-Flintlock Annual Skills Gathering_ Tarp Shelters.

This is a perfect example of a few things that I'm going to talk about really quick. There's a big difference between, you know, your modern emergency type stuff and your primitive skills stuff. And they all have value, for sure. But I'm speaking to you from the perspective of a modern type emergency survival, where you're out for whatever reason, you get stranded, and you need, weather like this is coming in, don't know if the clouds are going to let go or what, so you need to get something up quick. And you don't really have the hour to four hours, depending on your skill level, to build a primitive shelter. So if you're equipped for it, throwing up a quick shelter to keep your primary shelter, which is your clothing dry, is definitely a key thing. So with that, you should be able to put up one of these shelters if it's imminent weather coming in. You should be able to put it up in just a few minutes. So there's definitely things you can do to set yourself up to be able to do that when you do your kit. And we'll talk about, you know, a basic emergency kit on another day, probably tomorrow morning. We'll go into that before we get into the fires. But I want to get into this with you today, because today's kind of shelter day. So how many people are familiar with the Pathfinder system with the five minute shelter? You guys familiar with that? No? Okay. This is kind of a blend of those two. It's got a little bit of a, it's definitely got a baseline in that. And I used to do it with military ponchos, obviously, because of my military background. We always had camouflaged ponchos. That's what we had, a poncho and a poncho liner and some paracord. That's it. You know, for 15 years, that was my shelter in the woods. For emergency survival, camouflage is not the goal. So there's a few adaptations that are blended with that system, and you'll see that. But the five minute shelter is just that. Imminent weather. I don't want to get my primary shelter, my clothing, soaked. I don't want to get it soaked to the bone. I want to get it set up, let it blow over or hunker down, and protect myself from hypothermia. So a couple of things that go to that shelter, and I guess I should go over anything when you're talking about a shelter kit, which we'll get into. You've got something to sleep under, which is like a tarp or a tent or whatever you have. You've got something to sleep in, like a sleeping bag or a blanket, then you've got something to sleep on. You've got to protect yourself from conduction from the ground. That's where about 80% of your body heat is going to be lost. So something to sleep on. Then cordage to kind of facilitate all of that is another thing that you want to have in there. And then of course your primary shelter system we'll get into tomorrow, which is your clothing. But now that I've kind of talked to you about that, we'll talk about some of those elements. A simple kit, and this entire emergency kit has all your priorities covered, and it weighs about 12 to 15 pounds, depending on whether your water bottle's full. So we've got to cover all those elements. Cordage, I've got some ABS tent stakes just because they facilitate the speed of putting this up, and they don't weigh enough for me to worry about. And if you're trying to get a shelter up in just a few minutes because weather's coming in, you don't want to take the time to start messing with stakes. So if you're setting up a kit, don't plan to improvise. Plan to be prepared, and then improvise when you're not prepared, if that makes sense. So just a simple emergency tarp. This is a reflective space blanket, and it ties into this entire system. Then your cordage, of course, I've got a couple different types. I've got Bankline, and I've got some Survivor Cord. The Survivor Cord, if you guys aren't familiar with that, it's from Titan. It has monofilament fishing line inside as one of the strands. It also has some brass wire, like a utility wire. And it also has some wax jute fire starter. And it has the original seven inner strands that come with it. So this is about 660-some pound test, so it's really good cordage. And like we were talking about, with military stuff, it's always camouflage and green, which is kind of counterproductive to you trying to be found. So this is the orange version. Everything I can get that's orange, I'm going to put in my emergency kit, because that's just going to help me be seen from above or seen by search and rescue on the ground. What's interesting about this stuff also is it has a reflective thread in it. So at night, it's a passive nighttime signal. If they're looking for you by flashlight or flying over with a spotlight, it'll actually reflect like a glint, like a runner's glint. So that's why I keep this in the emergency kit. And then we'll get that set up. Well, I can talk to you about that since we're already on it. Those big Therm-A-Rests are pretty bulky for an emergency, like everyday carry type kit. So a couple of really heavy mill trash bags, and I use clear because I can also use these for water procurement, setting up some of those systems. But you can fill these with browse and make a mattress to protect you from conduction. And also in a pinch, you can, these are big enough to where you could turn it into a poncho if you're mobile. If you wanted, there's a lot of different things you can do with these. And these are a lot more compact, I think, than one of the big Therm-A-Rests. You can, of course, carry a Therm-A-Rest if you want to. But as part of that kit, I'll use that. And then that's your something to sleep on. And then something to sleep under, or something to sleep in, normally I have a small patrol bag in here, but it could be something as simple as a blanket, just so you can cover up and kind of trap some of that radiating heat from your body and protect you from the convection as well. So something to sleep under, something to sleep in, something to sleep on, and then you've got some