Ground cover for use with Duomid in winter conditions

[Daniel N]

As stated in the title, I have a Duomid which has been treating me and my wife quite nicely through the early, mid, and now late fall of the Catskills in New York State. Now that the ground is pretty much hardened and snow will be inevitable above certain elevations as winter descends, we're not sure what ground cover to use inside the Duomid.

What we have now is a Polycryo Groundsheet and we're sleeping on Thermarest Neoair X-Therm pads with Enlightened Equipment 10* bags but we haven't used this set up on snow yet. We're not looking forward to producing a slushy mess underneath us that might leak up through tears in the relatively thin Polycryo and getting ourselves and our gear all wet.

Any tips or ideas for what we should be using?

[Andy F]

Your setup sounds fine to me.

[Stuart .]

If you're concerned about polycro not being strong enough, you could MYOG with a tyvek groundsheet, use a SOL emergency blanket, or buy a premade silnylon or cuben groundsheet/ bathtub floor from the likes of BearPaw or Zpacks. Ron Bell intends to start selling floors early next year.

[Paul McLaughlin]

The issue I had with polycro on snow was that it slid around so much and was hard to get laid out and to keep it in one place – way more so than polyethylene. just a pain to deal with. Tyvek would probably be better; but what I use now and much prefer is 1/8" EVA foam which I got from Suluk46. Works great and that little bit of extra insulation is welcome.

[Stephen M]

Tyvek is good on snow, I was able to make a bathtub by folding up the sides and taping it.

[Daniel N]

The Poly sheet is fine in general but even under non-winter conditions it's a bit fussy. I'd never read about it being used on snow before but I'm not surprised to find that it has the potential to be a bit slippery.

Those SOL emergency blankets don't last too long as ground covers and aren't worth the price for that use I think. As for Tyvek, where's a source for a big enough sheet to use? Everywhere I see it for sale, it's either a huge industrial piece or a pre-cut piece that some outdoor place is selling as a groundcloth for some shelter or other. I'll look into that EVA foam stuff too.

I wonder what MLD will be making their floors out of?

[Link .]

Daniel if you are interested in the EVA foam try HERE

[Dustin Short]

Search for Tyvek on amazon. You can buy it by the yard for a few bucks or premade ground sheets for a little more.

[Paul McLaughlin]

The link posted above is for some pretty heavy stuff, you might want to look for lighter than that

[Eric Blumensaadt]

I use 2 mil painter's plastic summer and winter.

I've Gorilla taped Triptease loops at the corners to attatch to my tent poles to keep it from moving around under the tent – especially from winds moving it.

It is NOT good when a fabric floor freezes to the snow or ground. Use a groundsheet in winter.

[Hiking Malto]

If you are sleeping on snow with an xtherm I don't see the purpose of any ground cloth. There is enough insulation in that pad that you won't have melting snow beneath you. I normally use a bivy so that is my "ground clothe" but with it I would use nothing.

[Benjamin Kelley]

I've use polycryo on snow w/o problems. Anything from fresh powder to sleet crusted ground to brittle week old rough snow.

[BlackHatGuy]

"I've use polycryo on snow w/o problems. Anything from fresh powder to sleet crusted ground to brittle week old rough snow."

+1. Polycryo is thin, yes, but amazingly resilient. I haven't put holes in mine yet, and I'm not that fussy about clearing my sleeping spot. As far as sliding around, on snow I always tamp down an area for my sleeping pad, sized near perfect and about an inch deep or so, that my sleeping pad nestles into. No sliding around.

[Will Elliott]

I just pack the snow down and put a foam pad under my thermarest. I like to dig down 3 or 4' for headroom.

[Daniel N]

…

[Daniel N]

I've had a few occasions to use the Polycryo ground cover on snow. I hate it. It's incredibly slippery once the snow is packed down from body weight or other tamping. If I so much as nudge my sleep pad, it goes skating across the interior of my shelter.

I've taken to using a TrailStar and the center pole creates a unique problem. It didn't puncture the Poly, but within a few minutes my wife and I slid around so many times (it was all a bit like a cartoon) that the cover started twisting around the base of the center pole. A few minutes later and the cover began to shred and tear from twisting around the pole. Held up fine under the point of the pole but the rest of it was irregularly shaped shreds of plastic.

We tried again another night with a separate sheet of Poly for each of us and got into our quilts. Every time we moved or turned over, we'd slide and skid until we wound up a few feet away from each other on a diagonal. Ditched the Poly and went to the Thermarest directly on the snow. It still slides (as I suppose anything slick will do on tight packed snow) but not nearly as much as the Poly did.

I think we'll continue just putting the pad right on the snow and re-evaluate what we may or may not use come next winter.

[David Franzen]

i didnt come across this post before. last week i used a polycryo ground cover on snow for the first time. i, too, found it to be extremely slippery.
for non-snow camping i really like polycryo, but i will not use it again on snow.

i thought i camped on even ground, but with every move i made i slid towards one side which turned out to be a tiny bit lower than the other side. later that night i switched to PU-coated nylon (a cheap tiny tarp i sometimes bring along in winter) and there was no sliding arond any more.

[Mike M]

I've had good luck w/ Tyvek in the snow- I purchased a cheap grommet tool and added a grommet in each corner, put a small length of shock cord to secure it to the corner stakes- works like a charm :)

my bivy has the bottom out of cuben fiber and that works well on snow too, little pricey unless you can also use a flat tarp in cuben

[Rick Reno]

Zpacks sells slices off a 9' roll @$3/ft.
I bought a bunch and find its good to have around for loads of different applications.
Have fun!

[Bob Moulder]

I also use a Tyvek floor, easy to find on amazon and cheap enough. But it is rather heavy and bulky compared to polycryo.

However, I have some polycryo that I want to try, and I'm thinking of putting some strips or patches of self-adhesive Velcro on the bottom of the polycryo in the torso area to reduce slipping/sliding. Anyone tried this? Which part of the Velcro – hook or loop – is better for this purpose? Seems snow and ice might be harder to remove from the loop material…

As far as securing it to the tent corners, I also use shock cord (2.5mm) but leave the long ends attached to the hooks in the corners of the Doumid, with mitten hooks on the ends that attach to the ground sheet. Easier to hook up the ground sheet that way because you don't have to crawl deep into the corners to clip or tie anything.

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