Trying out tarp camping, will my stuff blow away?

[DWR D]

Not only can your stuff blow away, the entire tarp can billow up in the wind like a parachute and blow down. Tarps best used below treeline and not in high winds… and where there are no critter or bug or tick concerns. Yes, understand you can get an inner bug tent/bivy, but at that point a tent may make more sense. Also consider, yo wife might feel better about a tent. Personally, I sleep better in a tent (or Tarptent) without the above concerns on my mind all nite… ymmv

[dirtbag]

I have used my tarp in some pretty gnarly winds and never has it billowed up and blown away like a parachute.  Its so low to the ground, and staked well… i guess if we are talking about some wicked fierce storm winds.. anything is possible.. even a tent getting pounded and knocked around with those kind of winds, sure it can happen. Just dont let those thoughts or images sway your use away from using a tarp. You can also slip and fall off the mountain to a nasty death…

[Chad S]

Being under a tarp during a storm is not a concern for me, the concern is when I get out of the tarp. What do the tarp users do to keep their quilt and pad from blowing away when it is windy?

My wife has 95% good results with a pee device.

[DWR D]

I have definitely been under a tarp when it billowed up full of high wind and was about to take off…. high gusty winds at 12,000 ft high sierra… summer… it was either have it blow down or take it down in a controlled way…. not all tarps can be pitched down to the ground on all sides

[jscott]

“Yes, understand you can get an inner bug tent/bivy, but at that point a tent may make more sense…”

Exactly. Some love the modularity of tarp/bivy, and that’s understandable. lighter than a dedicated one person tent? Not much, if at all, and fiddlier in many ways.

It IS possible to star gaze in a double wall tent, if the fly is left off and you unzip the front panel to peel back the netting at 3 in the morning. no bugs likely in that scenario. Then  zip up and resume sleeping.

 

[Monte Masterson]

The tarp vs tent debate used to be a mainstay here on BPL but since tents have gotten lighter (and better) more backpackers have gone that way. And most people nowadays who try tarp camping quickly get frustrated because they never get past the learning curve needed to master tarpology. It takes practice and requires more adaptability and skills than a tent does, however the rewards can be huge with a tarp.

These days things like knots or other Eagle Scout skills are mostly seen as a dying art for old dinosaurs like myself, yet there is one huge advantage to tarps and that’s the fact that with a tent you need a flat piece of ground the size of your tent footprint. With a tarp you only need a space large enough for you to lay down. That opens up infinitely more possibilities of where you can camp, especially if you’re going stealth (wild camping). It also allows you to sleep in fresh clean spots where most tent campers can’t fit and you’re more apt to avoid human waste or smells that can attract bears. What’s more it probably won’t be just dirt or mud underfoot but perhaps still grass instead. You can adapt to the surroundings much better using a tarp (with skills).

And if storms are coming a tarp can simply be pitched low and/or to the ground. Main thing is to have good stakes that are adequate enough to hold in strong winds. A low pitch can also be better for stealth because most UL trekking pole tents are 48* or higher.

There is a fiddle factor with tarps though and they usually won’t be as quick to set up. And no doubt a tent is likely to be more rainproof. I’ll admit a tent has its place, especially in more extreme winds and cold.

 

[Roger Caffin]

with a tent you need a flat piece of ground the size of your tent footprint. With a tarp you only need a space large enough for you to lay down.
I don’t think that is really correct myself.

There have been a few times when all we had was a flat area big enough for our airmats, but I was still able to pitch our tent there. The rest of the tent footprint area was ‘not flat’. It did not matter: our mats were flat.

You will find plenty of photos on the web of people digging out the whole vestibule area in the snow so they can sit upright in the doorway. All they had left was a flat area the size of their mats. Granted, that was after pitching rather then before, but same result.

Really, from the ground aspect, there is little difference between a tarp and a tent. Both provide a roof over your sleeping area.

Cheers

[HkNewman]

Worth noting that even regular tent flies can flap and even come loose in the middle of the night.  One lightweight tent owner even posted his unsecured tent flying down hundreds of feet down a cliff (along w/wallet and many other items) in a western US windstorm on a backpack Fb page I watched.    In the right wind conditions any large piece of fabric may billow like Marylyn Monroe’s famous dress video.   As for contents, perhaps keeping them in the pack when setting up the shelter.  There’s also “windproofing” one’s shelter before going to sleep by packing anything not needed for sleep or breakfast (while safely storing food).

