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Shelter Basic Tarp Setups 1

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Dave Canterbury, David Canterbury, The Pathfinder School,Bush Craft ,Survival skills, Historical Lore, Primitive Skills, Archery, Hunting, Trapping, Fishing, Navigation, Knives, Axes, Fire, Water, Shelter, Search and Rescue

Tags: Bushcraft,Survival,David Canterbury,Dave Canterbury,Pathfinder,The Pathfinder School,Archery,Hunting,Fishing,Camping,Primitive Skills,Fire,Water,Shelter,Navigation,First Aid,Search and Rescue,Signaling,Prepper,Preparedness,Self Reliance,Survivability,The 10 C's,Knives,Axes,Saws,Bow Drill,Ferrocerium Rod,Ferro Rod,Tarp,Hammock,Canteen,Cooking,Longhunter,Trapping

Video Transcription

morning folks Dave Canterbury the Pathfinder school I thought we continue with our basic series stepping back a little bit for some of our newer subscribers people new to those craft survival wood craft and trucking whatever you choose to call it and we're going to move on to shelters we talked a little bit about yesterday when we pulled out our kit we're going to stay with that kit throughout this basic series so that we're using the same items all of the time we're going to set up a couple different shelter configurations today and show you how to make them the most optional the most comfortable for you in the Eastern woodlands late summer early fall temperatures probably at night down in the lower 50s sometimes the high 40s temperatures during the day can be anywhere from the upper 70s to the upper 80s stay with me okay so before we get started let's talk about the tarp that we're going to use to set these examples up with now this is not by seven by seven Pathfinder tarp it's exactly the same except this one's made in Europe in the UK that one's made in the US this one's quite a bit less expensive probably 3040 dollars less expensive same heavy duty still nine material heavy duty tie outs and this one also like I said creates a poncho and that is a big advantage because it makes your gear more adaptable to a scenario so I'm going to pull this thing out real quick and show you this it basically has a stuff sack that it comes in when you pull it out it has an area on it that is velcro shut and that velcro area is actually off-center and you'll see that when we set this configuration up but what that's meant for is that's meant to be opened up if needs be and it has an oversized hood inside of it so that I can now take this and put it over my head take my hat off for a minute and I have a large poncho with a large hood on it it's got drawstrings on the whole thing so you can back it up and draw it down around your face if you want to just like that does have a drawstring hood or if you want to wear a hat underneath it not striking where this big dude underneath it but we'll see yes I can I can wear this wide brimmed hat underneath it and really shed any rain or weather off of me and then for me I just take these bulk robes tuck them down in the front like that and attach them and then I'm ready to rock and roll and you can see I'll drop this camera down a little bit so you can see how far this hangs down you can see on this thing it on me it goes pretty much to the ground on the edges in the front of it's about a foot off the ground and there's the back the back is going to be a little bit longer because as I said the hood is off-center so we're going to use this tarp today for our sheltering configurations it has lots and lots of tie out points on it it's a really good versatile lightweight tarp if you're looking for something that is light weight and I'll show you how to set this up in lots of different ways right now okay guys the first shelter I want to talk to you guys about today is called the diamond or the plough point shelter this works exceptionally well if your tarp is square I prefer square tarps because I believe they're a lot more versatile than rectangular tarps are like I'm at least 7 by 7 8 by 8 is a little bit better but you're sacrificing a little bit of weight there I'm only five foot eight seven foots big enough coverage for me if you're over six foot you're going to want an 8 by 8 tarp 10 by 10 to me is overkill unless you are in an area where it's just pouring gushing down rain all the time or it's very very very cold and you're trying to make a really heavy-duty shelter so 7 by 7 8 by 8 that's what I prefer this tarp happens to be 7 by 7 a square tarp again will make the most versatile tarp for you over a rectangle and that's the problem with most commercially bought tarps like the ones you buy at Home Depot and Lowe's a place like that they're almost 99.999% times they're a rectangle tarp and they're not near as versatile as a square so let me show you how this works on this diamond all we really need to do is find a fourth tree which I have behind me this is a maple tree that has a 4 coming right out of the ground I've got 4 abs plastic stakes I told you guys in a lot of videos before I always carry stakes and I always carry at least four sometimes I even carry six but for a basic cut I generally carry four they don't weigh anything they're versatile they can be used for a lot of things and it keeps me from having to try to find sticks and emergency or cut stakes if I'm in a hurry to get my shelter up and down and like I said they don't hardly weigh anything and I prefer them greatly over stakes like aluminum and titanium because I have bent so stakes before and they do make a lot more noise in the long run in your pack than the plastic ones do so anyway that's just my thoughts on stakes let's get this diamond shelter set up all we really have to do like I said it's find ourselves a fork in a tree once we have found this fork in the tree we're going to get our tarp out and like I said this hood is off-center so it really doesn't matter in a diamond shelter it's going to be cross aways anyway a little bit and all we're going to do is pull one of our tabs straight through the fork we're going to shove a stake in it and this could be a stick we don't even have to be a stake just like this at whatever level we want our tarp to be in the end okay once I have the opening at the level that I want it then I'm just going to keep this part taut on that spot and come back to the back corner at an angle just like this and put another stake through the next loop hole and shove it in the ground just like that I've no problem putting my boot on these stakes and softer grounds not going to hurt it a bit then all I have to do is come and pull out my sides okay this type shelter configuration has been around since very early times it's called the diamond apply point for a reason it looks like the point of a pile the shelter has been around for you know two three hundred years it's a very quick up/down type shelter it gives you about two minutes you can set a shelter up and be done with it if you didn't have a fort tree you can always just tie a loop on the tree to put your stake through hold on to it it's just easier if you find a fork then you just run your stake between the fork and hold it up now this is plenty to get you out of the weather you can make improvements to this shelter to get more room inside simply by putting a string on here with a toggle and lifting it up in the center I'm going to show you how to do that right now

