Tent question.

[hadacol]

This only applies to those of you who (yes, I know it is old fashioned) use a clip tent with a fly.

I recently replaced my beloved Fitzroy III (OK, not beloved - bomber, but heavy and smelled REALLY bad) with an SD Lightning. While trying it out in the living room, it occurred to me that since it is sleeveless, you can pitch the fly/footprint first and then put the tent up inside.

I tried it out on a 7 day trip, and overall, things stayed a lot drier and were more organized. Although I only ran into light drizzle (I envisioned the method as a way around filling a mesh top tent with rain in the time it took to get the fly over it - something I have done with a number of sleeved tents over the years) it still seemed worthwhile. Letting the fly air for a bit both in the evening (before setting up the tent proper) and in the morning (after taking out the tent) and packing the tent separate from the fly/footprint helped keep the living surfaces cleaner and drier.

There is a page here http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/?doc_id=2328 that describes what I mean by pitching the tent inside the fly.

It would not surprise me if others have stumbled over this trick. Has anyone else tried it? Does it work with the Hubba, BA SH, or other SD tents?

[Earl Grey]

This only applies to those of you who (yes, I know it is old fashioned) use a clip tent with a fly.

I recently replaced my beloved Fitzroy III (OK, not beloved - bomber, but heavy and smelled REALLY bad) with an SD Lightning. While trying it out in the living room, it occurred to me that since it is sleeveless, you can pitch the fly/footprint first and then put the tent up inside.

I tried it out on a 7 day trip, and overall, things stayed a lot drier and were more organized. Although I only ran into light drizzle (I envisioned the method as a way around filling a mesh top tent with rain in the time it took to get the fly over it - something I have done with a number of sleeved tents over the years) it still seemed worthwhile. Letting the fly air for a bit both in the evening (before setting up the tent proper) and in the morning (after taking out the tent) and packing the tent separate from the fly/footprint helped keep the living surfaces cleaner and drier.

There is a page here http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/?doc_id=2328 that describes what I mean by pitching the tent inside the fly.

It would not surprise me if others have stumbled over this trick. Has anyone else tried it? Does it work with the Hubba, BA SH, or other SD tents?

I have the Hubba and you can also do this with the footprint and fly. Then if bugs are bad you can put the inside part up without taking the fly off.

[hadacol]

The "I changed my mind about whether I need bug net" thing never occurred to me but, now that you mention it, is another obvious reason you might add the tent after pitching the fly.

Of course, if you left the tent part at home to save weight, this would require a bit of extra walking . . .

[bigcranky]

This is pretty much standard operating procedure with European tents. The outer tent (what we would call the fly) is erected first, then the inner tent is hung from the inside. Makes a lot of sense, actually. Look at any Hilleberg model.

The last double wall tent I had was the TNF Canyonlands. This had a single long pole that ran in a continuous sleeve from head to toe. One nice feature was that you could leave the tent and fly connected, and erect the tent all in one motion by inserting the pole. This kept the inner tent dry when pitching in bad weather.

[hadacol]

It is interesting how much is not global practice. On a weeks long trip with a very large group in Australia some years back, many, many folks' tent flys were aluminized. Makes good sense in the Australian sun, so why is this almost unheard of here? Like cars, fashion drives the market more than engineering, and good ideas do not necessarily propagate.

[Toolshed]

It is interesting how much is not global practice. On a weeks long trip with a very large group in Australia some years back, many, many folks' tent flys were aluminized. Makes good sense in the Australian sun, so why is this almost unheard of here? Like cars, fashion drives the market more than engineering, and good ideas do not necessarily propagate.

Not unheard of. Quest used to do the Aluminized Fly 15-20 years ago. I think it just fell out of practice.