Lets see some Ugly Pitches

[Mario Caceres]

Taking on the idea of Bob Moulder, I thought it would be fun to see some ugly pitches.  So I decided to start this thread.  Mostly for giggles, but perhaps we can learn something from those pictures.  I will start with one ….

[Mario Caceres]

Here I was going up a pass in the California Sierras.  As I was going up I was too tired to continue and decided to set camp.  The problem was that there was not a space big enough for my MYOG tipi.  So the end result was something like this.

As a reference this is what a normal pitch should have looked :-)

Now, your turn…

[Bob Moulder]

Ha, glad you took up the suggestion, Mario!

Very nice looking tipi there. .51 cuben?  Or .34??!!

I recall that one of my tarp pitches in the Catskills was similarly bad. However I didn’t anticipate an Ugly Pitch thread and therefore no pix made. But there were a couple of stakes hammered in between some rocks, some guy lines tied to bushes and a log and a couple tied to rocks, draped over the big, immovable rocks with gravity taking care of the slack.

So I’m going to have start recording the failures as well as the successes.  :^)

[Mario Caceres]

Hi Bob, Actually it is the 0.75oz/yd variety.  I got the Cuben fabric from Lawson (Mountainfitter?) at a pretty good price, I think he had the idea of making shelters for sale but then decided no to pursue that idea so was selling the fabric.  I have been pretty pleased with that shelter.  I have used it for over 5 years and still going strong.

[Tipi Walter]

Let’s see, ugly pitches.  At first I thought of all the ugliest nastiest Pitches I have ever seen—Backpacking up some tremendous hills with some weight on my back.  Nutbusters.  Just pulled one recently, renamed the 7 Nastiests . . .

But here’s some—

Pretty ugly after a windstorm on Bob Bald in TN.

A slack tarptent.

One drawback to Hilleberg’s Kerlon fabric is it wrinkles up when wet and flaps about more in the wind.  This happens when a bone dry Hillie is set up and then gets wet.  The solution is to go out in the storm which sucks and tighten all the guylines and stakes, essentially requiring me to set the tent up “twice”.

[Terry Carl]

In Wrangell-St Elias NP, Alaska, after a long day after traversing a glacier, then bushwhacking up a valley of alder that was far longer than it looked, we found the first area of open ground around 3am and set up the tent. This was also long before we discovered ultralight.

[Greg Pehrson]

Summer 2014, Presidential Range, White Mountains, NH. After what should have been a 3.5 hour drive stretched to 9 hours with summer traffic, this is where we ended up crashing for the night after hiking in for a while (pic from the following morning). The rotted, soggy deadfall kept us from rolling completely down the slope in the night, and luckily nothing fell on us. Tarp is homemade.

[Bob Moulder]

These are great!

Just oozing with that “dog tired, don’t give a crap” essence.

[JCH]

If I took pictures of all my crappy pitches I’d…well…I’d be taking a lot of pictures.

[Author]

Posts