Camp Shelter - The Blue Whale

We've been using this temporary shelter system when camping for years. This is basically the hoop house concept used to make greenhouses and other shelters although we didn't know that when we set the first one up years ago. This system is easy to set up and take down and withstands a pretty good wind (we've never had one go down). What I describe here and is shown in the video is likely the simplest way to do it. There is a lot of potential for adding on and other things from welding up some custom stakes to end doors to inflated double walls for insulation. MHPGardner has some detailed videos about how he set up his greenhouses based on the hoop house concept. If you are interested head over to his channel and check out his greenhouse construction. Here are the basic setup instructions: Drive two foot long stakes one foot into the ground across from each other equally spaced for the length of your tarp (sections of ground rod or rebar work well but rebar is harder to drive into and get out of gravel). You may need to play around with the angle you drive the stakes in depending on the arch the PVC will have. The distance between the two sides determines how tall the peak of the shelter will be. You end up with two parallel lines of stakes with one foot of the stake sticking out of the ground. Each line will form a wall of the shelter. Dry fit two 10' lengths of flexible PVC together. Flanged electrical PVC should be used and works best. We've had glued plumbing PVC and fittings come apart before. Placing each end of your 20 section of PVC over adjacent stakes in each wall. This will form hoops going down the length of the shelter. An alternative could be to cut 6 off of each section PVC used for the hoops making the total length of each rib 19 (cut 6 off each piece (and not 1 off of one) and don t cut off any flanged ends. This will make it easier to fit pieces together in the future because they will all be the same). That should leave 6 inches of tarp on each side of the shelter at the ground. The extra tarp can have rocks or other object placed on it to block airflow. Run a piece of PVC along the top of the shelter and secure to each hoop with tape (electrical tape works best as it s easy to cut and remove and doesn't leave sticky residue) or zip tie in place. This will keep the hoops equally spaced and add some rigidity. Pull a 20' wide tarp (length depends on how long you want the shelter to be) over the hoops and secure with spring clamps or other devices along the end hoops and at the base of every other or more of the other hoops (higher winds equal more clamping). Close up the ends with extra tarps or plastic sheathing in cool weather or leave open in warmer weather. In cold weather insulate the lower edges with straw or snow if there are gaps. In higher winds you may need to strap down the tarp to keep it from lifting off the stakes. ~~~~~~~~~~ YouTube Channel ►    / indianacaver