Q & A Poncho Tipi Tips - Audio Program

Description

After making that last video on the Pull Up Tipi using our PSSL Poncho, there have been a few questions, so this Audio program answers about a dozen questions about Tipi's in general when using a poncho.

Tags: Tipi,Poncho (Garment),Tips,PSSL,outdoor,survival gear,training

Video Transcription

no this is a perry peacock with will or deceleration and tonight's today's podcast is kind of a QA on the TP poncho well the punt well the tea and I'm tongue tied here whatever the tepees made using our RP SSL punch of the long poncho and you know I did a little video and some pictures last spring at the cabin making a teepee out of out of a psso poncho and using kind of the traditional method using a tripod of sticks and then adding you know one or two more for convenience and and then course this recent one here doing doing the TP using just a pull-up I call it a pull up TP because typically in that kind of situation not using any sticks at all and so let's get right to it here I got about a dozen questions or something like that and we'll kind of go through and answer some of those and it might help you decide if that's something that you want to try doing and see if it's practical for you or whatever and kind of give a you know a few tips and pointers on some stuff I've messed around with in using the poncho teepees I suppose one of the first questions would be why do I make a teepee out of a poncho you know I can understand the question because a teepee made out of punch is going to be pretty small and granted it's going to be a one-person TP and it's going to be kind of limited in in space and use but I would say one of the one of the huge pluses for it is if you get in a situation where where you really need to shelter up a little at get out of the get out of the brain somewhat out of wind especially sometimes the wind can be one of the biggest deals you know you get some get wet or something and get get a win going or just get a cold wind and and sometimes that really hampers you and you know sometimes just like in this last video you want to you want to cook up a little something to eat or whatever but you need to get a little bit out of the elements to do that practically so a a tepee made out of a poncho is very quick to make takes very little resources as I demonstrated in the pull up TP and and so in a sense it's quick easy very little resources and easy to take down easy put up you know why not so let's let's kind of guy think some this question will actually be answered a little bit probably a little bit more as we go through some of the other questions now in as far as supporting the teepee should a person use poles or do a pull-up well and I stated in this in this newest video I made where I did the pull-up TP that you know kind of overall I'm probably would favor using the sticks or poles perhaps a little more than just the pull-up just because the poles offer a very rigid framework for the for the poncho to drape around and you know there's less chance of of wind really doing a whole lot of pushing against it because the poles you know positively stop the tpr the poncho fabric from coming in very far anything because that you know it can't Matt it's very very sturdy now now you know another another way to turn to look at that though is is the pull-up TPI made ex I actually didn't even realize until i was taking it down that that i had never bothered to tie off the the parachute cord that was pulling up on it to support it in the upward position i just took that rock that I threw over the branch I just threw it over another branch I never did tie it off or even I never did even pull up on it to try to tension it so actually it held up really nicely just with the the weight of a way to that little rock you know maybe one pound rock or something you know so it actually did hold up pretty nicely so I you know either I suppose either way is is just fine if you're in an area where a lot of times you may not it may not be worth the trouble in a lot of areas to try to find the poles and get the poles made up to support the teepee with poles so pull up might be the might be the most practical answer you know some areas that you're in why why six foot long straight sticks will be you know very common and easy to come by and so it's not really a big deal so I think some of that you're going to gauge by your area and you're going to gauge by how you want to use it or how much you're going to use it how long you're going to use it you know if you're just you're just going to get in there and you're going to be in there for an hour two hours or something to cook a meal or just to take a rest from the weather maybe even curl up and take a little nap you know maybe maybe you know a pull-up is the best because the the easiest takes the least resources so now the next question is and it's kind of naturally falls right into place here is is the question isn't it too small to be worth it you know is it that I mean you saw in the video how small the TP is I mean I i could sit up in it fine and I had you know I had enough shoulder room enough headroom and all that sort of thing

