About ten years ago, I attended my first session of week-long professional survival training in New Jersey.  My classmates and i were told that the "Debris Hut" was the warmest, yet most simplistic survival shelter on the planet.  It could be built with absolutely zero tools.  It could shed 100% of water from even the worst downpour.  In 30-below temperatures, you could sweat inside it.  It could be built in total darkness.  It required no heat source in order for it to keep you warm, except for your own body heat. 

Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it?  That's exactly what I, along with around 100 other people in my class thought.  We were then told that each of us would be constructing our own Debris Hut to sleep in for the week.  We had 3 days to get them built before our tents & sleeping bags would be confiscated and locked away for the rest of the week- yes, you read that correctly (and yes they actually did it)!  The instructor then added, with a chuckle, that we had better pay rapt attention to learn how to do it right since the weatherman called for below freezing night-time temps during the week and a thunderstorm/torrential downpour midweek!  Seriously?

Needless to say, he had my attention, and I was scared out of my mind.  I had read about building this type of shelter ever since I was about 11 years old when my dad bought me my first survival book "Tom Brown's Field Guide to Wilderness Survival".  I had even built several of them and tried sleeping in them overnight a few times, always with not-so-great results.  I had always tried it in fair, warm weather as well......and it was always a miserable ordeal.  So, either I was doing it all wrong or this instructor was totally full of crap.  I set about building a masterpiece of a debris hut in my week-long effort to prove him wrong.  And I couldn't.

I had that shelter complete by day two.  It even had an exterior door that I fashioned out of reeds and natural cordage that would roll up and down like window blinds.  It got below freezing nearly every night that week.  I sweated inside my shelter.  It rained buckets of water for almost 24 hours midweek.  Not a single drop of water entered my shelter.  Actually, I had the greatest, most restful sleep of my entire life that week.  Most people have never and will never experience anything like it.  Inside, you cannot see anything.  You have no idea if it is daytime or night-time, and you lose track of time.  The only thing you can hear is your own heartbeat.  It is truly an unbelievable experience.  Want to build one yet?  Great!  Here we go.

Here is the basic principle of the Debris Hut Shelter:  It is a human sized squirrel nest.  Yup, that's all.  Ingenious little buggers, squirrels are (but they taste so good).  They begin with weaving a frame out of sticks, then shove leaves in all of the nooks and crannies between the sticks to plug up all of the holes leaving only one small entryway.  This forms a strong, windproof, waterproof shell (think tent).  Then, they stuff the inside with warm, insulating, fluffy leaves (think sleeping bag).  Within a minute or two, their little body warms the entire structure and this nest is comfy enough for them to sleep through the wildest of storms in!

The trick to building a human sized squirrel nest, is just a matter of making a stronger more substantial frame in the most efficient way possible.  This frame gives you an interior body sized bedding area for you to stuff full of the softest & fluffiest insulating material, while also supporting the heavy weight of 3-6 feet of piled up debris on top.  Yes, that's how much debris is required for this to work perfectly as directed.  Without a strong frame, the weight of all of the debris on top would compress the insulation underneath.  We would lose lots of our "dead air space" and freeze.  Well, doesn't all of this piled up debris settle and compress over time?  Yup, it does.  This shelter will require repeated "re-fluffing" every few days to remain as insulating as the day you constructed it.

It is worth noting, that before I even begin constructing the frame I already have collected a HUGE pile of leaves, pine needles, pine boughs, reeds, cattails, grasses or whatever else is nearby. I actually chose this shelter location in the first place because of its nearby resources, among other things. I make this pile directly next to where my Debris Hut will be. Why do this first? Because what if during the construction of my shelter the weather gets snotty? What if I injure myself? If that pile of leaves is all I have to survive the night with, I can burrow down inside it and probably be alright. If all I have is a stick frame, then my night is about to really suck....or worse. Understand?

In the above photo, I show the basic Debris Hut frame before adding leaves and pine needles to the inside and outside.  It consists of an elongated tripod (long enough to lay underneath, and waist high), then sticks added along each side as ribbing.  I then weave long, thin, and flexible sticks or boughs in-between the ribs horizontally to form a lattice.  This helps keep the inside leaves in, and the outside leaves out.

Now I begin to pile on the leaves (or other debris).  I keep checking the thickness of my debris in several different spots along the shelter.  If you shove your arm into the debris up to your armpit, you should never be able to feel the frame, ribs, or lattice.   If you can feel them, you have more work to do. This is approximately the three foot mark for debris depth, which will keep you warm to almost freezing temps.  More debris! More debris! More debris!  Its around now that you will probably have a rude awakening about exactly how much debris you really need.  It's crazy.  You feel like you collected a truck load of debris already.  You've been collecting debris for 2 hours.  You're flipping exhausted.  You are beginning to think this can't possibly be right......that it's really this much work!  The problem is not that its lots of work, which it is.  The problem is we are used to turning up a thermostat or turning on an electric blanket and having instant gratification.  Now shut up and get back to work!  

Time to switch gears and stuff the inside of the shelter with the driest, fluffiest, choicest materials around.  I purposely work on the outside debris of the shelter first for a while because if I try to stuff the inside first, I always end of accidentally moving some of the sticks or lattice that I worked hard to place perfectly.  Once I have some debris piled on the outside, then I can work on the inside of the shelter and the weight of the outside debris ensures everything stays in place.  The only exception to this is if it is already raining or snowing.  In this case, I stuff the inside first, so that It has some time to possibly dry out while I work on the outside debris.

The inside of the shelter should have no air space at the top, beside you, near your feet, near your head, or anywhere else.  If you climb in a few times feet first, wiggle around a bit and compress the debris down, then climb back out, you will notice you need more debris.  You will need to do this several times, until the entire inside of the shelter is taken up by leaves.  Remember, if there is any space inside this shelter that has an air pocket and no leaves, your body has to burn more energy to heat this air, which translates to the possibility of you not staying as warm.

Now complete piling debris on the exterior of your shelter.  Four feet of debris piled on the outside will keep you warm below freezing, and six feet of debris will keep you toasty no matter how cold it gets- as long as you did everything else right.  Finally, leave a small pile of debris directly outside of the entrance to pull in after you climb inside.  This will plug up the entrance and function as your door.

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Here is the link to my YouTube Video entitled:  Debris Hut Survival Shelter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEBATcMJ0Cc&list=PLN1juAy0ApDTQfOtSs1W6kH2pi_F-1Vt6&t=0s&...

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