okay you can see by looking at this diamond setup that there is a little bit of space right here almost like a trough in the middle because the middle of this tarp hasn't picked up that's not going to hurt anything if it's a really quick emergency shelter and we just need to get in there and get dry but if we plan on spending a couple of days in it we want to get a little bit more Headroom all we really need to do is take our rope and you remember we talked about the jamb knots okay what we're going to do is we've got just a bowline loop in one end of this the other end of this we're going to make a jam knot now if we turn this rope over and we pull the tag end through then we've made a loop jam on the end so what we want to do is we want to do the opposite of that for a Canadian Jam knot which means we want to pull this end through which is going to force this down this way and it will make this knot right here the actual jam in the end so we'll turn this over give ourselves just a little bit of tag and again instead of pulling the tag in through we're going to pull the other end through and that's going to be our jam then all I'm going to do is I'm going to make that big enough that I can't take a small pinecone put it inside my tarp just like this and I want to put it about halfway down you can do this before you actually put your last steak in if you want to or you can do it after and I'm just going to tie that Jam knot right around that pinecone so I got to make sure I get that whole pinecone in there just like that now I've got that pinecone trapped in that Jam then I can pull this up on a tree further away and I'll show you that here is just second it's going to give me a whole lot more Headroom and tighten the shelter up considerably so now what I've done is I've taking that low-hanging Ridge in the center jam loop that pinecone in there we ran it to a tree back off in the distance to pick the middle of that shelter up with my 20-foot piece of paracord and that gives me a huge amount of expanded Headroom inside that shelter for me to be able to set up inside there and do work in inclement weather

you

About the Author

wildernessoutfitters

wildernessoutfitters

From the lore of bushcraft to all things related to self-sustainability, the Pathfinder vision is to pass on the knowledge of outdoor self-reliance. Providing basic to advanced self-reliance training and survival gear, our goal is to offer both practical knowledge and survival gear that will stand the test of time. From emergency preparedness to sustainability, the Pathfinder way is to share and educate.

Here you can explore the world of survival knives, survival kits and simple tips on outdoor self-reliance. We are always learning and enjoy passing on the knowledge we acquire.

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