I had my backpack that I I stuffed clear in the back of the taping for most of the time of what I shooting the video so I mean I was in there out of the way and I was still I could still be all inside so you know now granted you know if you're not going to if you like let's say you want to use it to sleep in which actually is the next question so we're kind of going to probably cover the comforter that at the same time right here you know sleeping in it obviously you're going to do you know kind of a fetal type position so you lay on your side and probably and just kind of curl up so you know if you're not a person that can do that very well then probably is for probably sleeping is going to be out now myself I'm i typically sleep on my side I may not I may not sleep you know totally fetal position but I can do it I can do it just fine and you know and so for me yeah it's absolutely doable so I I would say no it's not too small to be worth it i mean it's it's for one person and you know it does it does get you out of the weather it gets you out of the wind and grant it's not going to be absolutely totally waterproof i mean you may you may get some drips or a little bit here and there but hey if you got something really coming down and you can keep you know ninety-eight percent of it off of you it's probably still well worth doing and being that you can put it up pretty quickly sure you know it's it's something to me it's something worth practicing a little bit and learning how to do it so if you get in a situation you can quickly set you up a little shelter and as far as sleeping in a punch of TP you know absolutely if if you can sleep on your side curled up a little bit kind of kind of semi a fetal fetal position depends on how tall you are you know if you're 6 foot 4 it may not be too doable if you're 510 or 6 feet or something like that or maybe shorter than tight 510 or whatever it's you know it's absolutely doable another another question here is is do you have to use a PS SL to make a teepee out of a poncho or will the PSS work and if you're not familiar with the two of them PSS is kind of our kind of kind of a you know what our Poncho's go by and it stands for it stands for Pancho survival shelter and and so the P as the L on the end just means long so that's it's a long version it's a foot longer than the PSS so can you make one out of a PSS I would I you could yes but I'm afraid I'm afraid to the PSS just that's going to be just a little too short I mean you you can try it I haven't actually even tried it with the PSS because I've used the P SSL and and that's doable but you know it's still it's still to me i'm thinking i don't know how much how much smaller the PSS would be but you know still even if you couldn't totally closed in the front you still might be able to have three side you know kind of a wrap around and have an open doorway it might still be doable it might still be worth doing so i guess i don't know the answer to that one another question was how sturdy is is a teepee made out of a poncho well it you know it's as sturdy as however you pitch it a you know if you have my ex my favorite way using sticks or poles is as you know you have poles that are say you know at least five at least probably five and a half to six feet long and my preference that what I really like the best is using about 5 ohm and so I usually kind of start out making a try a tripod out of three and then I kind of add a fourth one to make the shelters sort of rectangular so then I'll kind of once I put the fourth one up I'll kind of shift you know the other the original three a little bit so I kind of form a rectangle and and then the fifth one can go in you know say on the back wall in other words the wall opposite your door opening and it can go in there just to kind of push that back wall just instead of being straight make it just a little more curved so I like I like doing that now so you put the poles up and you just lash them just tie them off with a jam nut or whatever and with a piece of parachute cord and they'll hold up pretty good I've even done it before not tying the poles at all you know sometimes usually a find them there's usually some some some little branches and stuff to come off and if if when you do your poles you don't take all those off you have some little fork a little bit of forks forking going on here and there you can usually lay the pulls up together to where they kind of jam together pretty good and then when you drape the poncho around them and start staking it down know that sort of thing the poncho basically itself can actually hold the poles up so you don't necessarily need to tie them up even I would probably recommend it because it's going to be that much sturdier and and then how you stake down the stake down your poncho around it will contribute quite a bit to how sturdy it is too now if you

using a pull up TP then you'd probably want to go a step beyond what i did in the video and you'd probably want to stake the sides down really good you know once you get them out kind of test them and everything's kind of the size you want then i would go ahead and go and and tighten that parachute cord that's that's pulling up on the TP and probably tension it as you know as good as you can you just kind of Judge it you know and and it's going to be pretty darn sturdy you know it's a teepee shape is pretty sturdy anyway so so you know you're pretty good you know you're not going to have much problem with it so now the next question is the floor of the of the poncho TP how do you stay dry so obviously you know if you if you have a situation probably because anybody listening to this probably it may have just watched the video and so you'd be familiar with what i did there so let me just me just take it from how i was there and so what I did is go on to the under the bare ground underneath the juniper tree and pitch up the the pull up TP and and then I just threw my kind of I kind of played the ground and obviously in in juniper country I made sure there's no cactus is there hey she already do have to watch for that in in juniper country but it you know as smooth as smooth pretty much no big rocks or anything like that and then I just threw my my fleece poncho liner I folded it up folded it up a couple of times then put it in there just kind of something to sit on now obviously that were the question that was as staying dry so so the deal there is you know let's say you have a you know a pretty draining rain or something like that you know there's a possibility and maybe a good possible

