This is the sort of thing that really puts a hair in my biscuit. Because it will get a trillion views and likes and follows, and none of it is based on reality.

Look at that shelter. How much work and energy went into that? How do you fuel hours of work and energy? With calories. Where is all of his supply of food in this picture? He has purposefully chosen to hide those supplies and not show them to you. Why? Because the truth ain’t as impressive as the lie.

So just to be clear:

1. Anybody building these sorts of shelters on the internet are doing so on their own property or on a friend’s property. (Can’t get away with it in a park, reserve, or state wilderness area. Too much trouble, time, and actual work to get far enough back into the woods where you won’t get caught.) This means that in ANY video you see like this, there’s a physical residence just up the hill that either belongs to the maker of the video or his friends.

2. Another reason any person who has the time and energy to build this shelter is not very far from home is the need for access to lots of food to fuel the work. This means that if anything goes wrong, he can simply go to his home. If he wants to warm his hands up, he can go home. If he forgot his pocket knife, he can go home. If the battery runs low on his phone, he can go home. Therefore, the situation the person in the video is dealing with IN NO WAY reflects the truth of what it’s going to be like for you if you’re dumb enough to take the video as inspiration to go out and actually try something similar BUT FOR REAL.

2. Anybody hiding SOME things off camera (food, lighter, spare power banks) so as to make you believe something that is not true is not above hiding OTHER things from you off camera in order to make you believe other things that are also not true.

3. Nobody who is carrying any gear at all is going to ALSO find themselves in the woods for real without sleeping bags and blankets. You think somebody going into -30° conditions in the middle of the actual wilderness takes care to load a pack full of food, power banks, flashlights and other supplies but then inexplicably fails to include a shelter and a sleeping bag or blankets??

I’m tellin’ you, the stupidity of the fake ‘bushcraft’ racket is enough to make those of us who aren’t living in LaLa Fantasy Land bang our heads against a tree.