tarptent?

> Are you tying them off to the attachment piece that holds the rear floor tensioners? I can't quite make it out from the picture. Also, are you using Kelty Triptease for guylines? I had an issue with the one of the front guylines the Contrail shipped with fraying, which allowed it to slip under high tension. Thanks!

One end ties/loops to the line tighteners, the other end ties to the O-ring that slides up and down the rear struts. On earlier models, there was no O-ring but you can tie off to the clip that was located in the same place.

Yes, we use Kelty Triptease. I'd like to find a "grippier" reflective guyline of the same diameter but no luck so far.

-H

Ok, thanks Henry. My contrail is the '06 with the adjustable struts so I'm fine.

On the guyline note, have you had reports of slippage from other users? My problem developed on a front corner guy-out point, where the standing end of the guyline running out of the tensioner would slip under the knot that keeps the guyline in the tensioner. This allowed all the slack out of the guyline and created loss of tension in the pitch. It seemed to develop as the line got a little chewed up from usage and was no longer of sufficient diameter to keep the line from slipping around the knot. I replaced the guyline but I expect to see this again, probably at night in the rain : ) Any advice?

Welcome to the forums, Alex. Tarptents are great shelters; I use my Virga 2 a lot in the Colorado high country during the summer months. They are not particularly warm shelters, however. Unless you sleep a lot warmer than I do, you'll be cold on many nights using a tarptent/40F bag combo. A bag rated to at least 30F plus your extra insulating clothing when needed may be better.

So Dondo, what tent do you use in colder temps? My camps here in the Sierras are most frequently between 10500 and 11500 and generally in the low 30s to high 20s and have never suffered any discomfort in my double wall Hubba. I use a Hex when hiking w/ one of my boys and have never had any significant discomfort even in some very cold temps but I believe that is due to the BTUs thrown off by these young heat generators. In fact, last summer on a hike with my youngest son using a two man, double wall tent w/ temps dipping down low enough to grow ice in our water bottles outside, I had to sleep with my 15º bag mostly unzipped. This is why I am so surprised with the recent discomfort sleeping in the Contrail in temps that normally have not been a problem in the past.

>On the guyline note, have you had reports of slippage from other users? My problem developed on a front corner guy-out point, where the standing end of the guyline running out of the tensioner would slip under the knot that keeps the guyline in the tensioner. This allowed all the slack out of the guyline and created loss of tension in the pitch. It seemed to develop as the line got a little chewed up from usage and was no longer of sufficient diameter to keep the line from slipping around the knot. I replaced the guyline but I expect to see this again, probably at night in the rain : ) Any advice?

Hmm..maybe one other report unless that one was you? Just one guyline slipping, not both? Front only? All cording threaded the same way through the tighteners? If it was only one of the 4 tighteners then, yes, probably cord related.

John, in cool or cold windy weather I prefer to use the Montbell Diamond. That's it sitting behind me in the snow in my avatar photo. In a sense, it's the opposite of my Virga. The tarptent is open and airy, perfect for hiding from the mosquitoes on warm summer evenings. The Diamond is a more closed true double wall tent. Will Rietveld used an inside/outside thermometer when he was testing a similar shelter, the Montbell Hexagon, and found a 15F to 17F temperature differential between the inside and outside. Another hiker over at TLB did the same thing with a similar shelter and found a 10 to 20 degree difference.

The Diamond has a 40 oz. carry weight vs. 28 oz. for my Virga 2, so I make sure I'm going to need the extra protection before I carry it. Alternately, I could choose a warmer bag, which in my case happens to be 12 oz. more than my lighter one.

BTW, I also have the Hot Tamale in my collection and it seems like a pretty decent bag to me. TNF tends to be optimistic in it's ratings for it's synthetic bags but has been pretty accurate with it's ratings of down bags in this temperature range according to the EN 13537 tests.

Yeah Dondo, I picked up the Hot Tamale several years ago at an REI sale and have always been comfortable in it except in the low teens. I look for this year to be a “break-through” year for wilderness travel technology in so far as lightweight fabrics ( I am not claiming to be a prophet or have inside information ) are concerned and am going to wait a little while before addressing this situation. It seems that all the new weight saving neat stuff comes out a few weeks after I buy the perfect piece of equipment.

"A partial remedy to your problem would be one of the "storm" set-ups that I posted at Practical Backpaking, my Contrail thread. "

Franco could you give me a link to that post? I'm planning to do some high Sierra hiking with a Contrail ( if i can find one!) and a 30F bag ( Montbell or WM). I'm kind of concerned about the condensation, and the getting cold in the 30F bag, issues. Would the storm set-up keep me warmer but increase the condensation problems?

Thanks

Hi
This is the link,
http://www.practicalbackpacking.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1188
but since I don't know if it will work and since I have figured out how to post pictures here again, I have included a couple of shots for you.
If you have the 07 version, it's hard to go past the way Henry Shires does it.( possibly the most experienced Tarptent user…)
See http://www.tarptent.com/contrail.html
Condensation/ventilation, pick the sweet spot for you. I have had no problem with condensation ,using any configuration, that a quick wipe down with my kitchen cloth would not solve.
Franco