cordage and I've got stakes added to facilitate that. That's kind of a shelter kit for emergencies. And as far as configurations for this, honestly it depends on the weather. So there's basically four different configurations in this system. So depending on the weather, depending on your environment. If kind of the three season, I guess I would say, fair weather, where you're not expecting it to actually downpour but you need some protection, or if you're in the desert and it's hot and you just need some protection from the sun, I would go with a lean-to type configuration. If you're trying to trap radiating body heat and retain that as your primary source of heat to prevent hypothermia, lean-to is not the way to go because it's too open. It's open on three sides. It's not the way to go. It's a good shade. It's good for a quick flash where it doesn't matter as much if you get wet. So that's kind of that first configuration. And then if it's wintertime, I'll go straight to a plow point shelter, the diamond plow point shelter. And I'll show you all these. But I'm just trying to tell you kind of what I consider when I'm starting this, which way I'm going to put it up. And this is also designed so you can go from one to the other really quickly. So for the diamond plow point, it allows me to have protection on three sides and it creates a smaller microclimate so I can trap that body heat and stave off that hypothermia. So that's kind of my winter weather thing and it's also good for if you know it's going to start downpouring. It'll keep you drier because you're protected on three sides. Then the A-frame system is kind of like the three season, but I know it's going to get wet. I don't want to kind of trap all that heat because it's too warm for whatever reason, but I'd also don't want to get wet because then we start bringing in conduction and evaporation and all that. So those are the three. This system also in extreme cold weather, you guys familiar with Morris Kohansky's super shelter? Yeah. This same exact system, the same exact setup that I'm about to show you, if you add in those types of environments, like normally I'm up in the Northeast, in the wintertime I would have a nine by 12 sheet of plastic in there so I can create a super shelter. Just adding that to this kit. Not really cold enough down here for that, so I don't have it in this particular kit, but if you're in one of those areas and it can get that cold, the Morris Kohansky super shelter is a good way to adapt this to that environment. Is anybody not familiar with that super shelter system? You've built one with me in my class. Yeah. That one. But anyway, cordage management is huge because if you're trying to get this up quick, the last thing you need to do is have a rat nest with this. And this one's not set up exactly because I want to show you the knots, but I'll show you how to pack it so that when you put it in your kit, you can pull it out, run your ridge line in about 10 to 15 seconds and then go. You'll have this tarp up probably within two minutes and that's a good thing to have if it's coming, you know, and you can see it, but I want to be able to show you those knots. So you need a knot on the end so that you can create, let me get this out. If you can get this out without tangling it, you're going to be golden. The key is to take your time and don't let the ends cross. That's probably enough. And then all of my extra, rather than let it get tangled, I can use this to keep it kind of in a ball so that I don't have this problem later. So yeah, the, I'll use a figure eight or a bowling. Well, we already, I showed you bowling over there, so I'll show you the figure eight real quick. So I'm doing as a figure eight loop. So this is your running end. This is your standing end. So this is a bite, it doesn't cross over. This is a loop. If it crosses over, this is a bite. So I'm going to take that bite and there's a couple of different ways you can do it. Twist it once, twice away from you. And then to create a simple figure eight, you just come up through there and you've got that figure eight. But I need a fixed loop. So take that, go a little bit further so you have enough room. And then I'll create that figure eight by kind of tracing it around. There we go. And that's not a big enough loop, but that's the figure eight loop that I'm trying to create. But I'm going to create a larger one and I'll show you why here in a second. Actually I'll show you the bowling since we're on that. That's the figure eight for a bowling. And I'll go over these with you guys later if you don't know how to tie it. For a bowling, you're just creating a loop and you're running ends on the bottom side. That's your first part. Then from the working end or the standing end, I'm going to poke a bite up through that loop. Now, as I'm looking at it, I've got my clean side, which doesn't cross it, and then I've got my dirty side, which has a knot or start of a knot. So clean side right, dirty side left. This is coming from basically your chest outwards. So I get to that, go in, then I can drop that part, pull through how much tail I need, usually about, you know, to put a security knot on this, I'm going to need about six inches. Fold that over on itself. And now I'm holding there. Grab that bottom and then all you've got to do is pull it and you've got a bowling with a nice big loop. Everybody see that? Then from there, I'll wrap it all the way around one of the portions of the loop and then come back through. And that's an overhand security knot and that keeps my bowling nice and tight. And it's just a security knot to keep that from coming out. So anytime I tie a knot, I usually put some kind of security knot on. It's just a habit. Then I've got a hole big enough to get my fist through and that comes into play when I'm trying to set this ridge line up. As soon as I get where I'm going, I can wrap this around the tree now and create an anchor and then I can pull this through. And when I set this up later, this would