which tarp poles?

find and use sticks on the trail if you can :)

That's what I was planning on doing but found these and was thinking that sticks may damage a cuben tarp.

Jay

Tie a clove hitch in a guy line, wrap it around the stick. Tie one end of the guy line to your tarp, tie the other end to a stake. The stick never touches your tarp. This is what I do, but with trekking poles.

That's probably not the most clear explanation. Here's a quick sketch.

Thanks for elaborating. That's what I had in mind. We are assuming sticks are available. Where I camp, there are more sticks than…. well, you can shake a stick at.

Don't forget about tree trunks. I almost always tie one end of my tarp to a tree and use a trekking pole for the other end, though for someone not using trekking poles, this is where the use of sticks would come in handy. Even if you can only find short sticks, then you can tie the head end of the tarp to the tree and use the stick for at the foot end (assuming an A-frame pitch).