A dirty little secret about poly tarps— they are light and {{{cheap}}}

That's pretty much what a friend of mine did! The difference being he went ahead and got some stakes from GG. He's decided it's time to upgrade the tarp though.

A better deal on generic aluminum Y stakes is probably the Coughlan's brand stakes at Academy. It's 5 or 6 IIRC for under $4.

Driducks can also be bought at Academy for $9.95 (poncho) or $19.95 (rain suit).

A programmable Innova pushbutton LED light weighs in the neighborhood of .75 ounces with the key chain and can be bought there as well for $7 or $8. It's pretty bright and easily puts out enough light for little camp chores.

And you can get one of those HUGE Kelty framed packs there for <$100 too! [/sarcasm]

EDIT: A milsurp stlye poncho is about $20 and weighs about 18 ounces. This is lighter than the cheap tarp and raingear if you're capable of using it but the Driducks poncho does make a good improvised bivy. A milsurp poncho liner is good down to about 50 degrees in perfect conditions (in my experience). It's also about 18 ounces.

EDIT 2: How about a Tyvek rain wrap? I'd think the sticky backed velcro should work to attach it. I regularly catch Magellan nylon pants on sale at Academy as well. They aren't bad for the price. Synthetic shirts can be had easily enough from Target, Wal-Mart, or Ross (my personal favorite).

> they don’t have all the tie downs that a hiking tarp does

true… but doing sheet bend knots for the corners (I have seen the ones with grommets rip out) and something like gripclips or just small round stones that you wrap the tarp around and then tie off will allow you to add whatever lines you need.

–Mark

A kazillion years ago we used to use Visclamps. Each onee had a little rubber ball and a shower curtain type of hanger (but it was continuous). With light material, the balls were better than most rocks, because the round surface was less likely to rip the material. A couple years ago an acquaintance of mine was toying around with some tarp prototypes, and what he sent me did not have adequate tie points. I think you will get the idea. The upper part of the clamp is big enough to slip the ball-wrapped fabric through the opening, and the other end is smaller so the ball cannot come out. It was unusual for these to rip even plastic tarps in even moderate wind. Yes, we used ultra light tarps in the 60s and 70s.

> Visclamps

Thanks for the memories. I also used those in the 70s and 80s. They are indeed better than rocks or pine cones which we used as a last resort. Are they still sold? When I went looking for around 2003 I didn't find them but but someone on the backpackinglight yahoo group pointed me to the gripclips.

–Mark

You can make them lighter and more flexible by cutting them down to eliminate the heavy edges and add grommets with a DIY grommet kit. The edges won't fray and if you fold the material over once where you're putting grommets its bomber. (plan ahead and leave an extra flap to fold over)

Very cool Nick.

Mark,

I haven't seen them in ages. But you need to understand that I am a packrat, and my garage is like a museum… only I don't know where everything is :)

Today my wife made me clear some space in the garage for her Christmas decorations. I found an old Chouinard expedition sewing kit in a leather pouch, and the poles for my Chouinard tee-pee, but I could not find the tee-pee itself… well maybe I could have found it, but apparently the speed at which I was putting away the decorations was not aligned to expectations of the boss.