Tarps
Don't let this happen to you, practice with your tarps before you go!
Tarps have any number of wonderful uses in and around camp; dining flys, ground cloths, shelters, even canoe sails!
Tarps can be an economical and lightweight alternative to tents or they can extend your wet weather camp area to add to your comfort.
Tarps can be purchased from most outdoor retailers or they can be made from any number of materials. One local unit makes theirs from old tent flys & floors! Some tarps come with grommets. Tie loops are preferred as they won't punch through the fly under a heavy load. Also, tie points are easier to add (up to 20 in a 10'x10' tarp is reasonable). You'll need to bring lashing lines to secure your fly. We recomend para cord in various color coded lengths. Also, ground stakes (or snow anchors) are needed. A couple of types of ground anchors are a good idea to accomodate various soil conditions.
Hiking poles or canoe paddles can be used to support a tarp, though the height is limited to about 4'. Another approach is to bring along a sectional pole. One common type weighs about 24oz and comes in 4 sections for a max height of 8'. Commercially available poles are usually formed to mate with a grommet hole. We recommend that the top pole section be modified to a blunt end that mates with a reinforced pole pocket sewn into your tarp. Cliff Jacobson's book, "Boundry Waters Canoe Camping" has a good discussion on adding a pole pocket to your tarps. You can find this book at any number of online retailers.
Tarp rigging depends on the intended use and expected weather conditions.
Cliff Jacobson's video, "The Forgotten Skills", has an entire section devoted to the use and rigging of tarps. Some of his ideas were incorporated into into this demonstaration trap setup at a recent Backpacking Awareness Seminar;
All guy lines are tied with slip knots to make takedown easier. Note the reinforced 'pole pocket' with webbing to keep the pole in place in heavy winds. There are no grommets in this tarp as they tend to pullout in high winds.
This troop's tarp bag includes 2-10x10 tarps (one purchsaed the other made for an old tent), 18 aluminum stakes of various lengths, an adjustable aluminum pole (4 nesting sections, adjusts from 2'-8') modified to delete the need for a grommet, and 3 colors of paracord lines - white=20', red=15' & black=10', minimum 5 each.
There are some introductory camp tarp instructional videos available online. Search youtube.com for camp tarps to find a few. Also, take a look at http://www.bushcraftnorthwest.com/articles/articles.htm for more videos, including a refresher on the basic knots you'll need. You'll need to copy & paste this link into your browser's Address field.
Bivys - more to come!
A bivy is a lightweight alternative to a tent!
Hammocks - more to come!
A typical camping hammock with a full rain fly.
Where tie offs are plentiful and level tent pads few, hammocks can be a good alternative to tents.
Tents - more to come!
The styles, features and pice ranges of tents can be bewildering.
Some accessories for your tents might include (left)sand stakes, (top)liquid seam seal, reflective tie lines, and a repair kit (clear repair tape, patches, and a pole repair sleeve).
Demonstrating a foul weather stake out, this tent has the seam sealed fly staked completely away from the tent floor, the tent is installed over a waterproof ground cloth that does not extend beyond the floor, the ground cloth is also staked out with the tent floor, and the tent tie down loops are velcored to the tent poles and double staked at twin tie down lines from each tie loop. The double stakes at at 45deg to each other and the tent for maximum holding power and wind resistance. After a wind storm in Death Valley a few years ago, a tent staked out like this one was the only tent left standing by morning (be sure to head your tent into the prevailing or expected winds before you stake it out)!
This page revised February 16,2008