24 HOURS: Sleeping in Low Profile Survival Shelter | British Military MRE Rations | Bushcraft

well i'm back here in the woods some of you might recognize this it's a woods i've been to before and i've got with me today some minimal gear just my day pack i've got some water very minimal tools and for food i'm going to use british mres so some rations the military rations from the british army which i've not really tried much of myself so i'm looking forward to testing those out and as usual the plane has arrived the plan is i'm going to set up a shelter i'm late today guys it's 205. so i'm pretty late sunset is at 5 43 i've only got a few hours and i'm going to try and build a bushcraft shelter very minimal small stealth low angle you know minimal effort i don't want to be expending too many calories it's not a survival trip but i am fighting the light so get the shelter set up first then get the fire on get some food on chill out spend the night here i hope you guys enjoy it it's a really mild day we're into double figures 10 degrees celsius at the moment going down to possibly two maybe three degrees celsius tonight so it's not cold lots of debris on the floor and you can also see there's lots of green behind me as well which is moss that could work in my favor a little bit more time consuming to harvest but a very good material that insulates the shelter and keeps the water off it's not entirely waterproof i'm going to try and use dead materials where i can i've got no axe with me i've just got saw a very small hat folding hand saw and a bushcraft knife that's all i need i'm going to use all the dead wood there's so much dead wood lying around me i'm just gonna make use of it it might be slightly rotten but it's okay as long as it's not the rotten bit's not structurally above my head i should be fine i'm gonna use this tree that's just here it's a live tree there's no dead hanging branches above there's no kind of widowmakers that look like they're gonna fall on top of me it's gonna be pretty safe let me just show you quickly what i've got in the pack before i start building the shelter so here's the pack i'm using ta trekker it's my own tea outdoors branded backpack more info in the description here's what i've got i always have a chamard under these flaps in my backpack it's just handy for anything really keeping it dry or drying your hands anything like that a couple of gloves easy enough they just sit on the top this is the ration pack it's a 24 24-hour ration pack menu two and there's all the ingredients of what's in it all the meals to be honest it's big there's i probably could last longer than that that's a lot of food for me so i'm looking forward to trying that we'll go through that later then at the front here bushcraft knife folding saw no axe i told you i'm not going to use an axe on this trip this is just my fire lighting kit in there just keeps my cordage fire lighting kit i always keep this in my backpack as a easy flat pack pouch to pack in then i've got an air mattress because it saves me having to build a raised bed this is obviously a thermo rest it's got a good r value it's warm today this will be fine directly on the floor i've got a bivvy bag as well to stop this getting damp and then a small sleeping bag this is my three season bag i think no one more i've just got a falling seat cover again one of the ta outdoors ones and that's all i've got on the side sorry forgot to talk about the sides i've got a litre of water and a stainless steel cup to cook the meals in and then this side just a folding cup anyway if i want a hot drink and to cook at the same time i can pour my hot drink in there cooking that one and my first aid kit and that's it that's all that's in my day pack so it's pretty minimal it's not their basics because i've got my air mattress and vivi bag which are not necessities but i've got them anyway so i've got my ridge pole now normally i would when i'm setting up a shelter like this i would want that back end of the ridge pole against the vertical tree at the back so that this side doesn't slip down it can't slip anywhere but it doesn't quite reach the tree i've dug it in at the back there and that should be fine it'll be enough to hold the weight of the debris on top but here's a little trick you can do to keep this nice and sturdy it's got some cordage here and i'm just going to tie a simple overhand knot there and another overhand knot but not tie it off not tired off leave it like that oh canadian jam not any sort of jam not that you want to call it it's got different names it's a jam not if i put loads of weight on this ridge pole for example if i swing my body on it now it's gonna fall down there and my whole shelter's gonna get destroyed so grab your pole i've just sawn this off just a couple inches in diameter vertical pole and i'm just going to tighten this knot up against it sorry about the planes in the air guys it's obviously a busy day there so that's just jammed it doesn't have to be an amazing knot right that's that's flush against the tree i can't push that any further if i lift this up now bang it down a bit and keep it on there and tie this off to the rest of the tree come round here like this once on the second go i can pull tight it's going to want to kick out like that now a couple of traps over those wraps essentially i'm wrapping over the horizontal vertically now over the horizontal wraps that i've just made one lock off knot two lock off knots all right there you go now i can move this ridge bowl but that pole is not gonna go anywhere now the