Surviving The Wild Outdoors Surviving_the_Wild_Outdoors | Page 11

Now that you are back to your lost point it ’ s time to get to work . You are going to need a fire and a shelter .
For right now you could just make a quick shelter for the night , and work on making a nicer one in the morning . Just get it made quickly so you can start gathering wood for a fire . Find two trees approximately 6-8 ft apart . Tie your sting from one tree to the other about three feet off the ground . Now simply take your tarp and drape it over the string , dividing the tarp . Usually tarp will have metal rings at the corners . Find small 3-4 inch long sticks with forked edges and secure the ends into the ground . Your shelter should be up in minutes and look like this .
Now that that ’ s been tackled , let ’ s start gathering wood . My rule of thumb is when you think you have enough wood , gather 5 times as much . I would rather wake up with wood left in the morning than be cold during the night because I ran out of wood . Gathering wood does take a lot of energy so work efficiently . You need to start three separate piles . One for tender and very small twigs and sticks , one for small limbs 2-3 inches in diameter , and one for larger logs in the 4-5 inch diameter . For the bigger ones , don ’ t worry if they are long . If you can ’ t break the wood , just put it on the fire and leave the excess hanging out and feed it into the fire as it burns down . No one said
it has to be pretty . � Gather as much downed dry limbs as possible . Green wood tend to not burn , but after a fire has been going several hours and has really hot coals it will burn , just not as well .
Now that you have gathered your wood , take out your survival knife and start stabbing the ground and dig a hole 2-3 feet in diameter . Dig this hole about 4-5 inches deep . Once again this will take some energy so work at a pace , but a steady one . You ’ re not digging for gold . This hole will be your pit for the fire . It will also keep you coals in a
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