Budget Tarping: Kelty Noah’s Tarp 9×9

Others might disagree with me, but it looks like the way that it's cut would really limit the way you could pitch it (just as you suggest). Personally, I'd rather have a 9' by 9' flat tarp. Something like the Oware FlatTarp 2.5. I believe it's going for $101 this week, on sale. Not quite as cheap, but lighter and possibly a better investment.

http://www.owareusa.com/

Good luck with your search.

I have the Noah 10×12 tarp. There are tie-outs mid-way along the sides on that size. It's main problem is that it's strongly cat-cut – and designed to be pitched on a diagonal (like the "diamond" pitch you see over many hammocks). It can be pitched in an A-frame, but it's very fiddly to get a wrinkle free pitch (compared to a flat tarp).

Each edge is also cat-cut. Due to the loss of size, or the cat-cut of the diagonal ridge-line, or both – when pitching it as a 1/2 pyramid it's about 1 ft narrower than my flat 8×10 tarp. If you are tall, you'd have to sleep at a slight diagonal to keep from brushing the head & foot walls. The shape in 1/2 pyramid is also strongly concave (both side-to-side, and front-to-back), which eats a lot of "moving aroung" room in the 1/2 pyramid pitch.

There is a mid-ridgeline tie-out, but none mid-way up the walls. In A-frame, I just pitch it the sides 6" higher and I get the same headroom (1/2 way up the walls, above the sleeping positions). In the 1/2 pyramid, 1 tie-out would allow the back wall to be guyed out – and give a LOT more useful room to the back sleeper.

The material is pretty light, MUCH lighter than a $50 coated nylon tarp (Outdoor brand) I got from REI. The Kelty tarp is 1 lb, 12 1/8 oz in the 10×12 size on my scale.

I camped in my 9×9 Oware flat tarp(now on sale) last weekend and next to me, a friend was using the 9' Kelty Noah tarp.

The Kelty worked well in pouring rain and stayed reasonably taught.
My Oware 9×9 did as well, but I used more tie-outs.

The Oware has two distinct advantages:
1) Lighter
2) Much more flexible

The Noah has one:
1) The catenary cut helps it stay rigid without many tie-outs.

We had a problem fitting the Noah tarp into the available space. It worked out in the end, but the flat tarp was able to be pitched to fit just fine and because of the extra tie-outs was able to be shaped to match the situation.

I have the 12×12 (which is huge) and it is very strong and has a ton of tie out points (I think 21). However, as others have said the cat cut limits your pitch options and can be a bit fiddly to set up. For a general purpose flat tarp also in PU nylon Campmor sells Equinox tarps in 9×9 and other square and rectangular sizes. These are not quite as nice as some tarps (grommets, no center tie-outs) but mine has been a great starter tarp.