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Next, you need to gather materials for your structure. Your Ridge
pole should be three to five feet longer than your trench. As you can see, the ridege pole is setting on an old stump on
the foot side of your shelter. The foot side should be towards the North to keep the cold North wind out.
Next, go ahead and construct the frame of the Debris hut.
Once you are satisfied with your frame, disassemble it and stack it
to the side. Then, line the entire bottom of your trench with rocks.
Build a fire inside your trench. You will want to get the rocks
very hot and create a real good bed of red coals. While you are tending your fire, you can start gathering materials to finish
your shelter. Stack your materials close and where you can find them. Slabs of bark, Leaves, Grass, anything you can find.
Once you have a good bed of coals, and it is two hours before dark,
cover your trench with the saved dirt. Cover it completely with approximatley four to six inches of soil.
Then, build your frame over your covered trench. You do not want to
finish your shelter until the coals and rocks cook the moisture out of the dirt. You will see the dirt steam as it heats up.
Once it is done steaming and the dirt is dry, then you can continue and finish your shelter.
If you were successfull on the morning hunt, you can
get supper going... You can see that there are
3 of us and only 2 squirrels on the spit. Sombody didn't get a squirrel. I won't name names, but his name is Bob. Squirrel on a Stick...Good stuff. My brother, seen here, can put a mean scald on them.
Best squirrel I had ever eaten.
In the meantime, Bob built himself a leaf rake. In exchange
for Squirrel on a stick, he let us use his rake. Old Marines are crafty........SEMPER FI Bob! No joke here, you are going to need a truck load of leaves to do just one shelter. That rake
sure came in handy. You can rake leaves into your coat so you can haul more on each trip.
You are going to need a minimum of two feet of leaves over your
shelter. Bob says that two feet will keep you alive in 20 degree temperatures with minimal clothing. I noticed
he said "Alive" and not warm...So I put 3 feet of leaves on my shelter.
This is what it looks like inside your Debris Hut Shelter. You
have hot rocks and coals warming the dry ground underneath you. The wind can not penetrate, your body heat will keep it warm,
and you will stay dry in the rain and snow.
As long as the inside of your shelter stays dry, you will
not need to disassemble your shelter to refire the rocks under it. The location of your shelter is very important. If it gets
too cold, you can warm rocks by the fire and drag them in with you. This will keep the inside of your shelter almost
too warm if you are not careful. You
will also need to construct a door, or use a big pile of leaves to seal the entrance to your shelter to retain the heat inside.
It got down to 12 degrees over the night and we made it with
Minimal clothing, no tent, no sleeping bag. WINTER CAMP 2009 "The
only way to learn it is to live it."
January 10 & 11, 2009
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