Solomid pitching help

[Dylan Atkinson]

So I feel like pitching a solomid should be a no brainer, but I’m having issues. Main thing is the large gap in the front of the tent – it’s about 11 inches and that’s the closest I’ve been able to pitch the tarp to the ground while keeping the whole thing taught.

Is this just the way the tarp is designed or is there a way to pitch it closer to the ground while keeping the whole thing taught?

I’ve been pitching the four corners in a rectangle, starting with the rear corners, moving on to the front. Then inserting the pole and staking out the rear guyout and door guyout.

Pictures to follow for hopeful clarity.

[Dylan Atkinson]

[Jerry Adams]

what happens if you lower the center pole?  (or maybe raise it)

[jscott]

Lowering the center pole is my thought too, but I bet you have the fixed length. I had an older solomid with a beak. It was fiddly to pitch for a while. Putting line locs on the body of the tent really helped, especially on uneven ground. If you can lower the pole a bit and then use line locs to make the sides taut, maybe that would work?

[Matthew / BPL]

Duomid noob here but I’ve been able to pitch much closer to the ground than you are showing. I’ve been pitching my corners with just an inch or two  of slack and maybe more like 6–8″ of slack on the long side middle guyout points.

[Matthew / BPL]

Lowering the pole alone will not solve your problem. The stakes have to move in closer and shorter line will make that happen.

[Jerry Adams]

On the raised side, if you moved the corner stakes out, then the center will lower

If you have a shorter pole, then the corner stakes will move out

It’s not totally intuitive, but just try lowering or raising the pole and see what happens

You could lower the pole by shifting the base sideways so it angles up

You could raise the pole by putting a board under it

[jscott]

“The stakes have to move in closer and shorter line will make that happen.”

Interesting. But why wouldn’t lowering the pole help? When I used an adjustable pole on the solomid it did bring the edges down. It also brought the bathtub floor edges down.

[John Klinepeter]

I hastily set up my Solomid in my backyard and measured a 10 inch gap at the front from the ground to the zipper and 10 inches at the rear.  It is not as noticeable with the bug skirt :)  My shelter is about 8 to 10 years old and it is set up with two poles; I’ve never tried just one pole.  The effective guy line length, when tightened, is about 12 inches at the corners, 15 inches front and back.  I use custom 56 inch long poles; a little longer wouldn’t hurt.

 

The height above ground at the sides is about 3 inches.  I guess you could move the side stakes right up to the tent thus moving it to ground level at the sides and then presumably reduce the front and rear gap to 10 minus 3 equals 7 inches. In my case, with fixed length poles, I would also have to increase the distance between the poles where they touch the ground.

Okay, I just tried doing this and the math works (10-3=7) but the result is that you have greatly reduced the usable interior length.  I will live with the 10 inch spacing.

FWIW I’ve been in some tremendous downpours and never had a problem with water entry due to the 10 inch gaps.

[Matthew / BPL]

100% agreement that a taller pitch gives more interior room (and increased ventilation) however I think the OP’s Q is about how to get the pitch tighter to the ground.

I still think the door guyout in particular looks really long. Try shortening that and move the stake closer. It’s really easy to adjust how much eyebrow you get on the Duomid. I’ve never pitched a Solomid but I assume it works in the same manner.

[Matthew / BPL]

“But why wouldn’t lowering the pole help?”

It will but the root cause here, imo, is the line length. If the OP just lowers his poles and tightens the guylines he will be limited by the fixed size of the rectangle defined by the bottom of the tent. You have to move the stakes in closer as the lines get shorter to move the pole down.

Cuben shelters make this immediately apparent because of their lack of stretch.

YMMV/HYOH/IMO/etc…

[jscott]

Mathew, good eye in spotting the long guylines; I think that your point is correct.

[Dylan Atkinson]

Thanks all – I’ll pitch again and let you know the results.

[Nick Gatel]

Try this to get used to pitching a mid. Don’t use the guylines. Run your stakes through the loops at each corner. You will need to have the zipper closed, and get the material real tight from corner to corner, plus the corners need to be square. Now open the zipper, insert and adjust your pole.

Now pitch it with longish guylines, zipper closed, then insert and adjust your pole, adjust guylines.

Do it again with 1/2 the length of guyline, zipper closed, then insert and adjust your pole, adjust guylines.

After doing this 3 times you should get a good feel for the geometry of guy length and pole height. This is one of those things you just have to play with to make it work for you. Also keep in mind that a long guy at the center where the zipper is will pull the those two panels away from the center and raise it off the ground, shorter guy less.

[Matthew / BPL]

Good idea pitching it with different length guylines to get a feel for how the geometry works. I’ll try that experiment soon myself.

[Jerry Adams]

I have slightly raised edges.

Occasionally, I’ll experience a windstorm where dirt and sand and sticks blow in under the edge.  My goal is to have the edges against the ground to minimize.  I’ll leave door open for ventilation if it’s not rainy so lack of raised edges for ventilation isn’t too bad.

On another thread it was brought up how fabric stretches less along the warp or weft, and more on the bias.  If the warp/weft lines up with the middle of the mid, then it won’t stretch as much as the ridges, so you get a raised middle.  This minimizes waste fabric when you lay out the tent.

If the warp/weft lines up with the ridges, then you have to pull out the edges so you get sort of an octagon shaped base rather than a square.  And no raised edge at the middle.

I will try this the next time I make a tent.  I don’t think most tent manufacturers do this.

[Andrew Srna]

Also length and angle of pole matter, solomid pitches perfect with straight up and down pole, when kicking pole to the front it can raise front edge slightly, so depending on how level your ground is or isnt, you can also kick pole to rear and sleep in front of pole, or try an inverted v with 2 trekking poles.

[Dylan Atkinson]

Nick, thanks for the advice – I pitched the solomid the way you suggested and easily got the best couple of pitches yet.

Shortening the guylines has helped, especially shortening the front door guyline. Got the front door gap down to about 7 inches. I’ll keep playing around but this is definitely an improvement.

[Owen]

I know Nick and Mathew have covered this, but just to reiterate, MLD’s own instructions say to pitch it with the guylines adjusted with about 2″ of slack. Just follow their guidelines and try it out.

https://mountainlaureldesigns.com/product/solomid/

I’ve just followed their set-up instructions for my duomid, and kept the guylines short and a tiny bit of slack in the rear wall, and I’ve had good luck with keeping it tight to the ground. Obviously it’s not always possible to keep your guylines that short in rocky ground; I’ve been lucky that I’ve only pitched it on snow so far.

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