The most comfortable sleeping comes when you have plenty of insulation beneath you. In fact, about 4 inches of dry grass laid criss-cross is a good mattress. Since most of your body heat escapes downward, about 70% of your insulation should go beneath you. It is normal for people to pile on the top layer to try to stay warm, but if you keep in mind the 70% rule, you will sleep far warmer and consequently, more comfortably.

Long strips of dead bark from cottonwood, juniper, sage, aspen or basswood trees, grass, and dry leaves all make excellent bedding or insulation. Gather as much as you can justify. In other words, if it is scarce take just enough to provide the warmth and insulation you need; if abundant, make yourself comfortable. The thicker your bedding, the warmer you will sleep and the more rest you will get for your effort. A good night’s sleep helps your mind function at its utmost with new ideas and problem solving. It is pretty obvious if you spend the night shivering and shaking in the dirt you won’t be your best the next morning.

Dry fallen pine needles also supply great (although sometimes piercing) comfort and insulation. The layer of needles piled up nearest the trunk of evergreen trees are usually dry, especially at lower elevations. The best thing about pine needles is their ability to “fill gaps.” If you scatter a quantity of them on the floor of your shelter you won’t have to be so careful about removing roots, rocks and filling in holes. The result is a “springy” cushion that can be covered with other less prickley bedding. It makes your shelter smell great, too. (See “A Soft Bed in the Woods” by Ernest Wilkinson, The Best of Woodsmoke. Horizon Publishers, 1983. p. 77.)

I emphasize dry pine needles because damp or wet bedding saps the heat from your body like wet clothes. Wet clothes cause heat loss at a rate 25 times faster than normal, and if the wind is blowing, the damp cloth acts as a wick that conducts body heat away much faster than it can be produced.

Not to mention the fact that your body is constantly perspiring, even when the weather is cold. If your clothes let this moisture accumulate, they can lose as much as 90% of their insulating properties. Any moisture that accumulates in your clothing acts as a direct pathway for heat to escape.

This is the reason I council my students to gather wood early in the afternoon: to avoid stumbling around in the dark, but also because they tend to put all their clothing on in the evening chill, then work up a sweat dragging in a wood supply. The resulting perspiration causes chilling which is hard to overcome in the night air. Besides, exercise in the cold uses up more fat than exercise in the heat.

Cattail stalks and reed grass are more rigid than cattail leaves or rushes, but they can easily be worked into mats by gathering several stalks into a bundle and tying them together. Keep in mind that not only does a sleeping mat provide insulation from the ground, but it also provides comfort. The body needs to be relaxed for much needed sleep and give energy under stress. A good sleeping mat provides warmth while it takes bumps and holes out of the hard ground.

Mats are most easily made with rushes, cattail leaves or long strips of dead bark. If you take the time to weave sleeping mats, you may as well take time to prepare your materials properly so the finished product will last as long as possible. Rushes and cattail leaves have to be dried first, then dampened a little to make them pliable enough to weave without breaking. Otherwise the leaves will shrink as they dry and your mat will fall apart. A simple over-under weave is the fastest method, gathering large clumps into each section. Seed down, grass or other material can be sandwiched in as you weave, or you can make two mats and put extra insulation between them. For a stationary camp this works great. In the morning, sleeping mats should be picked up to keep them from being walked on, and to prevent uninvited bedfellows.

Mats have several uses, not the least of which is to contain natural plant fibers. If you plan to occupy your camp for a month or more, consider the value of making shelter liners of mats similar to canvas tepee liners. You can also use grass, cattail or bulrush leaves sewn together and used to encircle the shelter. A few reeds or cattail leaves, bark or grass spread on the ground provides quickie insulation and keeps your sleeping area clean. Take it out in the morning and “fluff” it up and shake out small uninvited guests.

There are some things so perfect man can never hope to improve them, and snow is a prime example of one of Mother Nature’s ideal insulators from, ironically, cold-one of the greatest challenges that can be faced by the body.

I once made a cozy (32-36°) snow cave shelter with pine boughs to insulate me from the melting snow, and rested dry and comfortable while a blizzard raged outside. In the winter, such protection is often a life or death factor, especially due to the possibility of excessive heat loss caused by wind chill. But “shelter” involves much more than building a refuge or crawling into a snow shelter or cave; insulation means protecting all parts of your frail body.

According to scientists, extreme cold is comparable to the effects of fear, rage, pain, asphyxia, or extreme heavy labor. So it is crucial to note that we enter the “very cold” range of wind-chill when the temperature is a mild +40° and the wind blowing only 25 mph. Thus, the necessity of protection for the body either by shelter insulation or directly insulating the exposed areas of the body becomes more evident with the increasing velocity of the wind.

Any shelter is good insulation if it provides protection from rain, snow, and particularly, wind. In cold weather the very activity of building a shelter or gathering insulating material can help generate body heat. Although excessive movement can cause dangerous perspiration, light activity helps generate body heat. Not to mention the fact that several people can be made safe and comfortable in one shelter and huddle together for additional warmth.

Two hundred fifty centuries ago, man learned the most basic concepts of shelter-building by trial and error. The knowledge was passed down from generation to generation, from continent to continent, or learned independently by different people all over the world..and still retained thousands of years later by late-bloomers on the North American Continent.

Before the Christian era, the earliest Basketmaker culture (hunter-gatherers) built domed structures over saucer shaped depressions. These shelters lacked one feature that Cro-Magnon people considered essential—an interior fireplace. Presumably, their heating system consisted of stones warmed in an outdoor fire and then laid in a pit dug in the house floor. Much like the sweat lodges which were popular much later in history and are still used today.

A likely explanation of the outside fire pit is that the pit houses were covered with flammable brush and grass, making an interior fire dangerous. But whatever the reason, later inhabitants of the area, the Anasazi, built more conventional houses with a central fire pit, and a hole in the roof for smoke to escape.

A few hundred years later these people started to plant corn and squash and became a little more settled. They built more permanent homes of circular layers of logs laid in a sort of rail-fence arrangement and cemented with mud mortar.

Still later, the Basketmakers settled into slab-lined pit houses and planted beans, which required more attention than corn and squash, started using the bow and arrow, and began making pottery.

Then, about 900 A.D. pit houses went out of style and small pueblos, or cliff houses appeared. At first, they were just rows of joined masonry rooms one or two stories high, usually with an associated kiva, a circular chamber used for ceremonial purposes.