Pyramid Tarp Pitching Advice For a Newbie

Site selection: avoid a bowl or dished area. Look at the gravel/dirt and you can often see where water flows through. I look for a spot that is slightly domed so that water will run away from it in every direction. Avoid picking a site at the bottom of a slope that will shoot a bunch of water right at you. Be careful of camping below granite slabs in the Sierra because the water obviously doesn’t soak in there and will just shoot off.

Do you have any photos of your pitch?

Did you use all eight guyouts? What about the midpanel guyout points? Did you tighten it up after the initial pitch and when it got wet? If you pole is offset a bit you can easily tighten it up by pulling the base of the pole in making the height a little taller. You still might need to reach under and tighten the linelocs a bit.

“Melting hail collected by the head and toe sides sagged which under the weight.”

My guess –

1) if it was cuben, your pole was to short

2) if it was sil, you needed to re-tension once it got wet. Also, see #1

Tip –

Practice in the yard/park. Change things to make it worse, then better. If you can find a Small hill/grade you will learn a lot about how to set your pole on a slope.  A lot more fun than learning in a downpour. (been there, done that)

Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures.  I did practice at home a bit but it is always a little more challenging in the field.  Let me give a little more background.  My Solomid is made of silnylon.  I pitched on a very slight slope.  I had a total of 6 guylines: 1 at each corner, 1 at the zippered entrance, and 1 on the opposite side. I re-tensioned some of guylines and lengthened the center pole about an inch once it started to rain. Good idea about pitching on a slight dome, I never thought of that.

Would it be better to add more guylines?

Should I be tightening the guylines multple times after the tarp gets wet?

Would it better to pitch on a low ridge?

Thanks

There are a couple photos of a nicely pitched Duomid in this post in what looks to be very protected campsites.