How do you tarp?

[James Marco]

I use a custom silnylon tarp most times. Even though I have a SoloPlex from ZPacks. Joe did a good job, but it just requires too much fiddling. The tarp is a bit lighter at 16oz(a bit more after sealing the whole thing…its about 10-12 years old) and larger than needed, except in downpours/storms. With 5 stakes and guylines it goes about 18.5oz and fits into a grease pot I use for cooking. The SoloPlex goes about the same(19oz) but is smaller and requires 8 stakes and some fiddling around to set up. (Often the stakes need to be adjusted after being set up.)

Anyway, bugs are not a real problem. I take some DEET and spray it around inside. My cloths are treated with permethrin & DEET which is usually next to me or used as my pillow. My hat is DEET coated from so many trips out, but stays on the other side. Usually, most nights in the ADK's are bug free because temps drop below their activity levels. The bug dope/permethrin works well enough, even in peak bug season. Sometimes a mosquito will get me, I have returned with 5 bites after a week in the ADK's.

I have a piece of mesh I carried for a couple years, but I only used it twice in about 100 nights. Not enough to bother to keep carrying it.

There are a few tricks to staying in a tarp.
1) The tarp will act as a bug barrier. Most critters will avoid you at night, unless it is very warm, aound 50-60F.
2) Wear good long johns to let you hiking cloths dry as much as they will at night.
3) Avoid cooking under your tarp, unless the weather is bad. The heat will "waken" the bugs and will dray blackflies and mosquitoes.
4) Use permethrin on your hiking cloths.
5) Use a ground cloth (a painters drop cloth works) to cut back ground moisture.
6) A few spritzes of DEET around the tarp will protect you(mostly) from most mosquitoes.
7) Your bag or quilt will keep you body bug free. Stay under it.
8) Wait till dark to sleep, it will be less buggy then. Some flies use vision to locate their victims.
9) Avoid trapping heat under your tarp. In evenings/mornings bugs will come to warmth and can bite, even if they are sluggish. Lots of ventilation is good. Leave a good space between your head and the tarp…sleep in the center.
10) Stableflies, deerflies, etc use vision, don't use lights under the tarp except for brief intervals. Most bugs like light anyway, even if they don't bite.
11) Use DEET on your hands, ears and face to keep the bugs(mostly mosquitoes) away.
12) Wear a beard to help protect your face.
13) DEET your hair if long enough. (I have little of it left, though.)

There are probably some more I am not thinking of. But, this will eliminate about 99% of the bugs out there. Every trip of a week or two, means I will get a few bites. Don't get upset, simply use some ammonia/olive oil/asperin mix sparingly on it a few times…or use the prepared Afterbite to help stop the itching. About the same thing.
Clorox and oil also works pretty well. Just let it dry before getting on your cloths.

[Miner]

"I have the Zpacks Pocket Tarp and Borah Gear bivy as well. Was out in the woods last night and got completely soaked in that set up – heavy rain came through from front after 30 min and since there was no beak and bouncing raindrop covered the bivy. A puddle formed and sinice the BG bivy has now bath tub floors, the water literally rain into the bag… I could've chosen a more high up site, but it all was flat… What do you do in this situation?"

You problem sounds like poor campsite selection and wrong orientation to the wind. As I said, you have to pay more attention to campsite selection with a tarp compared to a tent. To use a tarp in bad weather does take more practice and experience to get it perfect. With a regular tarp you also vary the pitch somewhat for weather. But with the hexamid, all you can do is lower the pitch a little bit so the edges are also touching the ground rather the the couple of inches Zpacks' setup video shows.

You CANNOT camp in those tent sites that have seen use for 20+years. The ground has been compacted by repeated use and has formed a slight bowl shape and thus water pools there and floods you out. That is why bathtube floors were developed for tents. A tarp camper doesn't choose to camp there. You have to pick a site so that water flows aways from you and not towards you. Rather then perfectly flat ground, I prefer slightly sloped ground as this makes it easier. Slightly raised ground also works. If everything looks flat, look at the ground for signs of water pooling there in the past. Lay down in a few places before setting up as you can often feel how the ground is sloped even when it looks flat when standing. Camping next to large trees might be better as their roots should have raised the ground up some and the duff will be thicker. After awhile, you get a better eye for spots. And sometimes, you have to just hike further on as there are no good spots.

As for wind blown rain coming through the opening, you have a few choices. The best is to camp in a group of trees, or behind shrubs, boulders, or large logs that will block direct rain from coming in the opening. Sometimes just putting your entrance next to a large wide tree is enough. If its an area you are familar with, you should be able to estimate what direction wind will come in a storm and orient your tarp so the openings are not facing it. However, sometimes you just can't anticipate the correct direction. You either have to block the entrance with your pack (with rain cover on) and your rain jacket (hood hanging off the pole top with the backpack and other gear holding it spread out over part of the entrance. An umbrella (if you use one) also works. If that isn't enough, then you may need to rotate your tarp during the night. You drop it down flat over you gear (to keep it dry) and then rapidly rotate it on the ground before putting it back up. If you have practiced enough at setting your tarp up, that should be a quick operation. I've only had to do that twice in 8 years though.