have to be a lot more this way. I can run that whole thing through and not have to pull it all the way through like a now I'm through. We'll do that again after I get this managed like it's supposed to be. Then I can come to the other side. On this side, I'm just going to do a trucker's hitch. Now as far as height goes, if your goal is to trap body heat and that's your primary source of heating that actual microclimate you're creating, higher is not better. I like to do lower about waist high or lower so that I can trap that heat a little bit closer. Plus it keeps the blowing winds and everything else. So I'm going to bring this a little lower, probably about waist high, run my ridge line. Now from here, I'm going to create a trucker's hitch on this end because I want to be able to adjust it. This one not so much because it has the brass wire in it, but normal paracord and other cordages if it's a nylon, it's not static, it's dynamic. So as it gets wet and as you put tension on it, it's going to stretch and then your shelter starts sagging. So depending on how long you're going to be there, I like to be able to tighten it up when I need to. But for your trucker's hitch, for this system, it matters kind of where you end up putting your trucker's hitch because the loop for that trucker's hitch is where one of the points and one of the corners of my shelter is going to be. If I want my shelter right here, kind of in the center, then I need one of my corners, my front right corner as you're looking at it, my front left corner as I'm looking at it. I want it to be about right there. So this is where I want my trucker's hitch to end up. I don't have to tie it back here, but for the trucker's hitch, overhand loop like we talked about when we were doing the Marlin spike hitch, then I can go around my anchor point, around my anchor point on this side, and get it about the height I want it. Go about waist high here, and try to tie this backwards on you. Now there is a trick if you're using normal paracord to where you can run it through twice and it'll bind on itself. With this actual survivor cord, because it has that wire in there, it doesn't work as well. So I'll give it a shot, but it may not work. But now I've came around my anchor point, I can go back through that loop. And from there, I can tie what I need to tie. What I'm going to try to do, usually doesn't work with this cord, is because of that wire like I said, but I'll try to put that second half hitch in there. Basically you're creating a round turn. And then when you tighten it, this will actually bind on itself and give you some time, but sometimes it doesn't work because this is a little stiffer. Now that holds the tension for me. I want this pretty tight. This is, there, see how that popped loose? I'll try to get it tighter than that. Yeah, see, you're popping loose. But anyway, from there, I'll just do a half hitch, still keeping with the rope management. Do a half hitch, pop that tight. And then I'll do a second half hitch, but that one, instead of pulling the end all the way through, I'm going to put a quick release on it. That becomes the first loop to my corner with this system. Okay? So that's a quick down and dirty ridgeline, and we'll go through the knots again if you want to go through them. But this gives me my first loop. From there, if it's wintertime or the, I don't want to say the R word, because I'm tired of the R. But if the R is imminent, then I'll probably go straight to a diamond because I'm trying to keep as much of me as dry as possible. With the diamond, I'm going to face the point of the diamond that goes into the ground into the wind, so that the wind goes across and away from me, not into the microclimate I'm trying to create. This one's already reinforced and already set up for a passive signal, but orange can be seen easily, and three X's are already on there with some tape. So that from above, it's international distress symbol, international orange, so it's a passive signal I don't have to worry about. But that is how you should set it up. And because these tarps are kind of more flimsy, I go ahead and reinforce the grommets already because it gives it a better chance of last. My experience with these is the grommets are going to pop if I put too much tension on it, so I just go ahead and reinforce them from the get-go. And that's a point I want to make about these type of emergency kits is use it and figure out what works and what doesn't. If it's cheap, then get something better. Get the best stuff that you can afford. I think your life depends on this kind of thing, so it shouldn't be something that you just get and then put in a break glass in case of emergency. I've never actually used this stuff before kind of thing. So I know that these have a habit of breaking these grommets out, so I try to reinforce it with some Gorilla Tape. Now I'm going to work that tape. That becomes my first corner. All I've got to do is poke this up through there like this, and then take one of my spikes and put it through, and then I can tighten that quick-release down, and I've established my first corner. Now if I'm in a hurry and I need to get a plow point out, all I have to do is stake off this back one, and I'll have to get some other cordage for that. That's why I keep the bank line in there. This is another thing in your kit that you can prep ahead of time, but I want to show you the knots. About probably a 24 to 30 inch piece of bank line will get you where you need to go. You can pre-cut these when you practice setting this up. You can pre-cut these and have the knots already on your stake, and then it's that much quicker. Bank line's kind of hard to see, so I'll come up there and show you guys here real quick. But basically what I'm creating is, you can do simple overhand to create that knot, and you can do a girth hitch, you can do a clove hitch, you can do a lot of different things on this side. But I'm going to come through here, and I'll show you this guy's, this knot close