d depending on the depending on where you're at that you know you could have some water starting to starting to flow into that you know and you know obviously you could probably trench around it kind of like in the olden days how we used to new tents and that would probably help quite a bit what I would do though because you know I mean if I'm doing it I'm probably well it depends on where you're at but i would say if i'm in pine pine tree country or i'm in juniper country i would take some boughs like like where I pitched that one you know that's a Juniper forest so i would i would pile like i would put the thing up or maybe I'd even do it beforehand I pile up like a foot thick of Juniper boughs and I'm doing like when we make a juniper bed like I've showed before were you you put all the stems and stuff kind of pointing them down and out and then so in the middle where you'd be sitting or laying or whatever that would be all the tips of the bow so it'd be soft and nothing to poke you but if you know if you get a little bit of distance if you could do those a foot thick and then when you sit on them they'll compress well jets is are you know I've done a lot of stuff before wife where I have piled up some juniper boughs to sit on either wet muddy ground or even ground that's got snow on it or or whatever rainy rainy areas and stuff like that you know if you can get 10 or 12 inches thick of those and then when you sit on them you're still going to be you know four or five inches thick well it's you know chances are unless you pitched your your setup in a hole even if you get water flowing underneath there you're going to stay dry because you're above you're above where the water is going so you know that's to me that would be a way to stay dry inside of there and if I was you know sitting there any length of time or if I wanted to you know curl up and take a nap or something like that why i would i would definitely throw some boughs down there too get really nice and soft and cozy so and that's my answer there the next question on the list here is is the front the front door area in other words open or shut is the question and and I would say you know you you probably leave it you probably leave it open orient the thing eyes oriented perpendicular to the wind which generally is generally that's about the best thing is to be perpendicular to the wind but you know you want to leave the door open of course if you're cooking or different things like that but you know if you've got some tough weather coming in and stuff like that then you know then you're going to want to shut it down a little bit now now there's different ways you can shut it down you can take like in the video i just made on the pull-up TP the way that was pitched out i had most of my like my door in other words i just left it sticking straight out as kind of a as kind of a barrier to the wind well i can i can pull that around and close it right off or i can take them take that piece and fold it part way and take the other end of the of your poncho in other words that i had kind of folded right down and i can kind of pitch those together and tie them off out in the out in the front so it makes kind of a frame doorway leading out of the TP kind of like kind of like going out of an igloo sort of and so that works that could work pretty effectively at it you know if it's pretty well the exits I'll answer this tonight whereas going I'll answer that another question here so so basically whether your clothes are open the door just depends on what you're doing your situation but it can be left open or shut up sometimes you can configure the door opening well enough that that you can lay you know reasonably reasonably straight out I have most of your body inside and then have you know like like your legs kind of hanging in to thee to the kind of a framed or doorway area if you watch my video that I did last spring you'll find it in the PSS the punch of playlist on youtube if you look in there you'll see you see the TP one back in I don't know I can't remember spring or summer of 2014 and but if you see that you watch that you can see I had that pitched up at one point where it kind of came out like I'm describing it so you can take a look at that another question is if the if the poncho the PS SL can be made into a tarp you know why bother the TP at all why not just make an a-frame shelter or make a lean-to and that's a good question an a you can make an a-frame out of the punch or two different ways you can make your a your a-frame roof you can make it either lengthways or Crossley's if you make it lengthwise then then basically you're taking just under five feet of width and kind of folding it down the middle and making a roof and and then it's eight feet long if you're using the PS SL seven feet long if you're using the just the standard the standard PSS so that yeah that can make a nice roof and I've I've done it before I've done if I did at one time in fact I was camping with my sons and and we were actually hammock camping and I didn't I didn't even bring me a tarp in case of rain and well about two in the morning it started raining pretty good so I bailed out of my out of my hammock that was made out of my mate out of the poncho right I bailed out of that and just reap reconfigured it into a a frame going lengthwise and then I just laid between the two trees having it strung a frame why is between me and I slept through the ring just flying in there so I'm yeah that's doable now any type of any type of a frame basically you have your covered on two sides but you have two ends open and if you pitched the a frame crossways then then of course you're only you know you're only just a little under five feet wide then and then you have you know a little more to work with going the other way so yeah I mean that's doable but you know here again if you if you need to effectively block the wind or if you have kind of swirling rains or something come in an a-frame may not necessarily be good enough the TP might provide you a little more protection because you can you can basically wrap it all the way around you now of course you're going to be a little more squishy in there but you know I get really just have to weigh the situation and say what's what's going to be the best what's going to do think do me the most good so now the next question is sealing the top so you know so I could TP if you have sticks coming out up to the top obviously if it's raining rain can hit those sticks and kind of work its way down through there and then run down inside and and of course that's that's something whether you got a big Indian style TP or whatever is you know how you do drip lines or different things like that to try to try to keep from you know just dripping all over the place and you know that's obviously an issue what I what I've tried to do is anytime I set up like that is try to make that opening at the top as tight as possible so I have you know so I have as little as possible oh you know open area there I did do it one time I just put like I just put a bag over the sticks that pointed out of the top when I was using a stick method and our poles you know and just I just put I just put a bag over there and kind of pulled it down and that basically closed it right off and I did the trick just by itself if you're using to pull up you have you have even less opening so you don't have have nearly as much to worry about if you do have some of our easy clips with you you can actually when you set up the top you can actually takes a little bit effort to do this but you could actually take where the edges come together and then just fold them over and then run your and then clamp down your easy clip and and so basically I kind of fold it over so there isn't actually even a virtually there's so does virtually no opening up there so I mean that's another way you're not going to be absolutely totally sealed in but you can eliminate enough of it that it's really not an issue anymore now only two more questions to go one of them is can you use a fire in in the front opening of the of the poncho TP instead of using a stove well oh yeah you can definitely and and I've done I've done fires in front of even are like a regular sized tarp and that when you set it up as a diamond pitch or whatever leaves you an opening on unwanted on one edge and I've done a little fire on the ground and you could you could do the same thing here it's not a problem easily done and in some respects that might even be easier to do a fire than a stove because the little stoves I mean you have to you know you have to feed the fuel into the whatever whatever size or dimensions of stove ax is so and it does restrict how big it can be or if you build it on the ground you can kind of easier regulate to make it a little bit bigger or whatever the disadvantage of a fire the only real disadvantage of just building one on the ground is is being able to position it where when you need to get in and out of your shelter you're not having to practically burn yourself get getting in and out of there so we're a stove you can actually just take a couple of sticks and you can actually pick the stove up and move it aside to get in and out if you need to so the stove does give you some portability but but I've done it both ways either way either way can work fine just just be aware that the the last question is and I don't know this kind of I don't know how to answer this exactly hits what's the most practical use of a poncho TP and i would say myself i'm probably unless i'm in a pinch i'm probably not going to use a poncho TP for sleeping the night in I mean it's not not out of its not of the question by any means but it's not it's not as likely that i would do that but i would use it like i did in this last video the pull-up the pull up TP you know where you just want to get out of the weather and it turned out it didn't really sprinkle ill never did really rain on me that day but it was forecast and it was looked like it was starting to you but it's a great protection for getting out of the wind and it's a and it's a it's a good little protection of kind of getting out of the rain especially where it's you know a little more windy and a little less sheltered area

