Selecting a Lean-To Shelter Area

Series Summary

Survival skills are techniques that provide the basic necessities of human life: shelter, water and food. Helpful for everyone, but essential to hikers and campers, survival techniques can include fire maintenance, shelter building, water preparation and hunting, in addition to signaling for rescue. Building a shelter is the first step to surviving in the wilderness. In this free wilderness survival video series, an Eagle Scout demonstrates how to build a lean-to shelter from the fruits of nature. Learn to choose a safe place to set up camp, and find out what you can use as support beams, leaning sticks, and shingles. Use this guide to never leave home without basic survival skills.

Video Transcript

"Hi this is John Stewart and this is how to select an area for building a lean to shelter. Lean to shelters are very easy to build, they don't require a lot, but you do need to find the right area, okay. You're going to want to look for some flat areas, not on hills or anything. It will make it much easier to build it, plus if it rains or anything water flows not going to wash away your lean to shelter, okay. You want to find an area where there's quite a few trees, trees are going to be good because that's going to be your main anchor. You're going to have to prop something up against a tree for the lean to shelter. So you want to find some good sturdy trees. Try to find it in a covered area, that's just because you can't get your shelter completely waterproof. So the more stuff and vegetation that's above you, and is going to wash away the water and block it from you is better. So you want to try to find a thick covered area, plus it will make your shelter a little bit cooler, okay. So when searching for an area look for flat spots, places with a lot of trees, and then spots that are well covered by vegetation and trees. And this is how to select an area for building a lean to shelter."