up, create a girth hitch, run it through, pull it about tight, find out what my wind direction is, and stake that down. I'll temporarily stake it, and then I'll come back to it if I need to adjust, and then really hammer it home. But I'm trying to get this up quick for you. Now I need, for the diamond, I just need two more of these, so I'll come up here and show you. Show you those knots. About 30 inch piece is all you need. All I'm trying to do is create a loop, so I can do it with a simple overhand. Make a bite, and then on the ends, just an overhand. Now I've got my loop. From there, when I get to the actual stake, you can do a number of things. But I'll girth hitch this through. All a girth hitch is, and it's also called a lark's head, same thing. So whichever way you learned it, you've got a loop that passes through there, and that's a girth hitch, or a lark's head, same thing, or the beginnings of a prusik, you know, which is another knot. So anyway, that's what I'm doing on that. You can also run that through, girth hitch it to your grommet, and wrap it around your stake and put it in that way if you want. A lot of different things. You guys have set up tents, you know how to do it. Anyway, that's what I'm doing over here, so let me put these other two points out. A lot of times, if you can get away with not tying directly to the grommets, you'll save the grommets. So another technique, if you have enough stakes, or if you have a simple toggle, is you can run your loop through there, and this actually spreads the tension out a little bit to protect your grommets. A lot of times, if you tie directly to the grommet, it'll rip it right out. So anytime I can, I'll try not to do that. That's a temporary stake, I'll come back if it ends up the way I want it. One more of these. Now once you get this set up for the first time and you're practicing, you get your kit set up, leave the knots and cordage already ready. It'll be that much quicker. You can put these up in just a few minutes. Because when the R is coming down on you, it's not when you want to be practicing your knots. In that scenario, where the R is coming down, how much attention do you pay to your terrain or the slope? For site selections, a whole other animal, and it's a good question, there's five W's to site selection. You want to be, or four W's depending on what school you go to, but five W's is you want to be near wood, because you need a fuel source and materials to build, and you need to be near water, because you need to drink water. This is kind of giving me my, this isn't very tight, but I can come through and adjust. So those are the two W's you want to be near. Then there's three W's you want to be away from, and that's away from window makers. You're looking up for any broken or dead anything that might fall on you in the night, and allow your significant other to cash in on your life insurance policy. You want to stay away from that. You want to stay away from wind, so sheltering in an area like this that has some wind break, natural wind break with the trees is a good thing. Crest of a hill, usually high wind. Super low ground usually means wet water, and at night that's where all the cold sinks to. So in between those two is what you're going for. So wind is the fourth W, and the last W is actually one I learned from Kirsten. Stay away from wigglies, so all the things that bite and crawl and sting. If that's in your area, don't set up there. Find somewhere else. But yeah, something with good drainage, and considering the five W's, so is that what you wanted to know? Alright, good. So yeah, this is my diamond. I can get rid of this, but I can get back in there and get pretty well set and keep myself nice and dry. I like this for the wintertime because I can set a fire right there, and it doesn't have to be all that big. Because this is reflective, I'm capturing that heat and kind of circulating that into my microclimate if I have that. If it's just quick and I need to keep dry, I can get in there pretty tight, about as tight as a tick. So check yourself for a tick, by the way. They're out here. They're not drowning. But this is kind of my winter configuration for this thing. If the R is coming quicker than you can get this up, there's nothing wrong with huddling under this and letting it go over. But try to keep your primary shelter, your clothing system, try to keep that dry. If you're eventually going to want to upgrade that, you don't want to sit huddled under there the whole time. But the key thing is to do what you have to with the situation you're dealt. You can get these up pretty quick if you get ahead of it. If it just comes and you weren't ready, just get it out and get under it and protect yourself. So yeah. Do you go in head first or feet first? I go feet first. But it really doesn't matter. If I'm going to have a fire, I'm going to want my head up that way. And it's kind of stuffy when you really get back in there. And I'm kind of tall, so I think I would stick out if I was trying to be comfortable in here. That's the first configuration, and it's the quickest. Just throw it up, stake it out, and go. And then obviously you'll want to, high winds especially, you'll want to stake these down. And I've got a passive signal going, so that's kind of two birds that way. Now from here, if it's better weather, or if I want to just change the configuration of this a little bit, it's a pretty simple fix for me to go from this to a lean-to. Really simple fix. So all I've got to do is kind of reconfigure the tarp on the same ridgeline. What I'll do is kind of leave those. I can switch these out, if my stakes will allow. And you can go straight to this if you want, you know, depends on your situation. But I want my lean-to to be a different way, but it's a simple fix. Back up through the grommet, put my stake in there, tighten that down. Then I've got one more knot to show you. Alright. We talked about the Prusik earlier basically being a double or triple girth hitch. So for this