Emergency Shelter

Emergency Shelter from light weight tarp

Being protected from the elements is critical to surviving an emergency. If you can’t get out of the bad weather, you will eventually get wet, cold and headed down that slippery slope toward hypothermia. Your first line of protection is your clothing, but don’t depend on that alone.

The first requirements of an emergency shelter are that it keeps you dry, breaks the wind, and can be easily set up if you are injured. The shelter included in your survival gear must be light, tough and most important, convenient and easy to carry.

The best overall solution may be to always carry a lightweight backpacking tent. But the reality is: It doesn’t matter how light and compact a tent is, you probably won’t always lug one around (C’mon, admit it! Knowing your limitations is critical to common sense survival!)

So, you end up in a dangerous situation, daylight is fading, and you must take shelter as the weather gets increasingly worse.

Reality-show advice to the contrary, you probably won’t have enough time or raw materials to make a warm, dry shelter, even if you have practiced and have the right tools. And, whatever structure you do manage to make out of native materials will probably not be waterproof, and may not offer much protection from driving rain or sleet.

This tarp shelter, high above the treeline near Granite Peak, Montana, provided comfortable and safe shelter from intermittent rain.

And don’t forget snow survival in freezing weather – building an igloo or digging a snow cave requires large amounts of energy, time, skill, practice and the proper tools. Either of these shelters would be impossible for an injured person to construct.

So, here’s the common sense bottom line: You must take a shelter along, or have the materials (such as a tarp, bivy sack, or large garbage bags) skills, tools and knowledge, to make a shelter.

And, before you leave the parking lot, for that quick outing that will only take a couple hours, remember: The ultimate four-season emergency shelter is worthless back in the car.