Catenary Cut Tarp Pitching Options

I have been considering the same idea Jim. I was thinking an 8×10 flat made from the 1.5oz/sq/yd Cuben Zpacks uses would be pretty sweet.

Flat tarps def seem to be the way to go if you want one shelter for all 3 season conditions in the Northeast at least.

I have a cat cut tarp (two, but the larger one I don't pitch on the ground). I have pitched in a flying diamond and experimented with a wedge.

I hiked with someone who used a Spinntwinn – she had it pitched in all kinds of configurations, as we were battling wind three out of four nights. We tended to favor spots in among large boulders (Sierras are full of those, don't know where you are going) and low spots in trees. She most often used an A frame with one end pitched low, the other on her staff – she borrowed a trekking pole one time to do a full ventilated A frame too. She ended up with large rocks sitting on the edges of the tarp itself as the wind was throwing around stakes. It seemed fairly versatile to me, at one point she had it pitched lean-to style with a boulder on her right forming the other wall. Did not notice a lot of wind flap but it's spinn so there was an occasional crinkle if the wind gusted just right. I believe she'd been using it a while and they tend to get less noisy as you go along?

My sil tarp was stable until a gust yanked the front corners off the stakes – I needed bigger rocks. No wind flap as I was asleep until the gust hit (and scared me into a early morning run for a cathole, but I digress). I've had very good results with sil cat tarps for ground and hammock use – I had one pitched head into the wind and with the tarp tightly staked to the ground between two trees it was a bombproof wind-shedding shelter, was able to use my stove in without a flicker of the flame.

Jonathan-By my calculations, a 1.5oz cuben tarp would weigh about the same as a 1.1 silnylon one; I supposed the cuben would be more durable and not stretch?

Lori,

Thats all great info. I suppose it depends on skill and creativity. The one big advantage that a flat tarp would have over a cat tarp would be the ability to pitch it with an 8' ridgeline on the chance that was the largest spot you could find.

hey Jim,
yea the switch to the heavier cuben would be to combat sil stretch, not weight.

Check out the SpinnTwinn users manual:
http://www.gossamergear.com/gossamergear/images/user_manuals/User_Manual_SpinnTwinn.pdf

It has a bunch of different pitches in it.