one, 30 inches still, didn't have to be exact. I want to kind of create the same thing. You can also do a fisherman or double fisherman, whatever knot you want, with your end result being a fixed loop. Alright. So for a Prusik, this is probably a better thing to show you on. A Prusik is designed to tighten, that's not part of this. The Prusik, if you remember how we tied the girth hitch, we came through once for a girth hitch. For the Prusik, you can just come through a second time and you've created it. So a lot of these knots are related. You learn one and you actually know several if you just know the little tweak that you're making. But for the Prusik, on bank line it's hard to see, but it's a constant tension knot as well. So if you guys want, you can pass that around and I'll tie another one. And we'll go over these knots again, I just kind of want to give you the down and dirty on this. So what's the advantage of that versus a girth? The girth hitch doesn't bind on another rope as well. So the Prusik, when I'm setting up a Prusik, what I want to do with it is, it's designed for a rope or cordage of smaller diameter to bind on rope or cordage of larger diameter. And it's self-tightening, so if I didn't want to do this, which I need this for this particular shelter system, but if I just wanted to set up a quick ridge line, I can wrap around this anchor point and then tie on with a Prusik. And there's a couple different Prusik tightening systems I can use. But the goal is once I get it in there and get that Prusik established, then I can slide it and it'll stop where I want it to. So it's a real quick way to put a tension knot on there. So same thing, you're going to need another spike, and bank line on this is going to bind really well because it's smaller diameter onto a larger diameter. You can, a Prusik will work otherwise, but sometimes it's a little tricky and you'll have to do three wraps, you know, for a six wrap Prusik instead of the four wrap Prusik that I'm showing you. But this bank line's pretty sticky and we're going from smaller diameter to larger diameter, it'll stick really well. All right, cool, I've already got one on there. So kind of the same concept of what we did over there. I'm going to create my Prusik, actually I want it to end up over here to show you. One, two. The more wraps you put on your Prusik, the more grip it's going to have for you. So if your ridge line is already wet for some reason, just throw a couple extra wraps in there. All right, I'm going to stick my own knots. I've got my Prusik on there. Come through your grommet, let's go from bottom there. Now I've got a loop poked up through here just like we've got over there. And then I can slide that Prusik along my ridge line and let her go. And I can tighten that as I need to. So then all I've got to do is pull the back out and stake it out. And I should still have enough stakes to do that. That's one drawback to low shelters is when you're tall. So now the same thing I was doing for the stake out to begin with is just putting my girth hitch through and tying it off to the stake, pulling it tight, and then I've got a really quick down and dirty lean to. And I still have my passive signal. If it's a desert shelter for you desert rats out there, and you're just trying to protect yourself from the sun and not necessarily trap a lot of heat in, you can fly this a little better. You know, this is staked down to the ground, but if I wanted to fly it to actually open up the backside and have open on all sides to allow like convective breeze to come through, if the situation and weather allows for that, then I can actually fly this backside by tying it off the trees. So the backside's up, elevated off the ground instead of this low, and I would do a higher shelter in that case. But the lower shelters I think are better for when you're trying to stave off your hypothermia. Stake that dude down, and then because my prusik is adjustable, I want it to come a little tighter. We probably needed three reps. But anyway, that's a quick lean to. I've still got my signal back here, they can see that from the air, they can see it from the ground. They know I'm not just out here camping, people don't camp in, you know, orange survival blankets with X's on them. So that's the lean to configuration, and I'll bring up, because this is set up, from here if all you do is the diamond plow point for a quickie and for your imminent weather that you're trying to stay out of, and this for when that's not happening, or you know, you're not as worried, then you're pretty good. You can go from here to an extreme cold weather super shelter extremely easily. Adding that 9x12 sheet of plastic, clear plastic, that just gets incorporated where you wrap it around this, drape it over the front, and then you create a greenhouse that you're actually living in. They work really, really well. So if you haven't seen that, you'll want to check that out, but it's an easy adaptation. If you can set this up, you can set up a super shelter, you know. Those are the main configurations. The one thing that I'll add, what is it sir? If you're going with the plow, you wouldn't necessarily have to set up the ridgeline, would you? Just go straight to it? You, there's a lot of ways to do it, but for this system, to keep it simple, it's the ridgeline's the same for four tarp configurations, and setting the ridgeline up the way I just showed you so that you get that loop on the end to stick a toggle through and pull tight, it kind of depends on this type of ridgeline, but yeah, you don't have to do them this way. This is just a quick way to do it that, you know, we use and the Pathfinder system. It's all kind of a blend, and you can use different knots, you know. And it's just the end result that you're looking for is what we've got here. From here, if three season, I know the R is coming, then I'll set up probably an A-frame. You know, I'm not as worried about cold, but I also don't want to get wet. So I want a little more