Tarp Tent for 2 and humidity

i have only one tarptent the double rainbow so i cannot compare it to the others.
as for condensation, wiping once in a night the interior with my msr towel is all thats needed, and when i dont do it its not that bad, all the side wall is mesh on both entrance so the area collecting condensation is not important.
at the opposite i have been using an msr twin sisters for my last 2 hikes in iceland, as i was a bit afraid of the wind, and i enjoyed being able to set my camp under heavy rain and being able to go under it without carring for the floor.
the condensation was much worse, the surface is much more important so i had to get the water out of my 51g msr towel to finish removing all the condensation from the wall, and even doing this 4-5 times a night between my wife and i, we had some condensation falling on our sleeping bags, wich we never had with our DR.

john. i have a single person brawny tarp tent which i purchased a few years ago. living in minnesota, it does not work.. the ventilation system is very poor. if your area has as high himidity as ours, i would not recommend that one. there are better tarp tents out there, such as the one that has the ventilation all around the bottom. the name escapes me. i saw it demo'd last week end. maybe the person who had it will see this and let you know the brand.

john, got ahold of the person. he had a gossmer gear squall classic 2-3 person tent. very nice and roomy. i will be looking into getting one for single hiker very soon. lots of ventilation..

I don't think any tarptent will remain free of condensation in the conditions you are talking about. The best ventilated tarptent IMHO is the Double Rainbow with both rain porches pitched for maximum ventilation. You can also get an inner liner for the Double Rainbow which will minimize the moisture that can fall on you if the wind gusts. The liner makes it virtualy a double skinned tent. Plenty of living space and easy entry/exit. Even with the liner, you will still want to wipe down all the walls before you pack it up in the morning.

As for your sleeping bags, the humidity inside a tarptent will be at least as high as the humidity outside. Without a bivy bag, you down will pick up moisture from the air and from your body. The best thing you can do is to immediately roll you sleeping bag up tight the moment you get out of it. This way you will be forcing the majority of warm, damp air out of it. If you wait until the bag has cooled from your body heat it will be too late.

I've gotten condensation here in relatively dry So. Cal. — and even high up at Mt. Whitney — elevation 12K and supposedly dry!

When you have a combination of high humidity and little to no breeze — then all the venting in the world won't do you any good.

Light weight is important but it isn't everything. So don't be too seduced by the light weight of single wall shelters — and be careful about wishing too hard for something to work — when logic tells you it just might not. Not answering your question, but given the conditions you mentioned, and esp. with two people sharing, I would look for a lightweight double wall tent instead.

I've been using a SD Lighnting. It's relatively big for 2 people (54" wide), but has no high vents and the mesh on the inner tent doesn't start until about 12-15" up – so it's not very breezy. It's one side-mounted door is also inconvenient for nighttime trips since I always have 2 people in the tent.

The humidity today is 78%, with a dew point of 62 degrees, and 5 mph winds. (The humidity in my original post was yesterday's data).

If there's no thunderstorms (ie: just a couple of 20 minute long light showers during the night to release the moisture as the temperature cools), the underside of the Lighting's outer tent feels very wet, but doens't have big drops. This also happens if there are thunderstorms with high winds (20-50 mph). If there are thunderstorms with the more typical light winds (15-20mph) then there a big condensation droplets hanging from the underside of the outer tent, and tracks where they've run down to the ground.

Down bags seem to do OK here for 3-5 day trips (although I don't have one personally yet), so I'm hoping that one of the tarp tents will work here too. I'm trying to reduce my pack weight and size, but currently have a 4 pound double wall tent, 3D synthetic bag, and 2" thermarest. Everything else is already very stripped down.

ps: I tested, and am sure I need more padding than a 1.5" thermarest. Does anyone know how a ridgerest + 1" thermarest torso pad compares in comfort to a 2" thermarest ?

I face similar conditions in the SE as far as the humidity and condesation go so I'm definitely watching this thread. When I go out with my girlfriend we split a hubba hubba which has worked for 4 seasons here but over 4 pounds is far more than I want to carry on solo trips.