Chad Zuber

I begin a new wilderness adventure, searching for resources and a hut site while surviving with handmade tools, minimal food, improvised shelter, and primitive fire-making.

On day two of my wilderness adventure, I find key resources and use primitive tools to prepare for building a new hut while surviving with minimal supplies.

I continue exploring the wilderness, making a simple shelter, finding wild food, and discovering clay, all while searching for the perfect spot for a new settlement.

I move closer to the perfect hut location, relocate my camp, build a primitive shelter, discover clay for bricks, and struggle to make a friction fire to survive the night.

With food running low, I make primitive fishing tools, then unexpectedly hunt and prepare a cottontail rabbit while gathering materials for future survival projects.

After choosing my settlement site, I begin making adobe bricks to build structures that stay cool in summer and warm in winter, improving long-term survival.

Primitive life is about learning from the land through patience and practice, crafting tools, finding food, and slowly gaining the knowledge needed to survive and thrive.

Upgrading my shelter to a comfortable adobe hut is slow and exhausting, slowed by rain, but I focus on survival tasks like making fish traps to improve my diet.

I harvest wild greens and palo verde seeds to make a nutritious soup and nearly finish my adobe shelter with a juniper roof before starting the new hut.

I hike to the stream to collect yucca fibers and finish my fish trap, but adapt my plans when nature presents an unexpected new opportunity.

I tear down my original shelter to build a new one around the finished rocket mass heater, giving me a chance to test its effectiveness while improving my setup.

At eight bricks per hour, my adobe hut slowly takes shape. With winter approaching, I consider finishing the roof first to shelter in before completing walls and details in spring.

I build a roof for my adobe hut using juniper, desert willow, and 100 feet of yucca cordage, creating a warm winter shelter and learning skills for spring construction.

I cover my adobe hut’s roof with juniper bark, testing its ability to keep heat in and rain out after completing the frame, using abundant local materials.

I explore a primitive method of shaving the male beard and mustache, discovering what it was like for ancient cultures to remove facial hair.

My adobe hut roof faces its first test during a snowstorm, trapping heat and protecting the interior as the desert is blanketed in several inches of snow.

I test primitive fishing methods, using cactus thorn hooks and fish traps, learning through trial and error how ancient techniques can improve my chances of catching fish.

After a year of making bricks and pausing for winter, I finally have enough to finish my adobe hut and focus on improving life on this land.

I showcase the primitive bushcraft and foraging skills used to build an adobe hut in the harsh high desert, adapting to heat, cold, arid conditions, and scarce food.