My Tarptent will be here on monday!

[Mike Drinkuth]

I got the cloudburst (2 person) w/sewn in floor. I'm so stoked about using it! First learned about them on this site, THANKS!


http://www.tarptent.com/ttcloudburst2.html

[Mudchaos]

:D I am also expecting my Cloudburst on Monday:D Cant wait to get it; have heard so many good things about them. I will post a review after a mid Oct walk in Maine.

Rich T

[poison_ivy]

Have fun with your new tarptent! I absolutely love mine... it's my favorite piece of gear!

- Ivy

[Mike Drinkuth]

Got it, set it up in the front yard(easily), in love with it.
Thank you Mr. Shires!
I am becoming such an ultralight junkie!
Only now, I've already bought my dana designs pack(6+lbs) and I just cant afford to go buy a lighter pack! Plus, I can't sew!! Looks like I'm gonna carry a light load in a Cadillac pack.

[steve hiker]

Just used my Cloudburst for a week in Colorado. Easy to set up and doesn't take up much room in the pack, either. However it didn't rain or snow while I was there; used it mainly to hide my body from bears at night:eek:

[Marvin_the_Martian]

I have had great pleasure in owning my Cloudburst Tarptent now for 2 months.

I walk with a bushwalking group in Adelaide Australia and when they feel how light it is they get excited but when I put it up they all say as one it should be a great summer tent and they doubt it will stand up to Australian winters.

Although they are amazed at the easyness of how it goes up and the room inside tarptent

I keep telling them of all the great advise I received from this site regarding it ability to stand winter weather before I purchased the tarp tent but they are still really sceptical

There is just not tent quite like this in Australia and tarps useage is frowned upon.

I have not had the opportunity to use it in rain yet but cant wait to do Overland Track walk in Tasmania in six weeks to prove them all wrong.

[MedicineMan]

Did you ever notice how similar the Cloudburst is to the Golite Den? the Cloudburst does have the beak coming off the front roof that is a def. improvement over the Den but other than that they are very similar....just one man's observation.

[hshires]

Glad to hear that you all like your Tarptents. Wish I had more time to go out and use mine but I'm happy that you get to enjoy some time outside with yours.

<soapbox on> With regards to the similarities between the Den and the Cloudburst, I will say that I definitely know about the Den but that I also took great pains not to infringe on the patent pending design (since dropped by GoLite, BTW). Then I went about making a much better version of a 2-hoop tent that incorporates absolutely everything I know about designing single-wall shelters. The result is that the Cloudburst is just plain better-- from precision CAD engineering that actually cares about things like catenary curves and pole flex, to the internal space and total weight, to the quality of the materials. In top of that, try getting a nice, taut setup with 4 stakes on a Den. You can't. <soapbox off>

Thanks for all your support.

Henry Shires
Tarptent
http://www.tarptent.com

[Rain Man]

Originally posted by hshires
Glad to hear that you all like your Tarptents. ... The result is that the Cloudburst is just plain better-- from precision CAD engineering that actually cares about things like catenary curves and pole flex, to the internal space and total weight, to the quality of the materials. ...

Henry Shires


Henry,

As pretty much a novice, may I ask a dumb question that haunts me about tarps and tarp/tents?

That is, being in the wet Southeast, I'm very concerned about the tarp keeping the water off the top of me, but running water on the ground getting me just as wet.

Do tarptents really keep backpackers dry in wet climes? Or only dry from falling rain, and not from torrents on the ground? I've seen some real rivers of running water during a rain storm

It would sure seem a faux victory to use a tarptent to keep the rain off and then find my down sleeping bag still gets soaked. from ground water.

So... what am I missing??? Thanks, Henry!