problem with this is now is it's gonna roll like that that's not good because once the wind and the uh hits the side of the shelter it could it can move that roll and as soon as this goes the whole shelter's gonna get destroyed so we need to make a quick notch in here so that that will sit a bit more flush and it won't rock around so now i'm standing above the log i'm just going to come in at an angle about there a little bit more that'll do that's all i need just that little notch now and there you go much less chance of that look i can't rock it to the side as much now it's much harder so just that simple notch here now means i can take take my weight on the whole log it can take my weight it's easily going to take enough sticks and bracken which is really light and moss which is going to put a bit of weight on it but the fact is it can take my weight it's going to be able to take that now i don't need shelter going all the way down to the end i only need enough to cover my whole body i'm just going to clear the ground here a bit so that's the shelter built it's now 1538 338. what's that i started 205 that's about an hour and a half so that just gives you a realistic expectation of type of shelter you can do obviously a lot of that time was taken up by filming as well so you have to factor that in i'm changing the camera angles and getting those shots but rather than burn too much any energy soaring when you feel yourself getting tired i just started to snap the wood as well and it's just it it it is saving time at the end of the day i'm fighting the light fighting the sunset you can see from the angle the sun on my face it's starting to get towards late afternoon we've now got uh yeah just two hours until sunset which is plenty of time now i feel you can relax more once you get your shelter built you can relax more but that just gives you an idea of you know the progress that something that can be built in an hour and a half but this is one of my favorite types of shelters just a real simple lean to you very good kind of survival shelter however if i was in a kind of if i was really in a survival situation which i'm not now but if i was i probably wouldn't spend as much energy doing a shelter like this i'd look for something that had a more natural shelter already you know like it something like a cave or a particular tree that had fallen down the right angle and just seek a natural shelter that where most of it is already done already and it doesn't need too much work to add sides to it or a roof to it but an hour and a half that's what can be done i'm happy with that so next up gonna get fire going and then have a look at these rations i'm interested to see what they're like and what they taste like it's a beautiful evening and um like i say sun's just about set soon it's just a really nice evening it feels like spring's in the air you can hear the birds starting to see the buds now coming out on the trees and we've over here in britain certainly down in the south we're starting to see the cherry blossom coming out which is really nice it's just good to be out in the woods it's a great time of year for camping just before the bugs start getting bad got to be careful this fire as well just where i put it there's a lot of pine noodles on the floor we haven't had much rain again lately so which has been nice but at the same time it's pretty dangerous in this sort of woodland so we may have to get some stones we'll see i'm gonna leave that gap there you can see over in the west where the sun's about to sit i'm going to leave that open this is such a mild evening i don't really need to close that off it's just wasting time and you can see that some of these logs they look like they've got a bit funky growing on them so they're starting to decompose but i made sure that that decomposition was only really on the surface of the log and it's not starting to break through just by tapping them against the tree generally you can tell if it's rotten through or if it's still got a bit of life to it that it'll be able to hold up some moss and debris so there's a small stream or river that's about 500 meters that way and i've been there before i've had fires around that area before and i've got these round stones i'm just aware that the forest floor you know is starting to get drier it is damp still but i don't want to run the risk so i knew where these stones were not going to lie to you went and got them i've used them for a fire before i've kept them away from the damp now and i know people will say oh smooth round stones be careful they will explode all stones to an extent will hold a bit of moisture but i know that these have been out away from the stream itself where i've had fires previously so just going to use the make a ring out of these just to create a ringed in area for the fire to help control it and just prevent anything from spreading it's better to be safe than sorry i want to be able to use and come to these places in the future and i think it's important that you know we look after it and as well leave no trace one of the things i was going to say is another great use for the chamarg this this scarf really is carrying things and just you know these are awkward to carry when you have more than one or two they start to get quite awkward to carry so that's where something like this comes in really handy let's take a look at these rations the newer rations these ones they come with these look like a carry handle i've not seen them before like this okay what i've done quickly is just lay the ration pack out