Which way around do you lay the pine needle branches so the water goes to the ground...

[Edtwozeronine]

...and not drip off into your shelter? Same question for ferns and other brush in general I suppose...

Thinking of having a go at building a debris shelter when Spring/Summer rolls around and never remember this sort of information, let's face it it's going to rain in the UK so it'll be interesting to see how waterproof it is as well.

 

[JonathanD]

Upside down. The V shape of branches and stalks needs to point towards the sky.

 

[Broch]

Remember to start at the bottom and work up

 

[Robson Valley]

Needle tips point in the direction of water flow. It takes a huge quantity of foliage to get even remotely close to dry in the rain.
At my house, in my front yard are 3 x 16" spruce, maybe 40' tall or more. It takes nearly an inch of rain to wet the main tree trunks. By then, each tree must be holding 500kg or more water. Every gust of wind will dump a flood down your neck.

The geometry of trees is set up so the water which is shed in rain falls more or less, at the "drip line" on the ground. This location is also where you will uncover most of the very fine roots which are absorbing mineralized water for the tree.

I'd build a really snug and well equipped tarp shelter first. Then I'd mess with the debris shelter concept. But I'd build it within the drip line of a tree to take advantage of the design.

 

[Erbswurst]

In old boy scout handbooks that are stll influeced by experiences of the world wars you usually can see pictures where they simply use the spruce tree itself as a shelter, especially in the snow.
They assume that you have an impregnated nearly waterproof tent sheet as some kind of poncho though.

 

[Robson Valley]

Here. Take a look. Some of the boys got stuck by dark so they tunneled sideways into a tree hole. It's big, you can see the fire. They had food and had a comfortable night.Maybe 4,000' above my house.

 

[Erbswurst]

At which temperature outside can you have such a fire in it without melting the snow above and around you?

 

[TLM]

At which temperature outside can you have such a fire in it without melting the snow above and around you?

Depends I guess. My experience is that it is more the function of the size of the fire than outside temperature. In deep snow the spruce cave is practically immune to the effect of wind and so to the temp too.

 

[Thoth]

You'll probably need more than you expect to have to use too, for example a shelter 'thatched' with leaf-litter debris needs a depth of at least 30cm to stand a chance of being waterproof. Bracken is almost useless as a thatching material, if you use it fresh & green because it rapidly dries out and shrivels away to almost nothing.

 

[Robson Valley]

There's really very little snow on the bare parts of the spruce branches, in near the main tree trunk. When my trees have a 12" snow load, the inner branch parts are bare. Big snow loads avalanche off at the drip line, too. So the core area is still dry.
The lower branches could be as much as 5m long so the dry space area is usefully big. Once you get that shell, it isn't possible for any snow to even drift in there.

 

[Erbswurst]

That means you dry the branches above you with the fire and then have some kind of natural teepee?

 

[TLM]

then have some kind of natural teepee

More like igloo, it can't really be heated much above freezing.

 

[Robson Valley]

The bigger issue is to get out of the wind. Even at +2C, that tree hole would have been pretty nice to heat up some food.
The bare branches in near the tree trunks would be dry all winter with the snow on the outside. Igloolik as TLM suggests.
If the snow pack is 20-30 feet deep, cutting some lower branches would make quite a large living space.

The serious snowmobile crowd here normally travel in groups. They are always very well equipped because of the isolation and hazards. Food, fuel, machine parts, tools, all kinds of stuff.

 

[Erbswurst]

If you can heat it up to 0°C that's surely quite comfortable if you wear just the right winter clothing and have made a spruce bed, especially if you are used to cold temperatures.

Around the freezing point I heat my construction trailer in the evening but not during the night. And I use here just an old civil 3 seasons sleeping bag that I originally bought at a flea market for guests during the summer and I even don't close it properly.

The trailer is really wind proof of course and this makes a huge difference. That's also the reason why I always recommend to use bivvy bags.