protection, but it's protection on two sides instead of the three. That might be a little too stuffy, depending on your weather. It's a real simple fix. Same knots that I'm kind of using, but instead of tying to the ridgeline, I'm just going to move that up and use my stakes otherwise. Let's see if I can get that up for you real quick. There, this also works good if you got hammocks. From there, I don't want that to pull through, so I'll give myself a little more room so that that doesn't pull through, but I can throw an A-frame on this really quickly. About center line, and then all I've got to do is stake out my four corners, and I've got two-sided protection from the weather, but I've still got a little bit of, you know, a little bit of breathability, I think. Stake that dude out. I'll need another piece for that. No, thank you, that'll be quick. I'll see you on the ground. And you'll probably have to go back around to tighten everything up, but you can get a pretty nice little, we call these poncho hooches in the military. Use them all the time if you were lucky. Real simple to set up an A-frame and get inside there and have two-sided protection, but I can set it up either, you know, into the breeze, out of the breeze, whatever your situation is, but that's a fourth configuration for that same system. Super lightweight. Really good emergency. I've still got my passive signal happening, so those are the four configurations to this type of system. Four stakes and probably 30 feet of paracord, a simple tarp, and it doesn't have to be this, you can use whatever, and some bank line. You can use paracord for that as well if you want, it's just, to me, it's easier to have a smaller configuration on there so that the Prusik works better. Yeah, so once you set this up for the first time, when you put it back together, you can leave all of your bank line already tied, leave that on your stakes, you can leave your Prusik loop up here, I think I saw one on the ground, so that it's quicker for you to set up. And then when I put all of this back away, I'm going to back feed it away and bind it so that all I have to do is get up to it, I can undo that first loop of Velcro and pull my fixed loop out, and everything's still in a ball, running around the tree, put the whole thing through, that's why I make it fist size, and then start feeding it out over to here. And it doesn't get tangled, you're not sitting there while the R's coming in, and the S is about to hit the TH, you're not sitting there paying it out, you know, trying to untangle it. So, yeah, poncho shelters, emergency poncho shelters. Anybody have any questions? If you want to get over the knots, we'll go over the knots again. If you want to take it down, see how easy to set it up, any configuration you want, it's right here. Questions? Yes? In your hot desert environment, that type of tarp, would you flip it over if you're trying to... Yes! Good point. Yeah. Reflective side down is reflecting my body heat back to me. If it's hot, or I'm on the beach, or Costa Rica or something, I'll probably just go to a resort if I'm on Costa Rica, if we're honest. But in the desert, and you want to reflect that heat away, then flip it over, and reflect some of that heat away. That's a really good point. If I was in the desert as well, since we do have some desert folk here, I would actually carry two of these, and I would put, because the temperature drops, as soon as that sun goes down, the temperature drops 30 degrees. So you can get hypothermic in the desert, even if it was 100 degrees that day. You go from 100 to 70, and you're not protected, and you were sweating all day. If you're lucky. If you're not sweating, you're probably dehydrated, which is another problem. But you can actually set up a double layer, and then I'll use the reflective side facing up to reflect the sun away, and then I'll use the bottom tarp, the reflective side facing down, to trap my body heat as I need it. And if it's too much body heat, I'll raise and lower the entire shelter system, you know, to adjust. But that creates an air pocket between those two, that acts as kind of an insulated layer. And it really helps you thermoregulate better in the desert if you do a two tarp system, you know. But that's a different shelter all together. For this system, yes. Flip it over, reflective. I would do a fly to kind of let some more heat out, and adjust that as needed. And I would probably go with a lean-to, unless it was, unless it was Aurin. Yeah? You had a question? Yeah. Since you're a tall guy, is there an optimal size tarp you typically use? This is too small. Yeah. You kind of got to sleep fetal, but I'm comfortable that way, I was born that way. Most of us were. But yeah, it's a five star gear, it has a tarp, but it's green, so I don't like it for that. But it's huge. Both of us could sleep under that comfortably. It's massive. I think, Callie, I think you've got one set up down there. It's huge. That's the biggest tarp I've seen out there. I think these are like nine by seven. So they're a little, little, little too small. You just got to kind of tuck in. But I can get in it for an emergency. Keeping in mind this is like an emergency, I didn't plan on setting this up. We all pack according, you know, if we're going out for whatever you're going out to, I don't know, it's recreation. What are we recreating? We go out to recreate. I think that's the word. When we go out and we're going out to hike or backpack, we're taking other things. We're not generally going out with just this. This is kind of a vehicle bag. It's kind of an EDC, like I'm going on a day hike, like instead of just that camelback, I'm going to take that kit with a camelback probably to make sure that I'm set up if I don't, if things don't go according to plan, which they never do. So that's kind of what this is. But I would use, generally speaking, when I'm out, I've never been out without whatever I was planning on sleeping in that night. It's like going straight to primitive