Myself and a group of friends have been toying with the idea of a group shelter for some of our trips to save on our overall base weight. That said, I recently acquired a Golite Shangri-la 6+ shelter.
The fabric shelter itself weighs 3lbs 9oz and each pole is another 15oz (Two are required). Since we all already use tracking poles, if we ditch the supplied Golite poles and used the trekking poles along with a black diamond fabric trekking pole adapter, we could easily save there. Total weight of the stakes & guy-lines is 14oz. So, right now we could potentially have a shelter for 4lbs, 7oz that would easily house 5 guys and gear and equate to 14.2oz per person. That’s not bad right? 6 guys is also possible, but less comfortable.
Right now, I’m trying to find a solution to adding a ground tarp to this application. I do have the the Shangri-La 6+ bathtub floor, however, I’ve pretty much put it out of the question. It weights as much as the shelter itself (3lbs 1 oz).
So, I have been looking at alternatives. Utilizing the every so popular house-wrap (i.e Tyvek) is the reason for my post here. A roll of Tyvekis exactly 9ft wide. The Shangri-la 6+ is 9’ 6” wide by 14ft 3in long so there would be no need for mating two sheets together. No seams sounds like less hassle to me?
What I would like to do is find a way to somehow attach guy-loops or eyelets of some kind to the Tyvek material at each corner, and two in the middle, length wise, on each side (Total of 8) so they would correspond with the placement of the stakes that are securing the Shelter itself. This way I could utilize the same stakes to secure the floor. My concern is the durability of the Tyvek material.
My questions are: is it possible to sew Tyvek without running its structural integrity? Or should I look for an alternative?
Does anyone, perhaps have a better approach or some insight? Thanks!
