Rain Jacket Multiple Use Gear?

[John Roan]

Us ul hikers are an interesting bunch…always thinking. It takes allot of dumb ideas before we come up with a good one. So check this out…

I recently went from hiking with a wind shirt and umbrella to just a rain jacket. My wife did too. One of the things I used to do with the umbrella is use it to deflect blowing rain and rain spray from entering my GG SpinnTwinn tarp. Because I no longer carry the umbrella, I recently got a little wet during a storm.

So I started thinking about either making a storm door, or using a bivvy. Both of these would add quite a bit of weight, and only for the rare occasion when we get rain out west. Hence the idea to use my rain jacket to block the unwanted precipitation…

With only a minor modification (adding two loops) I was able to tie out the ends to the tarp. This should work for most situation, especially for solo trips. Then my wife had a brilliant idea…she also has the same model rain jacket, so maybe we could zip them together?

Top clip hooks to existing webbing loops on tarp…

Unhook the top clip and let the door fall to the ground for entry/exit…

Drawbacks;
1) No rain protection when you have to pee in the middle of the night
2) Jacket may get muddy, but better the outside of the jacket than my quilt, right?

So have I finally lost it here? This is how we come up with solutions that don't add a bunch of weight!

Happy Trails!
;~)> John

[Jeffs Eleven]

The only downfall that I can think of is the jackets flapping in the wind. the hoods and sleeves would be getting really noisy in a storm. It is a sweet multi-use idea though… maybe tie the sleeves and roll up and secure the hood?

You should be able to utilize the pockets too!

[EndoftheTrail]

As above, maybe tie the sleeves and hood together to minimize flapping. The way it is now, I can see the jacket flapping raindrops every which way in a wind-driven rain.

[Scott Lehr]

I will take a little noise from flapping sleeves and hoods over getting blasted with blowing rain anyday! Great idea!

[JM Addleman]

I might try pulling the sleeves through, tying them together, and anchoring them with a stick. If that works well enough, you could even do it on the outside to get it stretched tighter. I can't wait to try this with my hexamid.

[Ike Mouser]

I do something similar on my hammock, but because of the way the hammock is, i can jsut wrap the jacket around it and zip it up around the head end of my hammock. My driducks jacket works pretty good for this. I just wrap the pants around the foot end and of course tie the tarp low if you think a storm is coming.

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