Anerican tents tend to have anchor points once the inner is set up first that can help, though I’ll increasingly use small rocks to keep cat tarps from blowing all over the place.  Granted I pretty much use nesting inners for other purposes (namely to avoid arachnid visits when nighttime temps steadily get above 20°F).

 

[Monte Masterson]

“Really, from a ground aspect there is little difference between a tarp and a tent. Both provides a roof over a sleeping area.”

In heavily wooded parts of the eastern US it can be very hard to find even a reasonably level spot measuring the 7′ X 10′ (approx) needed for a UL trekking pole tent which doesn’t have trees and/or bushes in the way. A tarp can be set up in places that are too obstructed for a tent and again because of its adaptability. All I need is a level 3′ X 7′ spot for my bivy or net tent and then I can figure out how to secure a tarp over it with a little work and ingenuity.

In more open parts of the world where there’s less vegetation I’m sure the tarp’s adaptability in tight spots gets negated for the most part. I still hate looking for an area the size of an airport runway to pitch a tent though. And when you do find a decent site usually other humans have frequented the spot.

Of course a freestanding tent provides more livable space per footprint area and is one of the reasons why many choose the weight penalty over a trekking pole tent. A poled tent generally has a smaller footprint and it’s therefore easier to find campsites.

[HkNewman]

a freestanding tent provides more livable space per footprint area..

I’d say most backpacking tents have been specialized over time to provide living space as the frames pull the fabric out from where the user sleeps, sits, etc..  If staying in my shelter for any length of time beyond sleeping, could be the best choice.  Now some have built in LED lights.   Just some are “3-season” and some are “4-season”.  Of course I was snickered at recently for not bringing a 4-season capable tent to Southern California (more for wind instead of blizzards) but now temps are climbing.  I just finished an overnight where the nighttime low was 67°F, .. so thinking the 4-season tent becomes overkill at some point.

I keep coming back to the pyramid tarp.  Not the most efficient use of space, but wind-resistant, it can be set high or low out west.

Then again, someone posted a hypothetical sub 5lb PCT gear list (PCT can be very windy as it goes through “wind farms”) using a flat tarp made of Challenge fabric (no bug protection, but WPB rain smock).  Could be all sorts of “fun” in the wind (sometimes topping 100 mph), but there’s also finding shelter, setting a flat tarp low, etc..

[Diane “Piper” Soini]

I used a tarp for the Montana/Idaho section of the CDT I did last summer. It was great. My stuff did not blow away. The walls of your tarp are blunting the power of the wind already, just like a tent, and also containing contents inside, similar to a tent with the door open. It would be hard to have your stuff blow away. Small light things like loose plastic bags maybe, but not your whole bed. The nice thing about a tarp is you can tie it to trees and bushes and even pitch it with bushes and logs inside your living area, making it possible to find the most sheltered location possible, not limited to the size of the tarp itself, and tie off to really solid things. Here are pictures of all my campsites on the CDT. https://imgur.com/a/wEHUS0o

[dirtbag]

@Diane.. your June 30 campsite is prime example of why I LOVE tarp camping!! That is a sweet spot right there!! Im sure if it was windy, you were plenty sheltered and nothing would blow away!

[Kevin Babione]

Since switching to hammocks I haven’t had to do this, but when I was sleeping under a tarp I had a couple of storms where the direction of the wind shifted after my tarp was pitched.  What I did was to use my rain jacket at the “offending” end of my tarp like this:

• Put the jacket “hang loop” over the pole tip
• Used those snap-type hair barrettes to clip the bottom of the jacket to each side of the tarp, with the jacket going over the guyline (with another barrette holding the jacket down on the guyline)

Sorry I don’t have a photo, but hopefully you know what I mean.  It really made a huge difference for a couple of grams of a hair product.  A little spray came in but not any windblown rain.

[dirtbag]

hhere is my tarp pitched really low to the ground. The winds were only 10-12 mph but it was calling for heavy rains overnight with the winds. Its hard to tell there but i pitched one end lower to the ground because that was direction the wind was hammering from. I did use bathtub ground sheet and bivy.. but nothing was trying to blow away..

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