Protective structures, shelters for the night and from bad weather. "Hollow Trunk": a house-shelter for spending the night in nature Is it possible to use grottoes and natural depressions in the rocks as shelters

Not far from the city of Bordeaux ( France) in the forest park area there is an original structure resembling a wooden cylinder. This is a special shelter house where you can stay for the night, spending the weekend in nature with the whole family or with friends.

Before you go hiking, check that all the pegs and ropes are in place. Set up your tent at home and make sure you have all the parts you need to set it up. Usually a tent consists of a waterproof tent and an inner lightweight tent with a mosquito net and a waterproof bottom. It comes with pegs, frame arches and ropes that hold the rag house in strong winds.

Do not be lazy and check if the zippers on your tent work. With the advent of darkness, not only the cold can creep in to you, but also all sorts of small creatures.

2. Learn to put up a tent

It is very important! A crookedly pitched tent will not only confuse perfectionists with its appearance, but it can also leak in the rain or fly away in the wind. First, read the instructions - it hasn't hurt anyone yet.

Remember that the tent should stand on a flat surface without any holes and bumps. Assemble the tent (tie all the ropes, stick in the pegs, stretch the awning and close all the doors). In this position, the tent should not gather. If it looks like a real flat house, then you can safely spend the night in it.

3. Stock up on a rug or mattress

Despite the fact that the tent is equipped with a waterproof bottom, it perfectly passes the cold. And if you do not want to freeze something for yourself, then get some foam or an inflatable rug. Dense high-quality foam will save you from cold and moisture, but sleeping on it is quite hard. Although after one or two nights you will get used to it, and your back will stop hurting. Lay two narrow foams overlapping so that the cold does not get into the gap between them.

An inflatable mat or mattress is softer than foam. Sleeping on such a bed is comfortable, but it costs five times more. You choose.

4. Prepare your sleeping bag and blanket

If you think that a simple blanket will save you from the night cold in a tent in the summer, you are greatly mistaken. In nature, especially in the morning, it can be very cold. Therefore, a sheet and a blanket will only work if you have a heated tent.

The best solution is a sleeping bag. Choose it carefully and pay special attention to the comfort temperature indicated on it. This is the air temperature at which you will not freeze in a sleeping bag.

5. Bring a heating pad

It will not take up much space, but on a cold night you will be very happy with it. A good option is a salt heating pad: it lasts for a long time, it is safe to use. If the cold took you by surprise, and you don’t have a special heating pad on hand, then you can take an ordinary plastic bottle, fill it with hot water and place it in a sleeping bag.

6. Don't forget the pillow

Another important item that will help brighten up nights in a tent is a pillow. You should not take a large homemade down pillow or a thought from the sofa with you. All this variety will perfectly replace the inflatable counterpart. Inflatable pillows are sold not only in tourist shops, but also in hypermarkets.

Another good pillow substitute is a cover for your sleeping bag, which you can put warm things like a jacket in. The tent will be in order, and you will not lose the cover.

7. Prepare insect protection

Mosquitoes, beetles, wood lice, spiders are not the most pleasant neighbors in a tent. To prevent insects from entering the rag house, close the doors tightly. If they have already crawled there, then you can use a folk remedy - hang bunches of tansy in a tent. But it is not certain that you will find it.

You can smoke with special spirals, but they do not smell very pleasant and smoke the inside of the tent a lot. Not only insects, but also you yourself will not want to spend the night in such a room.

There is a modern way - a portable battery-powered device. It works all night, does not smell and does not make noise, but it costs more than spirals.

Do not wear woolen clothes when outdoors, as the scent of wool attracts ticks.

8. Grab a change of socks

In a campground setting, you may need to change a pair of socks a day. They won't take up much space, so don't be shy and take at least three pairs for two days.

9. Get a folding chair or foam seat

In order not to look for a decent log and not to sit on blankets, grab folding chairs or a foam seat with an elastic band, with which it is attached directly to the tourist. Sitting on a chair or armchair is very comfortable, but you can not remove the foam during the day. The seating area will be with you wherever you go and your hands will be free.

10. Prepare Lighting for the Tent and Grounds

In order not to stumble over pegs at night and not to look for things by touch, stock up on economical, but powerful enough lighting. Cover a clear plastic jar with glow-in-the-dark paint. Better from the inside, so as not to get your hands dirty later.

Or tie a flashlight to a water bottle, or you can even just put it on your smartphone with the flashlight turned on.

Overnight in the forest - How not to freeze

Imagine a situation of extreme survival in cold weather, when your clothes are not able to protect the body, and there is no corresponding equipment at all, or it is very limited and ineffective. An exhausted person with a risk of hypothermia needs to sleep, but you know that you will never wake up if you pass out.

