Wilderness Survival

Have you ever gone extreme camping? Have you ever experienced sleeping under the stars with nothing but a sleeping bag and a make shift shelter? I have done such a thing three years ago at Ten Mile River, a campsite located in up state New York. For one week my friends and I went to this campsite to earn awards from the camp councilers there. On the day we got there it was a beautiful and sunny day that brought our spirits high. But then all of a sudden on the second day, it started to rain and it didn't stop raining until the day we left, which was one week later. It seemed our trip has been cursed by God's fury.
On our last night some of my friends and I went to accomplish our test to earn the wilderness survival award. Our task was to build a shelter out of the natural resources in the woods. Our shelter was an incredible success. We found fallen logs and used them as the exoskeleton of our shelter by leaning them on a thick tree and then placeing a buch of leaves, sticks and pine wood leaves over them. The pine leaves were very helpful because they were designed to keep the rain out. My dad told me later that deer stay out of the rain by going under pine trees. Our shelter ended up being huge and very stable, we were all surprised at how we managed to build such a magnificent shelter. Some other boys who couldn't build their shelters asked us if they could bunk with us. They were very big kids who looked like ax murderers in the dark, we were so scared of them that the only thing we said to them was "please don't steal our things".
Sleeping that night was anything but comfortable. The inside of the shelter contained rocks buried partially in the ground. We didn't want the rocks to distub our sleep so we took them out, however diging the rocks out left holes in the ground and while I slept my head crouched backward into that hole. To make things worse I was sleeping in between to boys. on my right was my brother who built a little make shift tent out of his poncho which directed all the rain leaking on him onto my side. On my left side was my friend who was rolling on top of me in his sleep and was crushing me. Then another one of my friends said that their is a chipmunk inside. The news angered me so I ran out of the shelter saying I can't stand this misery. My friends had to pull me back in the shelter to stay out of the rain. As soon as I went back to my spot I couldn't wait for morning. Yet despite all the hardships we went throught that day it was worth it because we got the awards we came for. Now when I look back at this wilderness survival experience I think of it as a good adventer that I will remember in years to come.