meadow.
Impact—Will your presence disrupt the area too much? Might you pollute streams or ponds with a latrine, causing a hazard with your fire or damaging a fragile ecosystem with your gathering? Might you cause a nuisance to other users of the area? Is your site hidden or visible enough for the circumstances?
Pleasantness—Is the site you chose nice to be in? Will it help you feel upbeat and in good spirits? Is the site physically comfortable, with flat and level ground? Does the area contain many “nuisance” (rather than dangerous) insects such as midges, ticks or ants?
While admittedly heading toward the “wanted rather than needed” side of the spectrum, using a site that feels “welcoming” and comfortable will most certainly help a positive state of mind.
FIRE SAFETY
The chances are high you’ll be lighting a fire at some point, regardless of your shelter type, so it’s worth thinking about fire safety when selecting or preparing a site for building your shelter. Fires should be built on a base made out of rocks with the gaps filled with sand. Be sure not to pick waterlogged stones, as they may explode. The point of building a base is to prevent roots or other materials just below the surface from catching fire. A smoldering spruce root, for instance, can burn for many days undetected, spread the fire to other roots and even flare up above ground many yards away from the original campfire, igniting a wildfire days after the original campfire was extinguished. Building such a base also makes it more convenient to erase any trace of your existence once you leave the site.
It is also important to keep the ground around the fire clear of loose-leaf debris and other flammable materials. Keep your shelters well away from the fire, unless you are building a small fire in your shelter (see page 54). Also, keep the fire well away from trees, shrubs and overhanging branches and avoid using evergreen branches such as spruce and pine for burning, as these varieties tend to throw hot sparks. It’s also worth ensuring you always have a means of extinguishing the fire on hand. Water, sand or mud are all good materials for helping to kill the fire.
The skill of finding a suitable location quickly improves with experience and knowledge of the natural world and the particular environments you regularly find yourself in. In fact, with just a bit of natural awareness and common sense, you can even look at any topographical map of an area and predict to a fair degree the most likely areas to contain good shelter sites. To help improve your site-finding skills, try to consciously identify potential shelter sites when out and about, even when in parks and urban environments, keeping everything from safety and resources to impact and pleasantness in mind. It’ll soon become a nearly subconscious process. You will know you’re on the right track when the need for a shelter arises and the sentence: “I remember seeing…” pops in your head immediately.
Materials
This book covers a large number of purely natural shelters; however, some shelters use store-bought materials and some are manufactured shelters. The store-bought materials needed will be covered in-depth in Chapter 3, DIY and Modern Material Shelters, while the modern shelters don’t require any additional materials. This leaves us to discuss the materials you may need for a natural shelter.
Rocks—Some shelters make extensive use of stones and rocks of all shapes and sizes. There’s not a lot to say about them, except to keep in mind the circumstances under which you are using them. You don’t want to use waterlogged rocks in close proximity to fire, for instance, as the heat may cause the stone to explode. You also don’t want to use weak stone (such as thin sandstone slabs) to form a roof or bear weight. Finally, be careful not to move rocks that are really too heavy to lift, as a strained back out in the wilderness will increase the difficulties inherent to being far from modern civilization.
Sticks and logs—Again, ensure that they are not too heavy for you and that they are more than strong enough to sustain the weight you intend to place on them.
In some shelters, certain live branches may be used (such as willow), many of which will sprout roots and continue to grow. Ensure that this practice is allowed and ecologically sound. More on this suggestion in Chapter 2, Making Debris Shelters with Your Bare Hands.
Leaves and other debris—The most important rule is to ensure you do not use any poisonous or toxic leaves for your shelter. You do not want to be lying with your face pillowed by poison oak, for instance. You also want to ensure that leaves do not contain spikes or other unpleasant features. A failure to be careful when selecting debris can result in some rather uncomfortable nights!
THE SAFE WAY TO BREAK BRANCHES
Be careful breaking branches to the correct length over your knees or by jumping on them. Damage to the knee or ankle is common when the strength of a stick is underestimated. Try to select sticks of the correct length, or break them between terrain features, such as two closely spaced trees or rocks. (Beware of flying sticks when using trees or rocks to break sticks, especially when battering them.)
Generally, for all aspects of shelter-building, dead and dry broadleaf leaves such as beech, oak, sycamore, birch and so on are most ideally suited. Some leaves are particularly useful to create shelter from. Beech leaves, for instance, are inherently insect-repellent, and so would make an excellent choice! It’s quite possible to work with evergreen leaves such as spruce and pine needles; however, they take a lot of gathering and can be a tad uncomfortable.
When you’re gathering debris, leave the bottom layer of half-decaying leaves on the ground, as this layer is vital for protecting soil and growth and doesn’t add much insulation relative to its volume.