I will tell you how to survive in such a situation. There is a way that can provide a comfortable, warm place to sleep in inclement weather, even if your clothes are not adapted to low temperatures and you have little to no equipment or special skills for survival in the wild, other than the ability to build a special place to sleep and light a fire . In fact, you will have to take care that such a "bed" is cool enough to sleep in!

A special survival "bed" that will keep you warm in cold weather and can save your life is called a "fire bed" or "charcoal bed".

Before I start explaining how to build a place to sleep, I would like to emphasize that if you are not in a real survival situation, but only practicing, try to pay special attention to the issue of preserving the environment with minimal damage from your actions. Avoid damage to the roots of trees and plants, be careful with fire in the wilderness.

Show respect for nature and it will definitely take care of you!

Requirements for building a "fire bed"

Since creating a "charcoal bed" requires a lot of time and effort, it is important to first find a suitable place. You need to look for various features that will make it easier to make a “bed”, as well as natural materials needed to build it and create additional comfort.

Preferred Areas:

1. Protected as far as possible from wind, rain and snow.
2. With soil that you can dig to a depth of about thirty centimeters and not run into large stones, tree roots, ice or water.
3. Places rich in dry fuel to keep the fire going. Hardwood trees are preferred. They burn longer and create a hotter flame. Soft rocks burn out quickly and give off a lot of sparks.
4. Places with an abundance of bedding dry material (leaves, pine needles, grass, cattail (cat's tail), etc.) to isolate the body.

Let's consider each item in more detail.

Weather-protected areas

If possible, choose a place with natural shelter. Rock ledges, overhanging thick trees, and even fallen tree roots can provide good shelter compared to open countryside. You will need to find a piece of flat ground that is at least half a meter or a meter longer than your body and wide enough to sleep comfortably.

Suitable soil for digging

Since you will need to dig a hole in the ground, choosing the right soil is extremely important. Give preference to areas where:
* Groundwater is not close to the surface. If you get to the water - you need to dig elsewhere.
* The soil is easily cultivated with improvised means.
* Few roots or large stones that make work very difficult.
* In snowy areas, look for a place where you don't have to dig too deep to the ground.

If you do not have a shovel for digging - do not despair! Use your cutlery set, a knife, a sturdy stick, or even your own hands.

Usually, in cold climates, the soil freezes to a considerable depth. Depending on the situation, you can find soft ground at the foot of the southern slopes, where the sun's rays warm the ground enough. Or you can build a fire to melt a layer of soil before digging.

Fuel for the fire

A good "bed on the coals", as the name suggests, requires a layer of hot and long smoldering coals. For this reason, the best fuel for building such a "bed" is hardwoods. If possible, arrange your lodging for the night near a source of dry fuel.

Soft woods can also be used, but they are not capable of producing the high quality coals more typical of hard woods. Dry grass and other natural materials do not leave coals, but can be used to start a fire and warm the earth.

Hardwoods: hornbeam, eucalyptus, pear, cherry, apple, elm, teak, hickory - North American hazel, beech, oak, birch, ash, maple, walnut.

Soft tree species: linden, spruce, fir, aspen, cedar, alder, hemlock, pine, chestnut, willow.

Insulation material

In case you don't have enough warm clothes on and your sleeping gear is ill-adapted to cold climates or is completely missing, you'll need a good source of dry, soft material for insulation and upholstery. Usually, the forest floor is a nice natural "blanket" of foliage, evergreen needles and grass.

Even in areas with deep snow cover, if you try hard, you can find insulation material. Inspect large boulders, where the ground around the stone is often not covered with snow and dry leaves accumulate there (by the way, a good place for accommodation). Check the southern slopes and patches of evergreen forest, which is usually less snowy.

In winter, wet areas (swamps, rivers, lakes) can provide you with excellent thermal insulation material in the form of cattail and reeds. These plants are easy to get to as all the water freezes and the snow is blown off the smooth icy surface.

A canvas or tarp, a woolen blanket, polyethylene or other similar material (waterproof and/or heat retaining) can be a great help.

survival situation

Let's imagine that your truck breaks down in a remote mountainous area and you have to spend the night in cold weather outside, without special equipment. Your clothing consists of sneakers, thin cotton pants, a T-shirt, a cotton jersey and a cap. Of course, you had to use a three-layer clothing system, but no one could have imagined that the truck would ever break down - this is the main mistake in the mountains.

You also have a foldable army spatula, an old woolen blanket, and the ability to start a fire (flint, matches, lighter, you can use a car battery or even a cell phone battery).

You can make a “fire bed” without a blanket or a shovel, but without fire, nothing will come of it. Therefore, it is extremely important to always have an emergency kit with you, which will store waterproof matches or, even better, a flint and a magnesium bar.

For work

As soon as you decide on a place, start digging a trench of the following sizes: width - about 30-50 cm, length - about 180 cm, depth - 30 cm. Do not scatter the earth at random, but carefully fold it into a pile. We will need stones later, so separate them from the common ground.

