tipi

This tipi was built using two 16x20ft. tarps and i think poplar for poles. The trees grow very straight and tall in the densely packed area i got them from, theyre also very lightweight and flexible so give to the wind. i think they grew this way competing for light so thinning out a few of the weaker ones shouldnt hurt,maybe beneficial to the forest. I didnt get any plans or instructions so theres probably an easier or better way to make a tipi, but this seemed to work alright.

First take your 3 best poles and situate them on the ground where you want the center to be. Turn one of them around in the other direction then tie them about 3-4 feet from the ends.

Now spread them out into a triangle.
Begin raising them off the ground, alternating around until its erected to desired height and width.

Lay in more poles, you can make a nice tipi with 8 or so, but the tarp will sag less with 12 poles.

Lay the tarp flat on the ground, tie a pole to the short edge and roll up the tarp around it. Tie a rope to the top corner of the tarp, raise the pole and secure the rope. Unroll the tarp around the frame.

Leave a few turns of the tarp around the pole and pull the pole taught, place it in the upper frame structure.

For a smaller tipi, the one tarp could cover the whole thing.

A note on the tarps- i used the common inexpensive poly tarps you get at the hardware store. You'll usually find these in blue and grey, but its worth the extra effort to hunt down or order online ones in earth shades like brown or tan. These wont disturb as much the natural atmosphere you want to enjoy, like a bright blue construction tarp would.

Here i started another tarp the same way, with the first tarp overlapping over the back as you can see in this picture
When you finally back around to the front, you can secure the tarps together near the top, leaving a few feet open if you want to have a fire inside. If you do have a fire you'll want to tie up the bottom edge about 6" to allow air flow.

For the doorway you can see i tied a verticle line to anchor the tarp edge to, this seemed to work pretty well, with quick release knots at several points, its easy to open it a little or a lot.

Once the tarp is secured, spread out the poles to take up any slack.

Tie strings around the inside to hold the tarp straight, these will also be good to hang things from.