for you so you guys can see it from a perspective of all of it so what we have is the peanuts two packets of peanuts there chili con carne pasta bolognese chicken sausage and beans and then the rice there and then for pudding cinnamon cake and another fruit cake there over here you got the drinks one energy drink there which is lime flavoured this one is a peach iced tea and that is a great grapefruit flavored drink powder then you've got your hot chocolate you've got cheddar cheese spread and a spicy red chili sauce and then over here you've got your there's three t's two instant coffees four sugars four creamers so for your hot drinks three mints a spork two alcohol no four alcohol-free antibacterial wipes a packet of tissues some water purification tablets it looks like about eight no two four six water fuel purification tablets and some storm matches that is pretty good pretty impressed with that so i could fart about with flint and steel matches or fire steel but i'm not gonna mess around today just gonna use a lighter so because of the nature of the forest floor you can see it's damp it's a different color it's not it's not really light brown it's quite dark brown it's damp but because of the nature of the area around me what i'm doing is keeping everything small giving all the sticks no bigger than the fire ring itself then i can really keep control of it nice and easily and if i need to i can roll the stones over it to put the fire out as well just keeping all the kindling really small as well again no longer than the width of the fire so it doesn't fall out it's all controlled i tend to do this in the summer if i'm having fires although i wouldn't have a spiral on this type of floor in the summer a bit of birch bark here which i harvested earlier off a tree not too far from here and just get some small strips save some for the morning as well but essentially that's the fire lay at the bottom so that will burn as well you want to burn the um you want to burn the white side if you can so turn it upside down just get that white side burning first it's quite quite a breeze actually coming now and then when you're ready get another one um about 500 ml of water in it just put it near the fire to begin with not on it doesn't matter if the ash gets in there because the ration's going to go it's in a sealed packet but obviously if i want a hot drink which i do it's uh yeah needs to be covered so while we're waiting for that ball i'm going to try the energy drink powder this one is lime with lots of the usual additives and stuff in it let's have a go probably be bouncing off the walls after this cheers it's actually really refreshing that's so much better than i thought it would be so much better i like that i like the line so what i'm doing is moving some coals over because that ground's gonna be really warm i don't want this side of the handle now i'll build the fire up on this side but there's some hot coals underneath so it won't take long now for that to boil like i say it's all a controlled fire it's all only small stuff small twigs i need eight minutes of burn time to cook something and that's it don't need it to heat the fire so we'll just keep building it up like that to the one side good let's give it a go not bad it's better than it was years ago last time i had rations was when i was about 13 years old an old teacher of mine an old school teacher who was in the ta in the territorial army at the time uh he used to get rations come through and he used to he used to basically teach us survival tips and survival techniques and i learned quite a bit from him back in the day and um not just in the classroom but just out in the woods it turns out i met up with him a couple of years ago actually turns out he went on to progress i don't know whether he went to the paris or where but he went he passed selection he passed sas election and he got into the sas and i met up with him a couple of years ago and he seems to be doing really well actually doing sort of security work at the moment i think but it it doesn't let on to me much about what he what he's been what he did get up to as is the case with most ses stuff but we still keep in touch and um yeah that was the last time since when i was 13 years old that's when i last had this type of ration and they are much better now much better [Music] and they actually make a spoon or give you a spoon long enough whoops to get to the bottom of the pack which is a nice change i don't need to do anything more to this shelter it's not as angled as i'd like it so if it did rain chances are maybe the edge of my shoulder and things would get a bit wet but the fact of the matter is is the prevailing wind is coming from that direction which is why i built it here and it was a quick hour and a half shelter remember if i'd have made it longer i've had to cut a lot cut longer sticks and gather more material if i'd have made it more an angle also would mean that the weight is on the ridge pole more rather than if it's flat like this it's going to be on the ridge pole more if it's more vertical the way it's going to be transferred more to the ground so that's the reason i did what i did this is a stall cover that folds down into a little canvas kind of triangle into the back of your backpack and it's a nice seat i've just lashed some sticks together they're about well nearly the length of my arm and that leaves my legs at a right angle which is comfortable comfortable for me uh and it just acts as a seat it's just a camp seat um made by my buddy tim a lot of the gear if you're