After the trench is ready, line the bottom with fist-sized stones, leaving a gap of 2-4 cm between them. Stones are not absolutely necessary in principle, but they will help to create an air gap so that the fire will be hotter and better coals will be obtained. If you didn't find enough stones while digging, you can look for them somewhere nearby, just don't collect porous or layered stones, as well as those that were in the water. When heated, they may explode!

Now you can light the fire. For tinder, I used dry pine needles and a pine cone. When the fire flares up and the first coals appear, scatter them throughout the trench so as to cover the maximum area. Our goal is to maintain an even fire to form coals and heat the soil around the entire perimeter of the trench. Add firewood as needed and scatter the coals over the course of 2-3 hours. This time can be used for cooking, boiling water, and drying clothes or bedding.

Then sprinkle the coals with a 10 cm layer of soil and tamp it well. Make sure all coals are well dusted and that steam or smoke does not break through the soil layer.

Everything, now it remains only to wait. It should take an hour or so before you feel the pleasant warmth of the heated ground. If this happens earlier, then most likely you need to add another 3-5 cm of earth from above, otherwise your "bed" may be too hot for a comfortable overnight stay.

It remains to prepare the "mattress". Look for dry, soft material and pile it up. When the coals have sufficiently heated the surface of the trench, you can cover the ground with an even layer of insulating material. The thickness and amount of insulation depends on the specific conditions and your capabilities. It is recommended to use a layer of at least 20-30 cm in thickness.

Several logs laid parallel to the sides of the trench will reflect the heat and keep you warm. In addition, they will serve as a windbreak and will not allow you to slide onto the cold ground.

results

When I made this bed, the ambient temperature was about -4 degrees Celsius. Four hours later, the temperature of the ground surface above the coals reached 43 degrees, and the ground within a radius of 30 cm from the trench was slightly warm. By changing the thickness of the bedding material, the temperature of the "fire bed" can be adjusted.

The main problem when using such an overnight stay is evaporation. This is because the soil and/or the material used for insulation usually contains moisture. As a result, the heat from the coals turns the moisture into steam and you get something like a sauna. For this reason, it is advisable to use only the driest body isolation products. If possible, lie down on a waterproof material (plastic, tarpaulin, canvas, polyethylene).

The next morning, fourteen hours after the bed was built, the air temperature dropped to -8 degrees Celsius, and the surface temperature of the ground was still around 32 degrees. This is a great result!

This technique of creating a comfortable warm place to sleep will allow you to survive in cold weather without equipment and special clothing. Good luck!

Hello friends!

I don’t know about anyone, but in order to have a good rest on a trip, I need to sleep well.

If we spend the night in a tent, then it should be warm, dry and soft. Especially when we have children with us. The stove gives heat, dryness is correct, but how to achieve softness? Today I propose to figure out how to make a camp bed "home-style" comfortable and convenient.
Based on my own experience and the experience of friends, I can say with confidence that there are three main options here: karemat, self-inflating mat or air mattress. There are, of course, a bunch of home-made options - for example, laying a place under the tent with straw, spruce or moss, or you can carry ordinary wadded mattresses with you, but we will not talk about them here, since it is much more convenient to use special camping equipment.

The main purpose of a rug or mattress in a tent is to protect against cold and damp coming from the ground and smooth out uneven terrain under the tent. Each type of bedding has its pros and cons. So let's take a closer look at each option.

Karemats
These are foam mats: polyurethane foam or polyethylene foam, usually rolled into a roll. Their main advantages include comparative lightness, compactness and low cost. Such a mat is easily attached to a backpack or placed inside it and does not take up much space. Ideal if you are going hiking.

It can be used not only as a mattress under a sleeping bag, but also as a bedding on the grass for children's games or as a wind damper for a gas burner. (I recommend having this rug when traveling with kids, even if you don't intend to sleep on it)
Karemats will completely protect you from dampness and cold coming from the ground, but you will have to adapt to the unevenness of the soil.
Such a rug does not require special care, just avoid sharp stones and branches and keep it away from the fire, as sparks can burn it. It will be even better if you purchase special covers that protect it from damage.
When choosing a karemat, give preference to two-layer ones, as they are more durable and reliable than thin single-layer specimens and you can use them not only in warm weather.

Air mattress

Many people use them not only in a tent, but also in a car, and during the day they also manage to swim on them. They are usually made of rubberized fabric and are a mattress that needs to be pumped up with a pump. If you drive a car, there are usually no problems with pumping, the pump is always with you. And some manage to pump it up from the exhaust pipe 🙂

The pluses include the fact that it copes well with uneven ground and, as I already said, during the day it can serve as entertainment in water procedures. Well, and perhaps relatively cheap. The rest is cons.