trapping, like what were you going to eat if you weren't in a survival situation? What do you, how'd you get out there without food? You know, depends. Strain of vehicle? Yes. Weather? Yes. But yeah. So, optimal size for us, probably an eight by eight is good, and I've got an oil cloth eight by eight that I usually pack. If I'm hammock camping, I've got a big Superfly from War Bonnet that kind of comes down and around. It's really nice. That's big enough. Yeah. But you can make this work and not leave the earth. Questions? Guys want to see the knots again? Up close. Practice tying them. We've got a few minutes. How do you feel about the sil-nylon stuff? The who? Sil-nylon? Whatever the... Sil-nylon? Tent material? Because I know you can pack a larger tarp in about the same size, but then you lose the reflective. Yeah. I really want this in an emergency because of the reflective. Because without that, then I've got to carry a separate space blanket if I want to set up a super shelter. I like the simplicity of this because it's four season, including extreme cold weather. I like to have the reflective option in desert if you flip it over. So really it's four season for like a normal winter included in that fourth season. Then you've got extreme cold weather if you add some plastic, and then it's good for the desert because you can flip it over and get that reflective. So I like this. The sil-nylon, a lot of times, you can get brightly colored stuff for sure. And I won't ding in on durability because these aren't all that durable either. This is, it's not something, you know, you're probably after you get out of whatever situation you were in, you'll probably get you something else, something new. But if it lasts, cool. Those sil-nylon too, like you had mentioned in the diamond plow having like a fire, you do that with a sil-nylon, like a little spark touches it, it's going to melt a big hole. They're more expensive, but they're lighter weight, they're kind of tense, but like for an emergency, that's tough to beat. You can get them like 11, 12 bucks at Walmart, and you burn a couple holes in it, it's not a big deal. But like that super shelter he was talking about, it was in January, I went to Michigan, and I slept in one, it was like negative 19, and I had a thermometer in there, 68 degrees. I mean I had a raging fire the whole time we were out there too, and it burned holes in it, and it still was pretty dang effective. So it's a great thing to get comfortable with, and like there's lots of different knot systems, but just have one. This is a good one because it's simple and easy, because like what he's talking about when the R comes, when we got here yesterday, it was somewhat dry when he was showing us around, and as soon as we started to set up, it started pouring, and it always seems to work out that way. And if you don't have like some kind of thing already set up, it's not going to be quick, and your stuff's going to get wet. I think Matt's tent got some water in it while he was setting it up, my hammock got a little bit wet. But it's great to have some kind of system. A little mini emergency blanket. Oh yeah, you can keep them in your pocket. So I've got, I actually have on my belt kit, because I layer my kind of system, I don't put all my eggs in one basket like this, this is a grab and go bag, but it's simple. It's like a 15 pound kit with 32 ounces of water in it. So I like that system for that. I don't, I go out and I'm prepared for a lot of different emergencies just like that is, but I use different gear that's suited to me that I'm used to, because I'm going out and doing this all the time, not just when I need it. So layered survival system, I have certain things in my pocket, I wear certain things, I have certain things on my belt that's always with me, then I have stuff in a backpack. And the key to that is, is I need to have all of my priorities taken care of, my metabolic needs are my metabolic needs, you know, I have to have all that taken care of. And I don't want to have to go primitive, I want to make the choice to go primitive if I want. It's not something I want to do because I have to, you've made some mistakes if that's where you're at. I think we can all probably agree on that. But the, I lost my train of thought, yeah, those little dudes, yeah, so I've got my backpack stuff that's got big burly heavy duty stuff that I'm going to use. But if for some reason I'm going out to check traps, or set up traps, or just go in the water resupply, I've gotten turned around, I got turned around in the jungle in Panama for probably six hours, because I was in a swamp that had a lot of iron ore, and my compass just sat in one spot, you know, so I've got a duffel bag with the entire platoon's two quarts that we refilled in the water, and we can't find them, you know, because we're in the middle of Central America. So I was lost for like six hours with nothing, I had plenty of water, had that covered, we had no shelter, we had no way to make a fire, none of that. So it happens, and all of our gear was with them, because we're not going to take our rucksacks also to go down, so they had security on it. But had we layered our survival system, then we would have been better off. So those little things have their place. One of those places is in a pouch that I keep on my belt kit, or your possibles pouch, or whatever you've got, or just throwing one in your cargo pocket when you go hiking. It's kind of one of those, it's one step away from worst case when you're going to have to start making primitives. Having said that, if I'm making a primitive shelter, which we'll get into later, that makes a really good waterproofing layer, you know, before I start piling debris on for insulation. If I put that down first and then cover that, man, I've got reflection, I've got everything. So that's where I think they have their place, is in a pocket or a belt. Never as like, I plan on using this as my primary, but I don't have my gear for whatever reason but