HUNTINGsmart! USA Knowledge Base

Here’s how to make your shelter as comfortable and as safe as possible:

• Cover the floor with soft tree branches to insulate your body against the cold ground. The thicker, the better. Work industriously enough and that thing will start to feel like a feather-down mattress… well, almost.
• Set up your shelter so that the wind blows from behind it. This will prevent fire smoke and cold wind from blowing inside the shelter entrance.
• Use the garbage bag from your survival kit as a waterproof roof. Have a spare? Put it between your body and the ground.
• Build a fire in-between your shelter and a heat reflecting wall made of logs or stones. This will make the fire’s heat deflect off the wall and come back towards your shelter instead of escaping.