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Poncho Shelter System - Part One

Description

Our ponchos have always been intended to be part of a system for personal shelter, there are many components that work together, and more coming that will. The Poncho alone may be used in several different ways like a tarp, a ground cloth, a hammock, a Yukon chair, or for a Super Shelter. Now add other items to it like a Polartec Fleece liner, and Osni Cloak, an Under Quilt, etc. and it can change the nature of its use, becoming for example a full length coat, or an insulated hammock. Check out all our made in USA gear at HTTP://wildernessinnovation.com

Tags: poncho,shelter,hammock,coat,cloak,tarp,under quilt,camping,outdoorsman,bushcraft

Video Transcription

now one thing nice about our our Poncho's a lot of people say Pancho Pancho it's a poncho but my Poncho's are designed to be used they're designed be worked in get up there and man you can get some really strong winds and I can turn even even some mild temperatures into life-threatening if you don't have some means of protecting yourself so throwing a poncho even if you just got a sweater on like I've got here you throw a poncho on and you can add another 15 degrees or more to your comfort range to your safety range just by having two poncho on with nothing else it keeps the wind from driving into my clothing and carrying away my body heat but there is there is more to the poncho to our our Poncho's always have been more than just a poncho it's a punch a week we used to call we call it a poncho shelter system well yeah well run in the air and chasing the Sun trying to get a little bit of trying to get just a little bit of video a little more in the Sun is just trying to go down there I can my can drown I mean those who can see the little breeze not too much but I can really feel it just driving through this little sweater and and with that ultralight poncho on they didn't feel any of the wind I mean it was retaining my heat so now I've got my OC on that I can I can either snap it into my poncho to make it an integral piece of it and sometimes you really want to do that like especially if you got some high winds oros knee or your fleece if you're doing the same thing with a fleece that will help to seal off the wind from driving through the crack I'm just gonna pull my poncho just straight over with you so you see if you look right here where our little seam is right there you could you could you could get a little bit of something coming in there and if you snap it together it'll help seal all that off well you know I could I could sit right down on the brush with any of our HD series you know how to whatever I want to do it's it's not going to hurt it these things are tough as nails and in fact any of our series are pretty tough I mean for years I used I used my regular multicam poncho for all the kind of all kinds of stuff you know cutting firewood you know making camp tramping through the brush and stuff like that and I never had a problem with it so really any of our line will work well but if you get the HD line oh right right there is you just don't have to worry about it all just you just do what you got to do and kind of good you know it's not something you you know buy and he use for a few days of camping and and throw it away when you're done this you know our Poncho's every one of them now should last you for years

well we got ours got all our different ponchos we've got well over a thousand different options and stuff that's available between all the fabrics colors sizes accessories

well that doesn't include all the accessories just the basic stuff so have a lot of variety but a lot of people say well you know that punch is a little pricey

you know that's but we're not talking about the the poncho that you wear the concert or something like that that you throw away after one time or the punch I used two or three times the summer and throw it away these are these are Poncho's gonna last it for years yeah and they're very very tough very durable these Poncho's aren't just Poncho's either they're actually and always were intended to be part of a system now they're part of the part of the poncho shelter system but as you can see that poncho could be worn just like this one right here but it also can be hung up like a hammock so you can see right here there's another experiment I'm always experimenting trying things I'm hanging this hammock up using runners Dyneema runners which we have available on our website yeah these are rated at 5,000 pounds plenty plenty strong but I stick the runner through here and then I put a piece of wood through here and what that does is instead of instead of the hammock being gathered up really tight like they normally they're normally gathered up really tight so the head and foot end or just tightly gathered so a good part of your hammock is not usable as a hammock because it's all tight in there so you have to have extra length that's not used to make it comfortable for you and so this method I'm messing around here with where you could just use we could supply something a aluminum tube or something like that or you could just cut up a piece of wood out where you're camping and other things that can be done with the Poncho's of our punch that have 12 tie up points around the perimeter which makes it possible to hang any of our Poncho's up as a tarp in in a number of different ways so I've got a little I've got my little spreader things here to kind of simulate a hybrid bridge hammock and so I'm I'm about 20 inches wide on a spread here versus touching these would normally be around just be touching I've got about 20 inches wide and so that keeps the hammock from wanting to wrap around me tightly now sometimes you may want that but other times you may be looking for a little more space a little more room I'm feeling comfortable and feeling I'm not feeling squished in this way everything's more spread out I've got plenty of room if I want to spread a blanket sometimes in a hammock you have a hard time because it's so rounded you have a hard time distributing a blanket in there this gives me plenty of room to lay it out to tuck it around me and all that sort of thing and you know I'm very comfortable there's no sometimes that a hammock you'll feel kind of a hard spot in the middle here where your head's laying but this is its firm but it's not hard it's it's spread out a little wider I can feel an even pressure all the way across my shoulders and I'm not feeling any pressure pushing in on my shoulders this way so this kind of turns it into a little more like a backyard hammock in some in some ways and it's very simple to do and so I'm going to continue playing with this thing as time goes on but I just wanted to show you something that you can do in the field any time you want it's a very simple simple deal what I did here so this is just a piece of wood that had a fork in it so I just cut the branches off the fork around my side here just a little bit my silky saw I just ran that in head just a little bit to kind of rough up that little Center part and then and then straight and the in line on the other end I just saw it in like this and like this just to give myself a groove for the Dyneema cord to rest inside them so so then all you do is just shove that thing in there and I like to push it down as far as I can towards the hammock not keep it up here the poncho shelter system is designed really in effect to be a shelter for one person now there are some applications here were where this poncho can be set up and give give you know protect you for more than one person but but it's really a one person type shelter system and the idea being when you combine all the components in different ways it makes it possible for you to be able to protect yourself personally from the elements and it's so you got something wearable you got something you can sleep in you got something you can make up to sleep on the ground

you got something to keep the wind off of you the rain to snow all those kind of things so it's a whole system of things designed to work together canopies tarps bug nets you know the liners to the under quilts the over quilts the top quilts you know okay we've got a whole bunch of different suspension methods for when you set it up as a hammock so all this stuff is part of the poncho shelter system and as you kind of get to know it I'm sure you'll see the value in having some of these things and the thing I like about it is I don't ever go camping that I don't use my poncho for something and so I'm not packing some dead weight that I'm not going to use

About the Author

Wilderness Innovation

Wilderness Innovation

"How to" for outdoor camping, hiking activities and survival. Some unique equipment and ideas. "Simplifying Survival" is our motto. Follow us on Twitter - WISurvival

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