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Our simple A frame shelter

In this pic, my son and I are just finishing up our A-frame shelter for the winter camping trip. All we did was use paracord to make sure the ridge pole (a sturdy tree or branch about 15 feet or so long) was securely attached to the tree so it didn't squish us in the middle of the night. Then we got some smaller branches and leaned them up against the ridge pole. I then draped my tarp over the frame. It's I think 10 x 12 and compacts up pretty small and light so it fits in the big pocket on the front of my survival vest. However, it didn't reach all the way to the ground on this side. So I just cut up and bunch of pine boughs to finish covering up my side of our shelter.

Now that I look at it, I'm thinking we had plenty of time. We should have just made the whole shelter covering out of pine boughs. It would have worked out pretty well and would have been a lot more fun to make.

The temp went below zero at night and up to I think 18 during the day. We went up to a friends place in northern NY on the Canadian border. His and actually borders Canada. On one hike we came across a clear cut line in the forest about 20-30 feet wide and there was a concrete poll sticking up with Canada printed on one side and US on the other. We crossed the border back and forth and had a lot of fun with that.

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