Rain Man

[hshires]

Rain Man,

Not a dumb question at all. The truth is that if you're not careful about how/where you pitch a tarp or Tarptent, you could potentially have problems. Traditional tents let you get away (most of the time) with being a bit careless about your location. Generally you don't need to worry about minor ponding because the flooring will be a barrier between you and the pond. With tarps, the idea is to pitch them in locations where water can drain, either naturally or with the aid of a drainage channel. I always try to pitch mine on a small rise or grassy area where I'm pretty confident the water has some place to go. I've yet to have a problem but I've also learned to eye the location. The sewn-in flooring on a Tarptent is waterproof, and there's a small lip there to handle any minor ponding, but ankle-deep ponding would definitely cause problems. I have had perhaps one or two complaints about ponding water from users but I have to believe I would have had a whole lot more if it was a serious problem. Probably what's happening is that users just figure out where to pitch it to avoid the problem altogether.

In your case the best thing to do is just what you did: Ask questions. This board, backpacking.net, backpacker.com, and various other Internet sites are great places to get real world answers from other tarp and Tarptent users.

Thanks.

Henry
ps e-mail me about a loaner if you would like to try a Tarptent out and see if works for you.

[chris]

Rivers of water can be a serious problem. After so many nights of no rain, it finally openned up on me in southern Oregon. I had put my tarp up in a less than optimal place (okay, it was in a depression with a hill running down into it) and had a veritable river running under my tarp for about an hour. Nothing to do but put my sleeping bag back in its bag and wait for the river to go away.

[sdoownek]

I got my Virga last night. Needless to say, I spent the night in the front yard. Of course, trying to set it up in the dark for the first time was fun, but it was pitched in less than five mins.

Initial observations:
Light.
Easy setup.
Light.
Stayed tight.
Light.
Do. Not. Touch. The. Walls.
Need to figure out how to get out in the morning and un-velcro the front overhang without dripping water (dew) everywhere.

umm.....
It's light.

(edit: grammar)

[Rain Man]

Originally posted by sdoownek
I got my Virga last night. ...

Do. Not. Touch. The. Walls.
Need to figure out how to get out in the morning and un-velcro the front overhang without dripping water (dew) everywhere.

Yes, how does one NOT touch the walls of a tent?????? Sounds like "these boots are waterproof, so long as you keep them out of water, rain, snow, sleet, fog, and don't sweat in them." I mean, what's the point?

Rain Man

[sdoownek]

Originally posted by Rain Man Yes, how does one NOT touch the walls of a tent?

Well, for me, it was trying to see how much I could make it leak. I never really have a problem, other than getting out in the morning because I'm inflexible, espcially in the morning. However, in the morning when you're getting out, who cares?

It should be noted that I'm only speaking of dew on the outside of the tarp. I didn't have any problems with internal condensation last night.

[kank]

1. Condensation inside a tarp or tarptent is not necessarily a fault of the design. The more protected you are from the outside elements, the less ventilation, and thus humidity removal, you'll have. Any air/vapor barrier, even a partial one such as no-see-um netting, will condensate if the surface temperature is below the dew point of the air in contact with it. There are obviously some designs and pitches that do better than others in certain conditions, but if the tarp starts developing tent-like protection, such as overhanging beaks and a noseeum mesh perimeter, then it also gets more like a single-wall tent in the condensation department. That "umbrella" of protection from rain and wind also tends to collect warm, moist air under it, like a hot air balloon.

2. Tarps can be used in wet weather. A tarp's success as a shelter depends on the user's proficiency at selecting a campsite and rigging the tarp for best performance. As others have already implied, tents are designed with bathtub floors because many tent users will be setting the tent in a depressed, compacted campsite that will surely collect water like a pond. Tarp users throw out the heavy bathtub floor and choose to select drier campsites. There are times when it becomes necessary to dig a small channel on an uphill side of the tarp to divert the water in a heavy or persistant rain, but even that water should not be puddling under the tarp because the user had the foresight to select a site that was mounded slightly or otherwise showed excellent drainage away from the campsite.

