Debris Shelter Experiment


MykeS

MykeS

Scout
Bushclass I
Joined
Jun 18, 2011
Messages
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Location
Southcentral Minnesota
Or should I call it Myke vs Ray, a debris shelter build-off? Help me decide.

Shortly before the Christmas and New Years holidays, I completed all of my required Basic Bushclass lessons and needed electives and received that long awaited "Go Ahead" to start my outings. As I thought about it, I realized it would be really great to have a place to practice bushcraft skills and go about the outings and maybe even accomplish the over-night outing as well.
As I had seen a Youtube video some time ago of Ray Mears in a "Country Tracks" episode (10) building a debris shelter, I decided that it was something I wanted to try to build also. I wanted to see just what it would take to get it built and just what kind of energies and materials would be needed. So here is the video of my efforts and I hope you enjoy it. It has consumed most of the time I've had recently for bushcraft activities, so having finally finished it to a point now where I can enjoy it, I am looking forward to doing some other fun things.
One of the main tools for this project was my Bahco Laplander folding saw, without which it would have been much more difficult. Also, one large factor was working at a pace that did not compromise my core temperatures. I was constantly balancing my clothing layers to keep from sweating, even though it did happen some. So without further ado...

A Debris Shelter Experiment - YouTube

Here is a link to that Ray Mears video for reference.

http://www.youtube.com/redirect?q=h...6DXZLBBojJuq3zH98MTMyNjMzMTc1NkAxMzI2MjQ1MzU2Country Tracks Episode 10 - Building a woodland shelter - YouTube

Thanks for watching. I hope you enjoyed the video. Trying something like this will teach you a lot, so it is definitely worth trying.
 
Nice insight! So this is obviously something you'd build if you planned to stay in it for quite a while. No one is going to build a "Ray Mears Condo" in a survival type situation, even though it does look easy on T.V. ;)

Thanks for the vid I enjoyed it greatly!
 
Can I come do my Bushclass overnighter in your shelter??? :D

Very well done. I see a lot of time spent there in the future.
 
Way to go! They're a lot of work. But worth it.
I've seen a shelter like that made with a debris hut built off it. The guy said he first built the debris hut and then added a work area to it. It also saves on fuel - let the fire go out or bank at night and sleep in the debris hut.
 
wow - that's pretty impressive compared to anything I would have done.

congrats on your home away from home!
 
Thanks guys for all your kind comments. One thing I failed to mention was that the whole time I was building it, I could not help the feeling I was building a giant tinder box. I realized that moving forward with any activity involving fire and firecraft inside this shelter would require extreme care. It is not impossible to manage, but I was reminded of an episode of Survivorman where Les accidentally set fire to his debris shelter. Obviously, I don't want that to happen after so much work to build it. I will just have to see how it goes and keep the fires small and manageable, the usual precautions.
 
Nice vid, Myke! That is truly a palatial abode that you created there. We built one quite similar a few years back, but we are blessed/cursed here in my area with lots of large dead elm trees, so we utilized a lot more bark. We placed large sheets of bark on our framework with the 'cup' up for the first layer and then placed another layer with the cup down for the second one. This creates a kind of 'terra cotta tile style' roof that proves to be almost completely waterproof. It's easily repaired and lasts a long time, too. It went together fairly fast and was pretty wind resistant, too. We didn't use any leaves because I hate raking leaves, even at home:54:
 
Well done, MykeS, great shelter and a nice vid. Thanks for sharing it. While it took many hours to build, it looks like it will last a long time, too, and so be useful for many enjoyable hours of "bushcrafting".
I don't know what your future plans are, but I suggest you hang some heavy duty Space blankets around the inside walls to prevent errant sparks from going from the fire to the walls and setting it alight. The Space blankets, particularly the "rescue" blankets, will burn, but the heavy duty ones not as easily and usually just get small holes melted into them rather than burning.
 
Myke, I dont know how I missed this before.

Great undertaking, that is a feat for 2 or more people, you did an amazing job!

Quite a few years back a buddy and I built a log cabin style hut, it took us the whole summer and like you said, you never quite feel like you are done building.

Great show of skills and determination.
 
Don't know how I missed this either. That is an outstanding shelter. Thanks for sharing your build with us.
 
A great shelter and a really professional video . I really apprecitate your honesty .
Sometimes I feel inadequate when guys act like it only takes a few hours to throw one of these together . One of my problems is finding adequate poles . It would be easy enough if you want to denude your forest and use green saplings but if your trying to save the woods for posterity it becomes a lot more difficult .
Looks like plenty of room for 3 guys (and a dog) if only they were there to help build eh ?
 
That is the Cadillac of debris shelters. I think you have it right, when it comes to something that big it would take more than one person to do it efficiently in a survival situation. Most of the debris shelters I have seen are just big enough for one person to slide into and I am a tiny bit claustrophobic. Plus, the weight of snow will almost always compact it more.
 
