Dry Ditching an Integrated Single-Wall Tent

What problems are you having? I’ve found it to be pretty straightforward. Collapse the trekking pole with the vestibule closed and go from there. TBH, I think it’s a little harder to keep things dry when pitching.

Close doors/vents, drop the pole/poles, remove stakes, and fold/roll/stuff in your desired shape. Sometimes I’ll give it a few big shakes to lighten it up before rolling/stuffing.

I’ve also found this invaluable in long periods of sustained rain, when no tent interior remains dry, single or double wall… https://www.packtowl.com/shop/towels/ultralite-towel/ultralite.html

Thanks for the replies. My experience with double-wall tents has been with an old North Face A-frame tent and a Big Sky Evolution. In both cases the fly comes off first, and the inner is ditched as quickly as possible if it is raining. With these tents the wet fly is separate from the (mostly dry) inner. My problem was with a GG “The One”. Indeed, I followed Dan’s strategy of zipping the mesh and vestibule doors, pulling the poles and then the stakes to result in the flattened tent with the outer side of the silnylon roof and walls on top. This is where I ran into a problem. There didn’t seem to be any way to fold, roll, or stuff the tent without getting water from the outside of the tent into the interior. The next time it was set up there were puddles inside on the floor.

In the Tarptent Aeon Li video that shows both pitching and ditching, after the pole and stakes have been removed, the tent is flipped over so that the bathtub floor is on top and then folded and rolled. Has anyone tried this strategy with a wet tent?

You alluded to this in your first post but a separate inner (or tarp+bivy or tarp+net tent, etc.) seems like the best way to solve this issue if you are in wet conditions a lot. It’s not why I prefer that type of setup but it is a nice side benefit.

Are you worried about the condensation on the inside of the fly getting on to the floor fabric and making the floor wet?

I certainly agree that a separate inner floor/mesh is the way to go. However, my thinking is that a better approach to folding and rolling the single wall tent could reduce the amount of water that is transferred from the outside to the inside. The issue is not condensation, i.e. water that is already inside. In my one experience with “The One”, I had no strategy (just trying to get out of camp fast) and ended up with a lot of water on the inside, roughly 1/2 liter. It must have poured through the various mesh parts as I was folding, rolling and stuffing the tent into its bag. My appeal to the BPL community is just to see if anyone has thought this through.

Wow that is a lot of water. That would make me think about it too. I’ve never had more than a little condensation that dried off pretty quickly when pitched the next night.

In your situation think I would try to fold the shelter in half like a taco with the wet on the outside and then further fold/roll as needed from there.

Matthew, thanks for the suggestion. The first step would be to flip the tent over to floor-side up and fold from there. That’s what Tarptent recommends for the Aeon Li!

Now that I think about it, I seem to recall the folding pattern for a Notch was to make a long taco with the floor inside (basically you collapsed the shelter onto its side) and then folded the taco to half the length and then kept folding and rolling. I’m sure you could end up with a little bit of water somewhere on the interior but most of it should stay on the exterior of the shelter.

A lot depends on the intensity of the rain storm during pitch and strike.  Even if you had the perfect WPB single wall tent, the outside can get dumped on, and with most nylons, a lot of water will get absorbed.  In such storms, especially when they are abating and me being lazy, I sometimes just roll over and get some more sleep, and have a slow breakfast while the tent is drying out.  You may have heard the expression, ‘gram weenie.’ There is also the ‘tent weenie.’

But in some areas it can rain heavily for days.  The USFS in Walden CO informed me that they were having a “monsoon season,” when called in July.  But the weather was back to its old normal when I got out there in August.  But the climate change is increasing, and conditions can be more variable.  So if I had to fold and roll up a soaked tent, I would use a small towel to swab the tent, and be sure that at least the bathtub floor was dry before packing up.  Prolonged rain can be unpleasant, though, and worse at higher altitudes.

<p>I prefer a separate inner (or just a groundsheet and no inner – depending on the season and conditions) for the reason that rain and integrated shelters are not the perfect combo.  You can generally pitch integrated shelters without  getting the floor too wet (if the winds not blowing too hard) but packing up a wet integrated shelter in the pouring rain while keeping the floor dry-ish is more of a challenge.  With a seprate inner, it’s not that hard, and I pack it inside my trash compactor bag (or Nylofume bag) while the wet fly gets stuffed in the back pocket.  </p>