3. I am not going to make any claims about the TarpTent's ability to handle winter conditions. I will, however, refute the claim that a tarp-based shelter cannot handle Australian or any other winters. Hikers in any particular region or user community may not be familiar with other forms of shelter than those which they were taught to use and are experienced with. There are experienced and even well-known backpackers that believe a tarp is virtual suicide in winter conditions. At the same time, I know of other experienced and even well-known backpackers that have never used a tent in any conditions, ever. They were raised using tarps and still use tarps all year round. Some of these people are serious alpinists and use their tarp in raging blizzards. Do not make the mistake of believing that a lightweight shelter cannot handle extreme conditions. However, it is also just as important to learn the limits of both you and your shelter. Learn how to pitch it for best protection. Learn where to pitch it. Only field experience and perhaps reports from other users with field experience can teach you these things. Certain designs and materials always have limitations and you need to know these limitations so you can avoid them. With the right pitch, a plain, flat tarp can handle conditions that will break every expedition-worthy tent on the market. This particular pitch won't be pretty or even very comfortable, but my point is that tarps are not limited to 3-season use. For stormworthiness, concentrate on learning how to get a tight pitch and how to best use multiple stakes and guylines to keep the shelter from flapping in the wind. Flapping is bad. Humming is good. For snow-loading, it is important that the walls be steep and tight, with no troughs to collect snow.

Have fun with your Tarptent!

[whykickamoocow]

Thanks for your words of wisdom, after reading all i have on here, im now convinced that ill use a tarptent on my 2008 thru. It is true what others have said about the attitude to tarptents in australia. Tarps tend to be ruled out by most, problem is because we have every poisonous little critters you can imagine, although they rarely are a problem, but the full protection of a tent just seems to be a mindset we are use to. Dont want to wake up to the noise of a brown snake rustling over you, or a red back spider crawling over you. If people saw you in a tarptent they would fall about with laughter, and tell you your being rediculous.

Cant wait to get a tarptent and see peoples reactions of disbelief.

[Nameless]

I haven't had problems about touching the walls of my Squall tarptent (another buy because of whiteblaze, we must send quite a lot of business your way Shires).

Infact, I've been in pretty hard rain/cloud(inside, heavy, wet fog)/wind above treeline here in Alaska, and I generally come out dryer than anyone in traditional tents. I can be a bit cold from the wind blowing through the bottom of the tarp, but I eventually warm up the sleeping bag, then I am fine.

The difference being that the tarptent is made out of a waterproof material, so when you touch the fabric water won't leak through like it does from a traditional tent. Traditional tents have water RESISTANT material so that your vabor can leave the tent. You biggest concern in keeping the inside of a tarptent dry is keeping proper venilation. I found that in heavy fog/light rainstorms I skip the beak (I kinda wish I had never gotten one, but not enough to actually cut it off) and unzip the door so that I have complete venilation. Never had a wet interior wall this way. Just keep in mind that you are dealing with a waterproof material, and the vapor from your body/ground/air has to go somewhere.

Pink

[Franco]

The GoLite Den was an ugly tent.
Who came up with a tent design that can handle wind only from one direction ?
The only way to get some ventilation in there was to keep the front entrance open, fat chance trying to keep the rain out through the net door.
Medicine Man, if you want to see a "copy" of the Den, have a look at the MSR Fling, another ugly design, but this one can be see from the Moon.

Mike, find someone that appreciates a nice solid design so that you can get rid of that 6 lb (!!!) bag and get the ULA Catalyst. Your shoulder and back will thank me.

Marvin, a mate of mine and myself did the Overland last year with the Rainbow (one each....) at that stage we both had the Osprey Aether 60, we had a lot of comments about the size of our packs. Our total weight was 13kg almost half of the typical load. We were happy and dry , most were wet and tired. BTW, we did not take the ferry at the end but walked out. There is some amazing flora and fauna there and very little traffic.Be ready for heavy rain and even snow in Dec/Jan.
Franco

[Frolicking Dinosaurs]

<soapbox on> .....I went about making a much better version of a 2-hoop tent that incorporates absolutely everything I know about designing single-wall shelters. The result is that the Cloudburst is just plain better-- from precision CAD engineering that actually cares about things like catenary curves and pole flex, to the internal space and total weight, to the quality of the materials.<soapbox off>Sing it loud, Henry. I have to say that your designs are among the best I have seen for real-world use. The big box companies and some of the smaller manufactures like Go-Lite seem to have lost their understanding of what UL hikers need / want.