wondering guys all the kind of ta outdoors branded gear you can get from t outdoors.com and then any of the other stuff that i use the mattress and things like that is on my amazon affiliate page i'll put links in the description below but yeah i'm going to tuck in to the cinnamon cake now cinnamon cake 85 grams [Music] and is it out of date i ate something that was out today earlier no calories in that 393 calories in that 15 grams of fat 57 grams of carbohydrates plenty of carbs in this i do like the colored the color of the the low-key sort of coyote tan colour of the ration packs that's the cinnamon cake oh that's nice quite overpowering quite a lot of cinnamon really dry in the middle i'm gonna give that a six i don't think i could finish it it's so dry hmm that's not one you can really eat one go sunset is in eight minutes i'd say that's about right to be fair ugh there's a setup no gaps you can see the gaps to the right but no gaps under the shelter which is the main thing i'm just going to sit and chill let this put a few more sticks in the fire and then cool at night later well i want to call it a night it's coming up nine o'clock there's still a bit of bird noise but i am uh yeah i'm tired and i'm looking forward to waking up and cooking some more it's about that i'm excited to cook some more rations in the morning some mres but it's just good to be out and i hope you guys are all doing well anyway i appreciate everyone who's watching and dropping comments and likes and the usual i do appreciate it without all that i wouldn't be doing what i do so thank you so i'll catch up with you guys in the morning so next day slept pretty good actually it's so dry no rain whatsoever last night very still today no wind and the birds are just waking up i've just collected a load of fire resources and i didn't need to film it because you've seen me do it obviously loads of times in the past and sometimes it's quicker obviously to just collect it and not have to film it all but i've got my very small twigs slightly bigger sticks and then this is the biggest i'm gonna need for breakfast to cook up some more rations because i've got a bit more time now on my side i'm not fighting the light i'm going to do a different type of fire lighting and i've got some resources here i'll just show you the tons of you have been asking where my pack pouches are going to be back in stock on the website the answer is we're gonna get another batch done soon the same with the backpacks so i can't really tell we might have the shows this year the bushcraft show and things like that so it might be that we don't get them back inside the website for another month another couple of months maybe two months but we might do a run next month so subscribe to the email list to um be notified on my website here at brooks.com notified of when these go live this is the medium one it's where i keep all my fire lighting get gear so and cordage as well so i've got an old crankball fungus here which i'm going to use today this morning i'll put a link to a video it's a really interesting fungus but essentially you can um yeah you get these off dead or decomposing ash trees and they're really good for fire light again link to the video in the description that will explain how to use this for fire lighting but in here is my printer steel kit and also a magnifying glass and some jute twine as well which i could fluff up but what i'm going to need is this which is in this little pot i keep a roll of child cloth and this is really not that good this particular cloth it's really quite hard to get a spark on but it does eventually so it might take me a while so i need to replace that with some better cloth but i need that then i have my flint striker very small one that's in there does the job and a piece of flynn and a real small piece of flint actually again i need to update this kit get some better materials in there so i'm going to use this today i've got some drive bracket which i collected earlier and dead bracken and we'll see how we go you can see how bad this charcoal is how many strikes it's taking to try and get the sparks in there okay we have something you see that i'm gonna transfer that to this right now we're good i'm gonna change the camera angle for you guys i'm just making a bit of a bird's nest in this bracken there's my crankball so smoldering away hope you can see it you see that in there let's change angle so you can actually see the fire it sticks on he is bracken is a bit of a flash tinder so even though it looks like it's burning now these sticks are not ignited enough yet to carry on burning so i'm just going to keep adding oxygen so i keep this sealed up this little tinder tin with a piece of bicycle in a tube just cut off and it just fits perfectly it's like an altoids tin but a little bit taller i think it just fits perfectly like that just covering it and then what i do is so for example just then i was saying how the char cloth was pretty rubbish and that it was quite low and as well as so was the flint i had so i keep this little notebook in the back it's a right in the rain notebook so it's like the waterproof paper one i'll put links to in the description but i keep that and a pen and at the back of it i just write a list there's a list there just write a list of items that need updating so for example i know now that my charcoal is low and i need a new flint and then i'll just with that list add to it as and when items run low as well as keep a little diary and things like that of how things went the trip went but it's mostly