Where to find shelter in the wilderness

Continue to construct the frame, placing the sticks from front to back. During this phase, it is important to think outside the box and be creative in how the sticks lock together. This is the most time-consuming part of building a natural shelter. Pile leaves, sticks, and branches over the entire frame. This insulation should be 4 to 8 inches thick, enough to hold back rain and keep the inside of the shelter dry. The most important thing to recognize when creating a survival shelter is that it is a temporary shelter designed to keep you alive rather than comfortable.

Natural debris shelters are typically damp and cool inside, and they may even leak a bit. Being uncomfortable and alive is better than the alternative.

Outdoor recreation provides an opportunity for people to learn and explore. It allows people to spend time with family and friends, view wildlife, and experience nature. These experiences however, could potentially become life-threatening. Be prepared by utilizing the following steps to prevent any mishaps.

Preplanning is the key to a safe and memorable outing. At only 20 years old, the Kentucky native offers furtive glimpses of not only the mystery found in nature, but also the inherent maturity.

When the fire goes out, the warmth goes too. But the advantage to this type of shelter is you can build it fast. The leaf hut is a two-sided, wedge-shaped lean-to, with much better weatherproofing and insulating qualities. To build one, select a long, sturdy pole 9 to 12 feet long. Prop it up in the fork of a tree or set it on a rock, stump or two forked prop sticks. Then cover the sides of the pole with tree branches to act as ribs.

Next, pile vegetation over the framework. You can use anything that traps air like leaves, grass, ferns, moss, pine needles, brush and tree boughs, and the material can be wet.

About 2 to 3 feet of vegetation covering all sides of the shelter is enough to keep you dry inside. Finally, fill the inside of the hut with a thick pile of vegetation for your bedding. The wickiup is a bit like a small tipi made from poles, brush, and vegetation. This shelter style is used around the globe, but has been most frequently documented in the American Southwest.

Thick brush, grass, and leaf coverings along with a steep roof can make this shelter suitable for climates with occasional rain. A broader, stockier structure covered with light brush can give you a shady, ventilated shelter for hot, dry climates. Collect several dozen poles, some with forks at the top. Lock a few of these forks together to build a freestanding tripod. Then prop the other poles around the peak to create a cone-shaped tipi frame.

Finish with the vegetation layer. If the wickiup is large enough, and the vegetation covering the roof is wet or green material, it may be safe enough to build a tiny fire inside this type of shelter. Buttons or no buttons—it's your call. No matter how weird your route, we have travel tips for you.

Sign up to receive Popular Science's emails and get the highlights. Built properly, a wickiup is strong and creates enough space to possibly have a fire inside. Tim MacWelch. An insulated tree well Because the branches of an evergreen tree catch snow before it hits the ground, the area around the trunk makes a great place for a simple shelter. They are natural shelters for venomous animals like spiders and snakes , and can also be filled with decades of disease transmitting bat guano.

Check them out thoroughly before committing since natural shelters are seldom unoccupied in the wild. The protected space under an evergreen tree can give us good coverage from the sun, and provide partial protection from the wind and precipitation particularly snow.

Their wind and sun protection are best when the lower branches droop down, touching or nearly touching the ground. Their rain and precipitation protection are governed by two main factors: foliage density and tree shape. With a thick canopy of needles or evergreen leaves overhead, the precipitation is naturally redirected out to the edge of the canopy often called the drip line. Just keep in mind that lightning may be as attracted to the tree as you are, so seek another form of shelter than trees when a lightning storm is cracking overhead.

Rock formations that offer protection are often composed of boulder groupings that block the wind, or boulders that are jumbled by geological activity or piled up by glaciers. When boulders produce a gap or void underneath, survey it carefully before crawling under. Look for any loose rock overhead, and look for recently fallen rock on the ground underneath the sheltering stone. These are often fine habitats for venomous animals like snakes, scorpions and spiders in the right climates.

You may also encounter pathogens in the dust of these places. Mice and other rodents frequently use these rock shelters, and in areas with hantavirus and other scary organisms.

Strangely satisfying to our instinct for protection, rock overhangs have long been a magnetic draw to humans in need of refuge. These stony shelters are called by many different names, like rock shelters, rockhouses, crepuscular caves and bluff shelters.

Some can be deep, seeming almost like a cave, while others are quite shallow, barely providing enough room to lie down. Whatever you call them, these landforms are shallow openings at the base of an outcropping, a cliff or some similar form. These are sometimes formed by water erosion. They can also be dissolved slowly by weather, when a soft rock stratum erodes away beneath a more resistant rock stratum.

Even wind-blown sand can erode enough rock to form this sheltering feature. Freezing and thawing can form rock overhangs too. When wet rock freezes, the expansion of the ice crystals flake off little pieces one tiny flake at a time. Caves also have stable temperatures, feeling cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

Caves are also easier to defend than most other natural shelters or man-made shelters, for that matter. They are not without problems, however.

The three main issues with cave safety are animals, air and collapse. Bats and other animals can fill the cave with droppings and the pathogens and parasites those transmit.