Sub 1 pound shelter for tall hiker

I am 6'3-235 and use the GG SpinnTwinn 8×10 ft., there is plenty of room for me, gear and maybe 2 other people in a pinch. MLD will make a custom bivy for you. I had a custom MLD bug shelter made for me- works great. very, very happy with my bug shelter Check out there website-goodluck!!

The Integral Designs, Unishelter EXP, eVENT version is listed as being 98" long and suitable for heights up to 6'-7". I am 5'-9", 205#, and have room for 4, fully packed, extra large LuxuryLight Cylinders. You would probably be using all the internal space for your body, but there should be plenty of room for you, your pad and bag in comfort.

Integral Designs Exp eVENT Bivy with LuxuryLight extra large cylinders.

Integral Designs Exp eVENT bivy

Rick,
It's not exactly SUL at about 1.5#, but I've got an old WM GoreTex bivy (you won't find it on their website) that can house me at 6'1", plus my pack above my head. 6'5" should be no problem. Drop me an email if you're interested. I can send photos when I get back Tuesday night.
Chris

Have you considered the GG spinnshelter? I'm 6' 7" and it's plenty long for me. You can pitch it right to the ground, so a bivy is unnecessary. I've made an A pole setup for mine with a pair of carbon fibre golf club shafts (62g each), so I can sleep halfway out of the tent for stargazing, and dive in if it starts to rain.

I am 6'5' and 235# and ended up making my own bivy originally out of black plastic and bug netting but am switching it over to Tyvek and bug netting now that I found a little. It is cheap and weighs little. Just combine this with a 6×10 tarp at 9oz and you will be fine and versatile and probably only spend $120 versus $250+.

Roger,

Thanks for the suggestion. I had looked at the SpinnShelter, yet never thought I could use it w/o a bivy. If this way works, I could have an even lighter shelter than with a bivy/tarp como.

I have read some reviews today on the SS and while they weren't bad, they were the best either. Can you or anyone else shed some more light on the SS and would going w/o a bivy be the best if I plan to keep my shelter in my pack each night unless it looks like foul weather? Does sleeping out in the open w/o a bivy work well?

Thanks!

Jay,

Thanks for the suggestion about having a MLD bivy custom made. I talked with Ron today (great guy) and he said he would make me a custom 6'8" bivy for the same price as the large! How great is that.

It would weigh 7.5-8.0 oz for the Superlight model. He thought it would be tough to get in the Lite Soul (horizontal zipper).

I am excited that I have a solution (shelter under 1 pound) however, the custom bivy and Grace Solo tarp would be about $450.

Roger, suggested a SpinnShelter w/o a bivy yet I'm not convinced about the SS for sure. It would be lightest shelter of all and cut my cost in half. Does anybody know anything about the BMW tarps and bivys due out in the spring of 2009.

I understand at this level, things are not cheap, yet, it would be nice to at least have something to compare the $450 to. BMW had a combo before that was closer to 10 -12 oz and if I'm going to spend $450 I'd like to get all I can.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

Any thoughts?

Thanks

Hey your welcome!!!! Enjoy your hikes

> I have read some reviews today on the SS and while they weren't bad, they were the best either. Can you or anyone else shed some more light on the SS and would going w/o a bivy be the best if I plan to keep my shelter in my pack each night unless it looks like foul weather? Does sleeping out in the open w/o a bivy work well?

The BPL review marks it down for a ridgeline pullout failure. My A pole system addresses that issue by spreading the load over the full width of the cloth. If I couldn't be bothered setting the shelter up on a fine night but was concerned about morning dew making my bag damp, I'd use the shelter cloth over me, tucked under the edge of my pad to make a bivy, leaving enough ventilation gaps between tucks to minimse condensation, as the material is fully waterproof.

If the weather turned in the night, I'd say the 'as delivered' spinnshelter isn't the easiest of tarptents to be setting up in the dark/wind as getting a nice taut pitch can be tricky on uneven ground in full lockdown mode. My solution has been to add butyl rubber pullouts cut from an old motorcycle inner tube tied onto the grosgrain pullouts with larks head knots. This leaves a couple of inches gap for ventilation and makes tensioning the panels far easier. If I'm getting a draught coming from the windward side, I just runkle up my groundcloth along that edge to block it a bit.

You could save a lot of money by making your own tarp. I've just been offered silproofed spinnaker in blue, red or white at £9 UKP / yd. Probably cheaper in the states if you can find it, as there seems to be a shortage on. Or go the whole hog and buy 0.4oz/yd cuben fiber at $25/yd from quest outfitters.

Rick,

I am 6'6" and 270 pounds. I purchased the GG SpinnTwinn (8.4 oz) with a BPL Vapr Quantum Bivy Sack (7.2 oz) to be my sub one pound shelter solution. Initially I thought it worked fine until I needed to set it up in GG's recommended "storm" design (i.e. one end down the other end up) to combat a pretty healthy rain event on the AT this past March. Although I stayed completely dry, something that I found remarkable as the world seemed to be crashing down around me, I did have two issues which I dealt with.

First, because of my size (and you’ll likely have the same problem), when in the angled storm position, my feet go pretty much to the bottom of the tarp. Even with pitching it as best as I could, the tarp got soaked with rain. Although none of it dripped through, it did come through on the bottom which weighed everything down to the point where it was eventually touching my bivy as the tarp bowed. Again, between the bivy and the tarp, I stayed try, but it was a lot like having a wet blanket on top of my legs and there wasn’t a ton of room to move around.

Second, and again because of my size and the angle of the tarp pitched for rain, I got a LOT of rain splatter on my face. If you’ve never experienced it, rain splatter is very annoying when trying to sleep.

The fix for me was to add another 40” inches of Spinn fabric to the tarp itself with the intent of making it longer. I also added an additional pole strap/grommet/mounts to allow me to pull the triangular ends down in a style similar to Ray Jardine beaks. The solution was flawless and works great. In case you want to try the same, I had luck contacting Grant at GG for the fabric and he suggested a seamstress who put it all together for me based on my design. On good weather days, I can set it up like the standard SpinnTwinn because it still has the pole mounts on either end as the original, now with just a little more room albeit unnecessary in this position. On bad weather days, I can pull the poles in to the new mounts, bend the beaks down, and I have plenty of room with no rain splatter.

I’ve also tried the Integral Designs eVENT bivy. I’m a HUGE fan of eVENT and simply wish everything was made of that amazing fabric, but I quickly figured out having nearly zero room to do much of anything was a bit of a pain and the tarp was simply a better solution. I can’t imagine not being able to stick my head out of bivy to get some fresh air for hours in a rainstorm as otherwise I think I’d go nuts.

That’s my two cents anyway. Good luck.