If you think you are getting too much splashing under one of the edges of the tarp, consider using some of your gear in stuff sacks or rocks to block the worse of it. If you are using a seperate ground cloth you can move it so the edge turns up 90degrees on that side to block the splashing. A small amount isn't a big deal with the bivy though. You can lower the pitch so the sides are close to the ground which will also reduce any splashing.

It takes more skill with a tarp then a tent and you have to be more careful about where you camp which means it may take longer to find a spot which not everyone wants to do which is why not everyone tarps. Unlike the hexamid, a rectangular tarp can fit in spots a tent won't since you can overlap the walls over logs or low shrubs or narrow the pitch such that it will fit into a narrower spot. You loose some of that flexibility with the Hexamid since it has to be pitched in the same shape just like a tent does. I used a small rectangular tarp for 6 years (after 2 years with a large tarp) before going to the hexamid last fall. I only changed since I could drop 2 oz of weight. The hexamid does offer better weather protection since you only have the 1 opening instead of 2 at the loss of some flexibility.

In late september of 2012, I used a small rectangular tarp on the AT through your White Mountains. I had rain most nights and stayed dry (except when I went over Mt. Washington which was clear, go figure). So I know it can be done where you live. Of course I didn't have that record setting wind on Mt. Washington either though it was strong and cold when I was camped near Madison hut.

[Jeff McWilliams]

I have a bit of a hard time with Sean's advice about site selection, and to avoid choosing a site that has been well used, because of water drainage issues.

I think that Sean is correct that this is one of the realities of using a tarp where you do not have some sort of bathtub floor to protect you from drainage issues.

So my "hard time" isn't with Sean's correct advice, but with the predicament that following this advice can sometimes put the aspiring tarp user into.

First, many National or State Parks give you no choice about your site selection. You have to sleep on the designated camp sites, which sometimes means getting stuck with a well trammeled tent pad with poor drainage. I've been in this situation in the Tetons at Marion Lake, and also in the Adirondack High Peaks – heavily used parks where regulations tightly control where you can and cannot camp.

Second, if every backpacker looked to select a site with thick forest duff and/or good drainage, wouldn't heavily used areas eventually transform into one big swath of compacted ground? Consider the Appalachian Trail. In 2014, an estimated 2,500 hikers started northbound from Springer Mountain, GA. I have not hiked the AT, but what would it look like if every one of those 2,500 hikers tried to tarp camp and find a site that was not compressed?

Third, the desire to find a "better site" goes against Leave No Trace principles, which recommend camping on durable surfaces in popular areas, exactly for the reasons cited in the paragraph above. I voluntarily share my backpacking knowledge and skills with others in my local backpacking club. Do I tell tarp users that they get a "pass" on this particular Leave No Trace principle when using a tarp?

I know the answer to three for "pristine areas" is dispersed camping, and that's cool. For popular areas where LNT principles should be followed or camping at established sites is enforced, the only option that I can see is to abandon the use of a LW tarp and go back to a traditional tent design with a bathtub floor.

Agree or disagree?

[dirtbag]

Avoid the heavily populated areas, LNT to me means exactly that. Leave No Trace. If I choose to find a place to sleep for the night, early the next morning when the sun rises, I will be gone and no one will ever be able to tell where I slept. I leave no trace. If everyone practiced that, and I mean leaving no trace, I don't think it would be such destruction. I could be wrong, but like I said, when I am gone..you could not tell I was ever there. For me, that's LNT. Not..don't go there..you have to go here because you will ruin that.

If you just plan to pitch your bivy/tarp as sun sets for a few hours to sleep, low impact camping, LNT, no fires and be gone as sun rises..it will be fine.
If you want to actually "camp"..spend time in that one spot, hang out, eat, make a fire, sleep, bathroom, repeat. .then maybe stick to designated hi impact sites?

[Randy Martin]

What Joe said.

[Jay Wilkerson]

Patrol Shelter with YMG (1.25) Bug Shelter A very good combo!

[Justin Baker]

No comment on bugs, but for wind and rain get a 10×10 tarp and pitch low to the ground. The extra coverage prevents angled rain from getting to you.

You can make a tarp more enclosed like by tying the center ridge line tie outs to a branch directly above you and staking everything down.

[Larry De La Briandais]

I guess everyone looks at it differently, but to me "Patrol Shelter with YMG (1.25) Bug Shelter" is a tent. The "rain fly" is pitched high for good ventilation, but it is still a tent, and good looking one at that. :^)

For those that disagree, what makes this different than a tent? I'm not trying to start an argument, but truly want to know why this is different than a tent?

