How to Find a Campsite in the Desert

"Hi. I'm Mike Meyers of Zion Wilderness Survival School for Expert Village. One might wonder why campsite selection is important in a survival situation. Certainly the comfort portion may not be important. But, there are things that need to be considered when you decide to bunk down for the night. There are a lot of dangers that exist in the wilderness that can effect where you camp. For instance, the area that we're standing in right now, if you look behind me, we have this wall of rock. And, one would have to be concerned that any loose rock could fall down if you were camped below, and injure or kill you. We have a ravine here that actually goes down into a slot canyon and runs out into a creek below. If you had a rainstorm, and a rainstorm doesn't have to be right here, it could be four miles away, and the water could come down this ravine and a flash flood setting could be eight, ten feet deep, running fifty, sixty miles an hour. You'd never escape it. You'd never be able to get up the walls of this rock formation quickly enough. Other things that you need to think about, you don't want to camp under trees that have dead limbs in them, something that could fall out of the tree and land on your tent. They've actually had people killed in that way. You want to take a look at the surroundings and make sure you're not getting ready to sleep where you have signs of rodents or animals, game trails. Because if you have a lot of rodents around, you could find yourself infected with the types of diseases that rodents carry. So, you want to make sure that where you put your, your sleeping area is clean and clear of that sort of stuff. You want to make sure that you aren't crawling into a crevice or under a rock formation where maybe snakes could exist. A real danger there. If you find a cave or something that you want to go back into, throw a rock back in there, two or three of them. Make sure that something doesn't come scurrying out. In other words, take the time to make sure that the place you intend to sleep is going to allow you to sleep safely. You notice we're on a hillside here above the lower areas, and that's a good place often for a campsite. If you're up on a hillside, those are going to be far less of a problem. They tend to like to be away from breezes and hillsides pick up breezes. Another thing that you want to think about is water. If you find a water source, a small pond, or river, or a stream, it's nice to be able to camp fairly near to that because you're going to want to go back and forth to retrieve water. However, especially in the desert setting, do not camp too close to the water. Animals like wild burros and big horn sheep will travel sometimes twenty miles just to get to a water source. And, if when they get there, you're camped there. They're not going to come around, and they're going to leave. They could end up dying, or they may have to go another twenty miles to the second water source to get water. So, camp a least a few hundred feet away from the water source, so that you don't threaten any animals who come down to, to get water. Keep in mind also, if the animals come down for water, it's a great place to potentially trap or kill an animal for food if necessary."