Use Case for Single Person (Small) Tarp

Meant to say catenary cut not centenary.

If I’m taking a bivy sack for shelter, I’ll take a very small tarp for cooking in rain if needed, but only if the weather is calling for a heavy rain forecast.

My opinion:  Shelters are for bad weather…ANY shelter works well if the weather is nice, and as you say, then why not simply sleep in the open?  If a shelter (system) does not work well in bad weather then it truly has no value regardless of it’s weight or size.

Of course, “works well” is always a matter of personal taste.

I have a Hexamid Solo tarp, the later design with storm doors, weighing around 7oz.  (It’s disappointing that Zpacks discontinued these with no comparable replacement.)  It’s not the quickest shelter to pitch, but when it’s up and pitched well it’s bulletproof in high wind, and it keeps me (at 6’2″) perfectly dry even in extended downpours.

Since I hike a lot in the desert, it’s probably the shelter I take most frequently.   For trips in the Grand Canyon, I expect to have to actually pitch a shelter maybe 10-20% of the time, because much of the time the risk of rain is minimal, and when it does look like rain I have a mental database of overhangs that are far more comfortable than any shelter in extended rain.   So, yes – any weight saving is extremely valuable to me.   If I’m only going to pitch a shelter 1 night in 5, in the weight-function tradeoff any functional benefit from extra space is diluted fivevold, because 4 nights in 5 it’s all just dead weight.  So effectively I feel like a 4oz weight saving is (at least psychologically) equivalent to 20oz.

I am 5’3″. It would probably work well enough for me, but I don’t know what it looks like. I would use it for warmth. I always feel warmer with a ceiling. Warmer still if my little bug net tent fits under it.

I would use the  small tarp if I was stealth camping / locations were knew I would need a smaller footprint. If I expected storms / continuous rain, 4oz is totally worth the weight / extra packing volume.

Small tarps are a pain when facing continuous rain. I spent several years using one of brawny’s extra large poncho tarps and since 2010 a first generation hexamid. Both took a fair amount of care when facing real rain. Eventually I added a waterproof bottom, DWR top bivy which made managing a lot easier during a storm but still not as nice as a larger tarp.

If my trips had more wet than dry days, I would likely go back to a larger shelter.  Since I am mostly in the sierras where I have more sunny than rainy days, I continue to use a smaller shelter to save the weight and packing volume knowing that the rainy days will be a pain but manageable, and I already own it :)  When it wears out I will likely go with something more storm worth.

–mark

Thanks for the replies everyone.  As I have gotten older and a bit wiser I think, I am more focused on gear that

1] performs well (doesn’t fail when you need it most)

2] performs easily (no fiddle factor) and

3] performs consistently (wide variety of conditions).

I think a single person tarp pretty much fails 1 and 3. I think I’ll sell my 1p Tarp :)

I have a $50 Borah 5.5×9 tarp that pretty much only gets used if there is zero rain in the forecast and I am just trying to block wind. I live in So Cal so for a lot of the late spring-fall I can get away with just bringing this and either an EE Recon Bivy, S2S Pyramid Net, or nothing at all. I like the modularity of it and that it weighs 6-7 oz less and packs much smaller than my DCF Duomid. Used it this weekend to block a 10-15 mph WNW wind that persisted all night.