[Katherine .]

"I guess everyone looks at it differently, but to me "Patrol Shelter with YMG (1.25) Bug Shelter" is a tent. The "rain fly" is pitched high for good ventilation, but it is still a tent, and good looking one at that. :^)

For those that disagree, what makes this different than a tent? I'm not trying to start an argument, but truly want to know why this is different than a tent?"

I've pondered that same recently and concluded: It's a continuum between a perfectly flat tarp and a free standing tent. At least for the exterior part. I'm going to draw the line zippers (excluding bivies, nets). When the beak grows a zipper it crosses over into tentdom.

Maybe arbitrary, but that's where I'd put it.

[Jerry Adams]

When it has a floor it's a tent?

[Bob Gross]

I agree with Jerry.

The general distinction is that a tent has an integral floor. It's that simple.

–B.G.–

[dirtbag]

A tent has poles? A tent is heavier? A tent gets plenty of condensation? I can pitch my tarp in heavy rain..then set up my bivy and gear and stay dry. I can also pack up my quilt, gear and bivy in the pouring rain..keep it all dry, then take down my tarp last. Can't do either of them with a tent. Also when you pitch your tent in the rain..then the fly over it..you gonna get wet in there. Not if I pitch my tarp first then bivy..

[Katherine .]

a net under a tarp often has an integral floor. Does that make my tarp not a tarp?

the fly of my old SD Meoterlight does not attach to the floor. But the tent as a whole is different from a tarp/net combo in that there's a zipper on the fly.

It doesn't really matter beyond classification purposes. But for the sake of sport, and procrastination, I argue it's not so simple.

I've specifically wondered: why does SMD put the Haven under "Tarps" and the Lunar under "Tents."

[kevperro .]

The lines are obviously blurred but it becomes a tent in my book when you put an inner under it.

To officially be called a tarp you have to use a bivy…. which is really just a shrunken down inner. Doit!

[spelt with a t]

Flat tarp
Shaped tarp (patrol shelter, floorless hexamid, cricket)
Enclosed, floorless single wall tent (mid, gatewood cape)
Hybrid single wall tent with floor (Tarptents, enclosed hexamids)
Fully enclosed single wall tent (BD Firstlight)
Double wall tent

*a very good show if you enjoy dystopian spec fic

[Dale Wambaugh]

For solo, add a dash of UL bivy for bugs. There are lots of UL floorless tents/shaped tarps that give good rain and wind protection.

I use a Ti Goat Ptarmigan with a built-in insect screen. There is no fiddling/rigging as with a bug net liner and I can cowboy camp if the weather suits.

[kevperro .]

I just did the Wonderland Trail and it rained a lot… poured cats and dogs a couple times. I carried a 8 x 10 tarp and stayed dry the entire trip, even on those packed down hard-pack camp sites. Most everyone who I ran into had most of their gear wet and several said their tents were soaked the entire time.

In contrast, I think I avoided some of the worst of the rain (by being on the right side of the mountain) and I never had anything wet except the tarp and Tyvek ground cloth. I stayed dry under the tarp by thinking about how the rain was going to run-off the tarp, planning on the contour of the site and using the tarp creatively. Wind wasn't so much an issue.

My take-away…. the more experience you have, the dryer you stay. Luck doesn't hurt either.

[Jerry Adams]

A floorless pyramid tarp/tent is the confusing one, if you want to become consumed in classifying things : )

It has no floor, so Bob and I would call it a tarp.

Maybe the definition of tarp should be no floor and at least one raised edge?

What if something had a floor and a raised edge? Maybe that makes no sense, because then rain would blow in, get on the floor, and run over to you?

Maybe the definition of a tarp should be at least one raised edge?

Henry has really confused things by calling things tarptents. Most of them have a raised edge, but there's netting covering that side. And the floor is seperate from the rest of the tarptent. Since there's netting on the rasied edge, does that count as a raised edge? And since the floor is seperate, does it count as a floor?

Enough of this calssification B.S.

I think when there's a raised edge, eventually it will rain, and even if you're facing away from the wind, it will shift and start blowing rain on you. All eddes should be close to ground. And if it's not raining, then you don't need anything.

[Jerry Adams]

"My take-away…. the more experience you have, the dryer you stay. Luck doesn't hurt either"

funny how the tent people got wet

I was walking around the Three Sisters

I have flexibility so look at weather report and avoid the worst times

I noticed two days with a chance of rain so planned my trip to be on the East side those days. It rained one day so I set up mid and was fine.

I noticed a couple places rain was coming off the tarp and running towards me a little, so I scratched the surface of the ground a bit so it absorbed better. Not a trench and I don't think it does much permanent damage.

[kevperro .]

I'd have been dry in a tent too. I think the issue was more one of people not knowing how to manage their clothing rather than tarps being inherently better than tents.

[Author]

Posts