Make shift shelter

I've never been caught in a bad rain when camping. Thank god. We hardly ever used tents back in the day. I've never gone to the extreme of making my own shelter with trees and branches.

Have any of you made your own shelter?

 

I've made a lean-to with an ultra light tarp. But...I still carry the handy umbrella. You can get them in various sizes enabling you to whip them out when needed. This item is a standard piece of equipment.

 

...alas, it saves the trees and bush and in today's modern approach to shelter it is considered kosher. The one that I carry folds into the size of a small tissue box. It can be made into a roof shelter or a small tent for three persons; it is extremely light. rugged and waterproof. The one that I use is light green, almost florescent - designed for easy spotting from the air.

I have made a full lean-to on one occasion when I took a basic survival course. I remember at the time how long it took and how many bows from cedars to make a bed and cover the top - which is never really fully covered. We were encouraged to use dead white cedar trees, if you could find them, and cut out sections of the bark to make a tile roof like structure.

 

Back when I was a kid, and went camping with my folks; we used to sleep out under the stars. I thought that this was the only way to camp out, and lived watching the stars move across the snight sky, and always watching for the occasional shooting star to go blazing across the sky. Sometimes, if we though it might rain, we did take along the old tent. It was made from one of those old military surplus canvas tarps, ugly and brown, and probably a remnant from the second world war.

First they tied a sturdy rope to a couple of trees, and then they would wrestle that big canvas tarp until it was over top of the rope. Lastly, was tying the sides of the tent apart at the bottom, and then we had a place to put our sleeping bags and keep out of the rain. If it happened to rain and catch us by surprise when we didn't have the tent along, then we all just grabbed our sleeping bags and ran for the car.