for just taking note of the gear i've got and what's running low and it takes up no room in the backpack whatsoever i think i might go for hot chocolate because if you look it's actually a ration style hot chocolate whereas the rest of the tea and the coffee is just your standard instant tea coffee which i've had before so it's gotta be the hot chocolate and then the sausage beans and chicken ration pack we've got i'm going to have some food left over for just another trip to be honest looking forward to uh tucking into some of this just move the coals up against it they're hot enough to boil it you don't need the uh flame to do it you just do these hot holes will do it burn the bag a bit hopefully that doesn't affect the food i'll be eating some melted plastic let's put some hot chocolate in there then we've made use a lot of water so i thought the sausage would be chopped up but it's actually a whole sausage which makes it a bit a bit more awkward to eat but actually the sport can look oh the sport can chop it up so let's give it a go piping hot oh that's good where's the chicken i think it's chunks of it that's a solid eight chicken sausage and beans well my impressions so far on the rations the mres the british mres it's pretty good to be fair they're better than i expected like i said they're better than what i've had before in the past they've obviously improved them a lot over the years they're not they're not amazing they're not as good as cooking food from fresh and they're packed full of preservatives and e-numbers but the end of the day in terms of getting the calories that you need they do the job fine so i'm pleased with them but it's nice to be able to use the water again that was already warm for a hot drink so expect some more ration videos coming up let me know guys if you've got any ideas of rations i should try from other other military uh countries and just i know there's the us one i could see i think you can get here in uk but yeah if anyone knows where you can get different types of rations then let me know drop a comment i'd be interested in trying some more out on the videos right hot chocolate test time still piping hot that is banging that's a really good hot chocolate oh it's a solid nine i'm glad i went for that not the coffee and the tea actually but yeah lots of good things we're starting to come out of lockdown in about a month's time here in the uk so there's lots of different places i can go i've got some great trips planned canoe trips pack craft trips can i do going to convert the land rover as well that i've got i'm gonna do some work on my defender and turn it into a bit more of a camper style it's only a 90 so it's only a small short wheel based defender just think it's something a bit different and i can access places that i wouldn't normally be able to access by foot in terms of distance-wise to get to and uh i can travel further afield and see some new places in camden's new places so just break some just put some holes in the ground like this all the way around the edge of the fire deep as i can do it get some water in those holes around the edge and just watch it for a bit as well just to check let it cool down and then dig your finger in to see if the ground's still hot well i've just spent the last 20 minutes or so packing away the remainder of the the camp with the sleeping bag baby bag it's all quite easy to roll up and fits nice and compact into the backpack itself and yeah then it was on to the shelter and that's the benefit of this type of shelter it's really easy to just take down and dismantle just remove the moss and the outer debris on the top layer spread it out over where i'd previously been harvesting it from and then just take off the sticks and just discarded them around the forest and then yeah it was just a case of making sure the fire the where the fire was was cooled down and there was no smoldering embers and uh just putting the remaining material over that so essentially it looks like it does now behind me just leave no trace obviously it's a bit scuffled up but once the neat piney will start falling again which is all the time at the moment uh that'll just cover that area in a nice you wouldn't even know that i've been here and that's what it's all about at the end of the day so this is it that is the end of the overnighter i've really enjoyed it i hope you guys have too i do like i said yesterday i really appreciate all your views and your your comments those of you that do drop comments i do appreciate it and um yeah it's just been it's been an amazing journey we're we're upwards of 1.7 mil now i think who knows maybe we could hit 2 million this year that would be awesome if you guys are watching this and you're not subscribed hit the subscribe button it'd be really cool to hit that milestone it feels like any yesterday that i passed a million and it's just been an incredible journey i'm glad to be sharing it with you all um but yeah this is it thanks so much for watching i do appreciate it and i'll catch up with you guys in the next episode [Music]

Channel: TA Outdoors

Views: 854,626

Rating: 4.8940783 out of 5

Keywords: 24 hours, sleeping, camping, low profile survival shelter, survival shelter, british mre, rations, mre rations, 24 hour survival, primitive technology, bushcraft, bushcraft shelter, stealth shelter, survival stealth shelter, moss roof shelter, moss roof, minimal gear, solo overnight, ta outdoors, taoutdoors, valheim

Id: QbdLCKzJtn4

Length: 39min 2sec (2342 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 03 2021