I've got my belt kit or my pocket kit. That's where I think those go. That's the only place I'll use them on purpose. Mylar is not very breathable, so I spent the night going up to Half Dome in Yosemite. We weren't planning on it. We got a permit last minute. My wife and I were going to hike that. We had gone up El Cap, came back, and then got that permit to go up Half Dome. You hike halfway up and you camp when you get up there. We didn't have any camping gear with us. So ran to the pro shop there in Yosemite Village and bought some of those SOLs, those Survive Outdoor Longer bags, and that was the worst night I've ever had sleeping inside that because I woke up in a, well, I say woke up, but I never really got to sleep because I'm in a crinkle, it's like crawling in a chip bag and trying to go to sleep, but a really big chip bag, so picture that. It's crinkling the whole night, not breathable, so it had gotten cold, and the entire time we're sweating in that, and it's just, you're sitting in it. So we had sweat soup in a potato chip bag. Worst night of sleep ever. So those two are actually in my, those two bags, I wanted to throw them away, but they're actually in my vehicle emergency bag, so I just keep them in a box in my truck in case I need it, you know. Yeah, so if you do plan on using something that's Mylar that you're going to have to sleep in like that, use some sort of absorptive layer that pulls that away, because it'll be a miserable night. It's kind of miserable anyway if you're down to one of them little space blankets. But yeah, hopefully that answers your question. Absolutely. Alright, anything... When you travel, we usually travel a lot, and we have only a carry-on, because usually there are airlines losing our stuff, and then like every second time we cannot find our check-in, and what are you, what would you put in your carry-on for emergency? We're taking our tent, our sleeping bags already, our food, dehydrated food, how would you, what would you choose to... Really, the only thing you have to worry about is your cutting tools are going to be a problem for a carry-on. Yeah, I know, but which one would you, what would you, okay, this is what we usually carry, this poncho, we can hide under, would you replace this for that, for emergency, or would you rather... Probably. I would get, that's one advantage I'll give the military poncho, or a poncho over one of these, is I can tie off the hood and set up a poncho shelter just like this. But I can also, if I'm still mobile, I can, but it's not as easy, you know, use this as a rain jacket, you know, where I can do that with a poncho. So if you find a brightly colored poncho that you can use both ways, that's what I would go to if I was limited. If I'm not limited, like I would carry this and I would still carry a rain jacket, you can get little stash jackets that weigh like six ounces, you know. Oh, we do have the little rain jackets, I just, they cryocoloth, and then this is, yeah. If you're still mobile... One that's like a civilian version of what he's talking about, I had it around yesterday, They call them tarp ponchos, you can get them at like REI, and you can wear it, and it's got like little snaps, but it's got like tie outs and stuff, and it's like cinched over the clothes, so it's completely waterproof. That might be... A poncho is definitely more versatile because you can make a shelter out of it and use it to keep the rain off of you if you're mobile. So if I had to choose one, I would choose a poncho over a rain jacket. Yeah, I would choose a poncho because it's more versatile, for sure. Any other questions? Since you're packing this for emergency purposes, depending on where you're going, I'm assuming in a forest you don't bother to take toggles with you to save time, but in general do you pack a few little toggles with you? I'm using my stakes as toggles. Okay, so you've got enough stakes for backup. For me, when I'm going out and like not showing you a basic setup, I'll usually take the time to carve toggles. They don't have to be pretty. Here's a toggle. You know, there's toggles everywhere. So yeah, I wouldn't pack what I can source from the forest quickly as long as I've got an emergency thing taken care of, but I can set up a regular tarp, you know, pretty quick, but it's because we do it all the time. So yeah, but I wouldn't purposely pack something I can get out in the woods quickly, but like stakes, they take a little more time to carve up and they've got to be a little more durable. So those are worth carrying, I think, for the weight, but of course you don't have to. You can make those quickly. It's, you know, sharp point, pommel end, and a stake notch, you know. They're pretty quick if you've got that time, but if you're trying to beat the yard, I don't want to mess with that. Mark had a good point about advantage reflective tarp over the sill nylon that he was going to talk about. Yeah, it's very useful as a hypothermia wrap. You can really jack somebody's cool temperature up using this, as you can with the sill nylon. It's kind of confusing because I actually carry both. I love the weight savings of the sill nylon, but when it comes to the durability, if you will, of one of these, this is my favorite. Another good advantage for the pocket blankets, hypothermia prevention, rain catch. You're just trying to do some of these other, these setups. I think if we like try to do that with a Mylar blanket, we would see pretty quickly they're just going to rip, right? And when it rips, it rips. Yeah, if it's compromised, you're done. It's going to go. But yeah, with that, it takes longer because you've got to, you know, put an acorn or a pebble in there and tie around it, you know. It takes longer and they're really small. You can get some big ones, but there's some big hypothermia blankets. They're huge when they go out. That could work, but they pack down into a brick about this big, the one I have. So that's in a med kit. I don't use that for this. I think that's it, guys.