I was watching a western with Jimmy Stewart the other night and he walked into one of those little haciendas with a gate into an enclosed courtyard with a fire inside .
I thought man thats just like Mykes little courtyard .
 
riverjoe said:
I was watching a western with Jimmy Stewart the other night and he walked into one of those little haciendas with a gate into an enclosed courtyard with a fire inside .
I thought man thats just like Mykes little courtyard .
Click to expand...

Thanks buddy. I have finally reached the last outing I need to complete Bushclass Basic and I have been planning now on using this shelter for my overnight. I visited it today and it is still looking pretty good, so now it is just a matter of getting things together. So far, I am looking to this weekend. Crossing the fingers. Of course I will let you guys know how it goes, photos and video and all that. Hoping I can pull this off. This is Minnesota, and minnesota winters can be fickle, and unless the bottom drops out of the thermometer and things get way too wicked, I am determined to get it done.
 
The only debris shelter I've ever built was much smaller. But, I also put leaves in the shelter itself to provide insulation. Your project was more like a DIY cabin. Great job!
 
The beauty here is that you did the video and shared it with thousands here on this forum. Nice.
 
Joe said:
Keep us posted, you guys have any snow?
Click to expand...

Well Joe, to answer your question... Here's what it looked like yesterday. I think it will be all gone by Friday though.

DebrisSnow1.jpg


Another closer to the door...

DebrisSnow2.jpg


And inside...

DebrisSnow3.jpg


Fun stuff... no worries about sourcing water at this point.
 
Awesome shelter Sir. I wonder if you could put a tarp above the top at a certain angle to block the wind/rain/snow and still have the smoke draft out without issues.
 
Debris Shelter Update and Use for Outing #5 Overnight

Well, I had the great privilege of completing my BushclassUSA Outing #5 which included my overnight. I used this debris shelter as I had mentioned earlier and since I posted the pictures and video in the 5 Outings Bushclass section, here is the link to that adventure and a few photos to preview...

Here is the bottom layer of the insulation bed.

InsulationBedBase.jpg


Here is the next layer...

InsulationBedBase2.jpg


The requisite "cooking bacon" over the new fire pit shoot...

BK2Bacon.jpg


Link to the original photos and video...

http://bushcraftusa.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1041590#post1041590

I hope you enjoy the report guys. It was fun. Now I have a good, working "bed" in the debris shelter. Not exactly posturepedic, but it was comfortable. Just have to work on the roof to close that up a bit. Catch you guys later.
 
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I have had one of those shelters on my radar for sometime; but as a multi-person project... being socially inept, it continues to elude me.

Big kudos to you for making that happen. Thank you!

With what you ended up, how many can sleep undercover?

Your best guesstimate; how much time difference do you think there would have been if you would have made a conical wikiup vs. the squared shelter with corners?

Thanks again. Looks awesome.
 
Debris Shelter Layout Update

abo4ster said:
With what you ended up, how many can sleep undercover?

Your best guesstimate; how much time difference do you think there would have been if you would have made a conical wikiup vs. the squared shelter with corners?

Thanks again. Looks awesome.
Click to expand...

Hi Chris, I put together a short animation about the shelter layout and capacity and I think, best estimate, you could get three people in there fairly easily. Here is the quick animation...

Debris Shelter Layout Update - YouTube

Another large factor in building this shelter, besides the time and energy factors, was the available materials and how they dictated the overall geometry. I really didn't think of it much until much later, but by using existing trees as corner supports, they defined the length of a least two of my walls. Finding poles that were long enough for the horizontal supports and still strong enough, determined the other wall lengths. In the end, it was a very irregular pentagon shape and much shorter in all dimensions then the one in Ray Mears's video.

It was very difficult to find enough long rafter poles for the wall construction and as I went along, I discovered that I could only harvest an average size, close to eight feet, though sometimes more, sometimes less. Choosing the angle, and therefore the "slant" of all the walls and the coverage they would grant, was really almost predetermined by that average length.

If I could have found longer poles, and made the slant shallower, and therefore allowed more inside square footage, there would have been more room for more people and I could have centralized the fire pit, rather then moving it to one end of the now irregular "pentagon slash almost rectangular" area.

From what I can tell, Ray was able to find a lot of very long poles, and whether he had help or not, the larger shelter would have taken even more energy and time.

I can only imagine that if I had really tried to get all the longest poles I could, closer to ten or twelve feet each, foraging a much larger area of the woodland I was in, it would have taken a much longer time then the four days it took. Finding some that were even reasonably straight was a huge challenge in the hardwood woodland that I was in.

It was a great learning experience and I am still learning.

Thanks all of you guys for following along, and for the many thanks and congrats on finishing my Bushclass Basic. Using this shelter, made it a great finish. More to come...
 
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