Thursday, July 15, 2010

Part One: Building A Lean To (Debris Shelter)



With the picture above in my mind, ingrained into my memory from reading various outdoors, survival, camping style books - on a whim I took a pile of dead branches from some recently cut trees, and started constructing a make shift Leslie style lean to!
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I lucked out cause some kids showed up when I was partly started and begin helping me by carrying, cutting, and building the primitive shelter too. (That is my sister's kid Cam, my cousin's kid Stephanie, and then last in the pic is me. I know I am the same size as kids.)
I am using a live tree for the 'backbone' of the shelter that is leaning all the way to the ground, making a perfect beam for an A-frame type of debris shelter. The A-frame shape is my favorite kind and I have always wanted to try it out!
In the pic below you can see I even began a small door on the side, so it could have more then one entrance, and just to see how it would work out. Pretty neat! :)
After a few hours the kids left and I was back into it by myself - loading on thick branches for good structure and lots of little ones in between. I tried to have the biggest ones go all the way over, or at least to the top of the 'backbone'.
After many hours of work on this today, this is how far i got...
It looks like a cozy cave!
But it will need more on top to be rain proof....

XOxoxo
PS- taking suggestions on how to get to PART 2 .... what should the 'cover' be on top the stick structure?
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2 comments:

  1. GratuitousJuly 17, 2010 at 8:50 AM

    Of course, you could use many different types of man-made fabrics to make it waterproof, but they're way too ugly. For a temporary shelter, you could use whatever debris you find lying around, like leaves and moss or whatever. For a more permanent shelter, the Native Americans used tree bark, but be careful, as removing bark from a live tree will almost always kill it... unless it's a mature birch. If you wanted to get really fancy, you could even tile it shingle-style!

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  2. Miss VoodooJuly 17, 2010 at 11:36 AM

    Hey gratu -

    Those are good ideas. I was thinking today I will put more whispy branches that could hold leaves.
    Man-made materials are kinda ugly in cases like this, but then if i used raw canvas I could cover it in mud - like a mud hut, mixed with leaves and stuff. :)))

    I dont want to remove the bark from live trees- i do have some fallen dead ones though, i could get some bark from. I like the idea of moss too - but i think i'd need ALOT of it...

    thanks!

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