I really hoped I would be able to use your double Rainbow, but I wasn't able to get in and out without falling over :(

While I'm singing praises, I will mention Gossamer Gear and Six Moon Designs as well as Tarptent. All three do an excellent job producing real-world worthy designs, providing unwavering quality, and giving excellent customer service.

[Lyle]

Henry
ps e-mail me about a loaner if you would like to try a Tarptent out and see if works for you.

If there is a better sign of the quality of product or customer service you can expect, I don't know what it is.

I don't own a Tarptent yet, I currently use a GoLite Cave and I'm happy. It was my first venture into tarping. I'm also intrigued by hammocks, but not taken the plunge. When I do decide to add to my equipment list, Henry Shires will be right near the top of my considerations based on his reputation and cemented by the type of attitude he displayed here! Love doing business with this type of guy.

By the way, I'm not fishing for a similar offer from Mr. Shires, I'm not really in the market for a new shelter just yet. Just wanted to compliment him on his business attitude.

Lyle

[Beachwalker]

I'll get some condensation on my Virga 1, with the extended beak closed, but then again, I am sleeping in areas where its normally 80-90% humidity anyway. I tend to leave it partially open, or I actually stagger the velcro a little on one side to create gap on the top side for the warm air to flow out... sort of like what Henry has on the Rainbow and the Virga 2, but with nothing supporting it. Works well, gets air out and improves circulation.

Thinking about getting a new one this year, even though the old one is perfect. Trying to decide between a Rainbow (for feeling completely decadent), and a Contrail. The Contrail seems to be a large, improved version of the Virga, which I like... but that Rainbow... mmmmmmm... and I'm 6'3", but only 175#. Odd, but one major thing that's pointing me in the direction of the Contrail is that it LOOKS like my Virga... so when the wife says "Is that a new tent" ... I might just be able to say no honey, same old same old, you just haven't seen it in a while... (as I wipe the drool off the new Contrail).
Decisions, decisions...
And, I poke around your web site now and then Henry, looking to see if we'll have a "New for 2007" category on the What's New section... come on, spill the beans... what are you playing with on that CAD software of yours :rolleyes: !

Cheers,

BeachWalker

[D'Artagnan]

I'm another devotee of the Cloudburst 2. I got mine last year just before TrailDays. Spent my first night in it during a thunderstorm and woke up the next morning nice and dry. I hadn't even seam-sealed it yet. It's a great design and one piece of gear I have never regretted buying. I still ike to hammock in the summertime but the Cloudburst 2 is hard to leave at home. Thanks Henry!

[chicote]

If there is a better sign of the quality of product or customer service you can expect, I don't know what it is.

I don't own a Tarptent yet, I currently use a GoLite Cave and I'm happy. It was my first venture into tarping. I'm also intrigued by hammocks, but not taken the plunge. When I do decide to add to my equipment list, Henry Shires will be right near the top of my considerations based on his reputation and cemented by the type of attitude he displayed here! Love doing business with this type of guy.

By the way, I'm not fishing for a similar offer from Mr. Shires, I'm not really in the market for a new shelter just yet. Just wanted to compliment him on his business attitude.

Lyle

Henry and the rest of the crew at Tarptent are top notch. I would never hesitate to say that. Search the internet and you will find many more satisfied customers - great products and great support!

[sleepwalker]

What do you all think of the contrail. Any users? A pound and a half sounds devine!

[Vince]

I've been eyeing the Rainbow for awhile now. I'll probably sell off the SD Lightning and Eureka Solitaire for it, albeit with one consideration:

Is there an opening between the tub and the tarp? If bug and whatnot can enter, I won't get an ounce of sleep. :-?

[bigcranky]

Is there an opening between the tub and the tarp? If bug and whatnot can enter, I won't get an ounce of sleep. :-?

Yes, but that opening is covered with noseeum mesh. So, no critters will get inside, but the cooling breezes will. That's what makes it a tarptent, and not just a tent.

[Vince]

Awesome. Just the thing I was hoping to hear!

[iliketacos]

I should be getting my contrail this Wednesday.