• Firstly, if you sleep on it together, you will sleep in one pile, rolling towards each other (but maybe this is not a minus 🙂)
• Secondly, it has to be constantly pumped up, even if there is not a single hole, since it tends to release air slightly under the weight of the body. And in the morning you will still wake up half-sitting.
• Thirdly, very low thermal insulation due to the fact that you actually have to sleep in the air, which quickly cools from the ground. In order to combat this, you have to put an extra blanket between the mattress and the sleeping bag.
• And of course, these mattresses are very prone to punctures, so be sure to bring a repair kit with you. Somehow, with a friend in the forest, even without male participation, we managed to seal such a mattress with superglue and a piece of a car tire. As a result, it broke in three other places, and our patch served faithfully.

It is unlikely that anyone will drag him on a hike with him because of the large weight and the space occupied.

Self-inflating mats

This is a hybrid of a karemat and an air mattress. It will smooth out all the bumps and provide the necessary comfort and warmth.

It differs from karemat in that the internal structure consists of open-cell polyurethane foam placed in a sealed polyester shell.

Unlike an air mattress, it does not need to be inflated. Simply open the valve and the air will fill the mat itself. True, this process can take from several minutes to half an hour and a small pump or mouth will be required. The latter is not recommended in cold weather, as the moisture contained in the air exhaled from the lungs can freeze inside the mattress and reduce its thermal insulation. It is also easy to lower the rug - open the valve and turn off.
Such a rug requires careful treatment, just like an air mattress, since it is also prone to punctures, but to a lesser extent, and if the puncture is small, the repair kit will correct the situation.
The main disadvantage is its price, but it pays off a hundredfold with a “soft” sleep for those who do not want to lie down on their sides on a regular karemat.

Everyone determines the level of comfort that is acceptable for him on vacation. Here's the one we chose for ourselves:

We bought the mattress in the largest online store for hunting, fishing and active rest in nature Cabela's. Take a look and you are sure to find something for yourself. They have constant discounts and sales. How to place an order in this store told

And if you have no experience of online shopping, please contact me - I will definitely help you.

How do you sleep? Share your experience in organizing your sleep in a tent in the comments.

When hunting in the forest, the hunter often has to stay there for the night. We already wrote about the features of spending the night in the forest on our website - read about it. Today we would like to tell you about how to make such an overnight stay more comfortable. And, will help us with this ... raincoat tent bed. At the same time, we will try to consider the option, not just how to make a raincoat tent, but how to turn this design into a comfortable bed. It is likely that this information will come in handy for you, and already during your next overnight stay in the forest, you will be able to experience in practice that spending the night like this is much more convenient ...

Making raincoat tent beds

To make our complex design of a bed tent raincoat, you and I will need a light water-repellent cotton fabric - as shown in Figure No. 1 - by the way, you can make such a water-repellent fabric yourself - this is described in detail here.

Such material will have to consist of 2 canvases, the width of each canvas should be 1 meter. As for the length of the paintings, it is determined based on the height of a person plus 30 centimeters to him. On one of the canvases, using an ordinary sewing machine, you will need to sew through overlays along the long side (they are also called sleeves), of such a width that you can later insert poles into them, the diameter of which will be 6-7 centimeters, which will become the basis or the frame of our camp bed. It will be necessary to tie loops to the second canvas at its ends, to which you will later tie tension cords during the tent. Do not forget to sew the sidewalls to the top and bottom of the fabric as well. Along the top edge of each of the canvases, you will also need to make a fold, which we will need to tighten the cord or braid.

In order for our raincoat tent bed to be fully equipped and true to its name - do not forget to also sew or fasten a hood. After that, by pulling the braid from the top of the canvas, with a slight movement of your hand, you can transform your tent bed into a raincoat with a hood that can protect you from bad weather in the forest.

How to make a tent bed out of a raincoat

If you need to equip a tent and a bed from such a raincoat with a hood, you simply insert the poles into the sleeves, as we wrote above, their diameter should be 6-7 centimeters, and rest their ends on 4 wooden slingshots, which you previously hammer into the ground. Thus, from a raincoat you can make a bed similar in design to a folding bed, as shown in Figure 2.

You will need to stretch the second canvas over the surface of the bed so that you can get a canopy at an angle of 40-45 degrees from the ground. It will serve as protection for you from rain and wind. In order to stretch and secure the canvas of the tent at the desired angle of the canopy, you will need to drive 2 stakes into the ground (their height is determined depending on the very angle of the canopy), after which you can tie a cord to the loops, pull it through the top of the stake and attach to a small peg, which you previously drove at an angle into the ground

However, if the weather is clear and it is not going to rain, you can not install a canopy in addition. And, you can use the free canvas as a blanket.

Slingshots, on which the ends of the poles of your homemade forest bed will rest, you should install a height of 20-25 centimeters from the ground.