How to Make Shelter in the Desert

Video Transcript

"Hi. I'm Mike Meyers with Zion Wilderness Survival School for Expert Village. We talked earlier about when you're out in a survival situation seeking a place to sleep. But, a more immediate concern in any survival situation is finding shelter period. It can be in the middle of the afternoon. It could be at nighttime. Anytime. In the winter, if you're in an area with snow, sometimes the only place to seek shelter is actually in the snow. You've probably heard of digging a snow cave or building what's called a quimsy, which is like an igloo. Obviously, we'd have a difficult time demonstrating that right now. But, there are other shelters that one can build. Later on, we will do a separate episode on this. But, in the desert setting, the kind of shelter that you might think about building would be a simple lean-to which is nothing more than getting long branches and leaning them up against a rock face, a flat rock face, or you could, between two trees, you could tie a pole and then lean branches up against it, large branches, to make a slanted wall, just to give you some relief from the sun, relief from the rain. You could pile vegetation, grass, leaves, any kind of debris vegetation onto that to help keep the water off of you. One thing that I always carry with me on day hikes, backpacking trips, it doesn't matter when, I carry a simple 8x10, 8x12 tarp that I roll up and put under my pack. Now, all of my friends think I'm crazy until I spread it out to sit on it when it's wet, or when we get caught in a rainstorm. I can take my two hiking poles, punch them, put them through the grommet holes on the tarp and tie it down. Put some rocks on the back side. I have a lean-to. It takes you three or four minutes. That thing is up and ready to go. The tarp, I think, is one of the greatest things to take with you. You can just sit on the ground and cover yourself with it for shelter. But, shelter's important not just from rain, but also from the sun. So, if you're in a desert situation, and you're in an area like this, and you can't find any shade, that tarp can be your survival. You can put that up and get under it and stay there for a few hours until the sun has reduced its glare. It's also possible to either dig or use a ditch and just put your tarp on top of it. Or, if you don't have a tarp, but debris, some branches, some trees, and so forth, to create a roof. And then, just lie down beneath it. Anything to get out of the sun. The sun is deadly in the desert. It will dehydrate you. You'll have to drink far more water. It will exhaust you. Save your strength for when the sun's gone down some. And, do your work and hike and so forth in a cooler part of the day. The most critical thing about a shelter is getting started early enough in the day so that you can complete it before you actually need it. Many people make the mistake in the wintertime, for instance, of when they get lost of not thinking about shelter until four or five in the evening and all of a sudden at six it's dark. And, it makes it awfully hard to find materials and so forth. So, when you realize that you're lost, my recommendation is to accept that fact earlier than your gut feeling tells you. Just maybe at one or two in the afternoon, or three or four in the afternoon, make the decision, "I'm lost, and I better start thinking about shelter." So, when you start to collect these materials for your shelter it could take you two hours to find all the materials, the tree limbs, the branches, the debris to make your shelter. So, get a good early start. "