it's nice to do because the TP does give you protection all the way around and any other kind of TARP setup you try to do you are going to have an open area and of course that can be that could be minimized by pitching it lower to the ground so if you did a lean-to or you did an a-frame out of a poncho you know if the weather is more blustery or whatever then you might pitch that thing a little bit lower to the ground you may not be able to sit up in it but you know you're here by doing that you're limiting how much can actually kind of get in at you so so you know that's another option if you didn't want to do a teepee but but i would say the most practical use is a temporary shelter that can be very quickly and easily made just really really just kind of like i did there you know sometimes you might want to just throw that thing up there and just wait out a little stormy weather or-or say you're waiting for somebody I mean you can wear your you can wear your poncho and just do a seated bivvy like I've done I've done some video on on that and so you can do that just sit like that which that's absolutely doable as well but then in some ways making a little tea pious is actually a little more deluxe in it so i don't know i would say the best thing would be for people you know you just start start using a teepee here and there set it up mess around with it see what you like what you don't like about it tweak it around a little bit to satisfy your needs and then you know what you play with a little bit you'll kind of come to your own decision as you know when would I use it in 11 when would I not but I think it's valid enough of a sense since our poncho as a you know a poncho shelf a poncho survival shelter we want to be able to show you a lot of the different ways that can be just and some are going to be more practical than others but the TPA is a very viable alternative so I wanted to make sure we showed you how to do that so anyway well I hope this little audiocast podcast type of deal will answer a few questions that might have come up if you watch the video some things you might have wondered about and if you have anything any other questions beyond that you know you can always shoot me an email at perry at wilderness innovation or info wilderness innovation you can respond on youtube although we've got 270 videos up there now so it's I don't I don't I don't get around once the video has been up there a little bit we're moved on to new ones I don't it's hard to keep up with all the videos and stuff as far as answering comments so probably the best way would be directly and go to our webpage wilderness innovation dot-com and there's a there's a deal at the top for comments or contact contact is what it is click on that it'll it'll send us an email to info wilderness innovation so you can always ask that way or if you want to call you know I can a lot of time to available to chat on the phone a little bit too so any questions comments whatever let us know we also have a Facebook page you know facebook / wilderness innovation and you can go on there and ask questions or make comments too so anyway hope this thing was valuable to you may be answered a few questions Mayday maybe I created some questions that up but anyway I take care enjoy your time outdoors and try to you know try to make the best use you can of all the gear you've got and making a teepee out of a poncho is just another way another another method of using the gear to provide some kind of shelter so take care be safe and i'll catch you on the next video or or podcast and have a great day bye