Most summers my son, his father-in-law, and I go up fishing for a long weekend to Meadow Creek in Colorado just outside Rocky Mountain National Park at 10,000 feet. It is incredibly beautiful and we are often blessed by visits from moose and a family of osprey.
Part of the beauty is the pine forest that surrounds the lake. Some years we can not make a fire due to forest fire danger, but most years we can and have ample fuel from fallen trees and branches. The last few years the pine beetle infestation has taken a terrible toll on the area. The rangers showed us how to spot the beetle entry points and predicted when some of our favorite trees would be down.
They must cut them in a controlled way near the camping areas because of the danger of them falling. Unfortunately, we love to put a high tarp from those trees to create a not-so-little haven in a clearing. We get a nice shady place to sit and protection from the typical afternoon shower. Now, none of us is going to be comfortable putting stress on those trees... if they are still there...
So... I proposed a yurt... well sort of a yurt... I was originally thinking of a full geodesic dome, but really thought it would be cool to go with minimal parts... how few could I go? A central tall pole and 4 corner poles??? Nah... My first design was 18 poles. It would have had a hex about 8 ft up and about 20 ft across. Imagine 6, slightly less than 10 ft pipes laid out in a hexagon with 6 10.ft pipes connected to each vertex and making a point in the middle a couple of feet above the hex for strength. From every other pair of vertexes of the hex you attach 2, 10 ft poles and connect them together at the ground. With only 3 "hard" ground contacts, the terrain could be ... anything! Then 6 ropes would tie the structure to the ground between the pole pairs. I figured we might need some bracing for the 10 ft poles and decided to make a 10" wooden model to try it out. It worked very well and easily held up my "snow load" of a big couch pillow. Of course, we worry more about wind than snow in August... but you never know in Colorado!
Well... that was over a year and a half ago. We missed the trip last summer so I did not try out the full sized yurt. Then, recently I was dreaming and for some reason I thought of the yurt. In the dream it did not have the hex ring of pipes but rather a steel clothesline cable... yep... only tension! Certainly the roof load would tension the hex but I needed to adjust the model to be sure. I think it worked very well! So, now it only has 12 poles, the "hex" of steel cable and 3, 30 ft lengths of rope to create the 6 tie downs. 6 stout stakes finish the structure. It needs a rope to a weight on the ground in the center until the side ropes are in place. When I re-configured the wooden model, the POC structure held up the "snow load" just as well as the 18 pole structure and had lots of side force strength too. I will not know if mid-pole bracing is needed until I do the full size yurt, but if it is, 9, 5 ft PVC pipe sections should do it.
The roof covering will be a 24x24 ft tarp ($42) tied to the ground stakes, with some folds to fit. Then, a series of 10x24 (3x $22) ft tarps will be ground-staked and hung around the 60 ft hex to close the yurt for the night. We always have everything that can attract animals in the car at night anyway, so I suppose we do not need to be too secure with those walls!
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| 12 sticks and no tie downs |
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| 12 sticks with tie downs |
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| No tie down crush... still standing! |
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| Tie downs help... |
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| Hex tension solves it! |
