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Setting up your first camp

The psychology of being lost in the wilderness

The modern human often becomes terrified when stranded and lost in wilderness settings. This reason alone accounts for many needless deaths. When emotions swell, people do irrational things. If this happens to you, STOP, sit down and get your act together. Your life depends on it. The fears most folks have are unfounded. Think about it.

Any animal large enough to do serious harm will try to avoid you like the plague. The things going bump in the night are the forest animals moving on their night browse. Most are nocturnal. The sound of a twig snapping is most likely a deer and her fawn, not some cougar that suddenly lost its sense. Do Bambi and Thumper strike fear in your heart?

Think simple. Immediately cover your first priority, shelter. If that's all you accomplish on the first day you will live to the next. Try to focus on what you have to do and not on make-believe terrors of wild beasts. You are not watching TV. This is the real world. It's very different.

Find a sheltered site for a camp and debris pile. If you have a few hours until sunset, build a debris shelter. It will be more comfortable. The physical activity and mental focus will help to quiet your fears. Think things through. Are there building materials nearby? Is water nearby? Is there natural shelter from the wind? Will the area flood if it rains? Will wind blow smoke to your shelter?

Even if you have the means to build a fire, don't start on that project until your shelter has been completed. Granted, a fire is warm and reassuring, but it won't protect you from rain, snow and freezing temperatures like a shelter.

A wall made from stakes driven into the ground and woven with pine boughs makes a fine wind break and reflector for you and your fire, if you have one. Construct it behind where you will sit at the campfire to warm your backside, not across the fire from you. This is also true for rock overhangs you might find.

IF you have a fire, and IF you have the time, a warm bed can be prepared that will last well into the next day. Find and gather all the materials for your shelter first. Then excavate a trench about a foot wide and 8" deep. Fill the trench with live coals and hot rocks from your campfire. Cover it with 4" of dirt and another 4" of dry debris like pine needles for padding. Construct your shelter over it. The heat will radiate through the soil around the trench. Make sure to use enough soil to cover the coals (at least 4") or you may wake up with a hot bottom during the night.