Building the shelter became their top priority. O'Neill and Carter spent the nights planning the layout of the wall that would brick up the cave like rock shelf. They had already divided the space using a wall of packing containers. This gave the ready access to supplies, kept these supplies safe from the elements and provided them with a small private area that was the bathroom during the occasional thunder storms that sluiced flash floods through the ground below and for the future during the trials of winter. The pueblo-like plan provided for a doorway like access to the handholds on the cliff face, a fireplace and a small window on either end of the wall. The windows were the size of the Styrofoam inserts of the packing containers. This way the packing containers top could be used as a shutter and the Styrofoam would be inserted to seal off the window when the weather turned frigid. The door allowed for them and the containers access into their shelter. O'Neill requested a block and tackle to hoist the crates up to the shelter as opposed to carrying the supplies piecemeal in his backpack And the fireplace, they hoped, would provide some comfort – a source of warmth and a place to cook what little food they had. O'Neill's first attempted to find rocks uniform enough to build a wall. This proved untenable. Bricks were the next option. He dug a pit and mixed the mud with his feet. As his first attempts dried they returned to dust. He searched the area for a clay deposit and there he dug a second pit. Just the right mixture of clay and mud was a hard won secret. He formed bricks of uniform size and left them to dry. When they were completely dry he carried them back to camp and up to the rock shelf. The weather was a major constraint on his activities. Sunny dry day were perfect for drying but reduced him to a sweat soaked sun burnt soul while mixing the mud or carrying the heavy bricks. When he had amassed a few hundred bricks at the cliff face he began to lay the first courses. And again the weather threatened to destroy his hard work. He had asked for and amazingly received sheets of plastic used in construction as a vapor barrier. He used this to protect the wall he was building from the occasional downpour and eventually it would be melted on to the bricks to form a sort of glaze. So every day without rain was a day in the mud pit, a day shaping the bricks and a day carrying them the half mile or so back to camp. He asked Carter to calculate just how many he needed, since he had no desire to make even one extra. The number she came up with seemed astronomical. After laying the initial courses he hoped that she was right and that was all he would need.
He laid course after course of brick. There was no word on a rescue vessel and no hope that the erratic workings of the stargate would provide them a safe passage home. This was becoming their home, this barren rock.