Tarp camping, am I missing somthing?

[Huli]

I have been reading a bunch about sleeping under a tarp. I get the general idea. What I have not been able to wrap my brain around is this:

What do you do in a downpour so bad that the water runs under the tarp?

Am I to believe the pad or tyvek sheet is going to keepe dry?

Bivy? Sorry, I can't sleep that still, and dang are they expensive!

And what about hot and blackflies? Back to the bivy?

I just don't get it!
Thanks in advance!

[Malto]

Well, you pretty much summed up the challenges. While there are several types of tarps, all with pros and cons, most of your post deals with a floorless shelter. You can chose a bivy, ground sheet or even a bug inner net. For the west, I normally will go with a bivy. In the east it is the bug inner. There are few less pleasant nights than a hot buggy night. You have to chose between sweating in a bivy or getting eaten alive. the last time this happen I made the switch to a bug inner.

as far as water running under the tarp, site selection is key. But it is with floored shelters as well.

[Wise Old Owl]

I have been reading a bunch about sleeping under a tarp. I get the general idea. What I have not been able to wrap my brain around is this:

What do you do in a downpour so bad that the water runs under the tarp?

Am I to believe the pad or tyvek sheet is going to keep me dry?

No - it may keep the dirt off not much more.

Bivy? Sorry, I can't sleep that still, and dang are they expensive!

Find the one that is affordable to you.... They are there to extend the life of a expensive sleep system. More recent sleep systems do not require a bivy. And not everyone uses a bivy.

And what about hot and blackflies? Back to the bivy?

Huge mistake a bivy will at 70° and the right humidity will turn the night into an oven bag. - In Canada. It is up to you to find a suitable micro mesh that is not a head net that works for you. What may work in a pinch is sleeping on top of the bag inside the bivy - but it can be still a nasty night sleep. You may sweat buckets.

[Cheyou]

Site selection is very important . Bug problems are over rated. A head net works most of the time . Full bug net is only 4oz. Shelters have the same bug issue .

[Huli]

Great info all! Glad I am not completely off track.

My current plan includes bug head net, until it gets hot. If I don't figure this out I am just going to stick with standard tent. I will take the weight over the super complex any day.

[Slo-go'en]

On the At having bug protection is as important, if not more so, then protection from rain. In any event, you do need a ground cloth. There will be times when the ground will be very wet or even muddy where you have to set up. By the time you add bug protection to a tarp set up, simply using a tent is no more weight and less hassle.

That said, I will be using the MSD Gatewood cape and Serenity net combo on my next hike. My reasoning is thus: I will be doing the northern half of a Harper's Ferry flip flop and the shelters will be relatively empty, so I will use them more often. Having a bug net which can be set up in a shelter maybe very handy come Mass and Vermont in late May or early June. The down side of this combo is that it is very tight quarters.

[Feral Bill]

A tent in a puddle, unless maybe if it's brand new, will be wet inside. Often very wet. Places that flood are obvious, and usually at hardened sites.
A bug net is a cheap, easy, light ad on that can be left at home outside bug season.
A tarp over a hammock with a bug net solves both problems.

[bigcranky]

+1 on site selection - you shouldn't be tarp camping where water will run under you in a storm. Bugs are often not an issue, and a head net will work. Bivies can be useful if you choose a very small tarp, but with an 8x10 or larger they are not necessary.

Tarps were popular with UL hikers for years, but with solo tents in the 16-24 ounce range, the tarp+bivy option is less useful IMO. Still works for some folks.

[Franco]

Tarp camping, am I missing somthing?

yes, you are missing an e
(sorry, I could not resist it)

On a recent thread I posted that as much as a 3" or so bathtub floor would seem very shallow to the 25" floor brigade it would also seem an overkill to the no floor fans.
In other words it is all about what works for you because of where you are, your knowledge and abilities and what you would call wet/cold/hot/humid/windy.....

[Mountain Mike]

Years ago I did a lot of tarp camping. A "light" tent then was around 6 pounds. With new tents weight isn't as much of an issue. More so when you have to add a bug screen or bivy. For me now, a tarp or a bivy are reserved for shorter hikes when they are appropriate, like post bug season where there is little chance of rain.

[AlyontheAT2016]

My tent (Big Agnes Fly Creek 2) weighs 42 ounces including rainfly, footprint, poles, and extra stakes. I had initially thought to go with a tarp, but my tent offers me more privacy.

[RockDoc]

Tarps can be OK as long as the storms are not constant.
I did most of VA with a Gatewood cape, camping almost every night including a night of a major frontal storm with high winds, tornados, and several inches of rain. It was fierce. In the morning my hiking friend looked out of his nice new tent and said "did you survive?". Yes, I did. Some dirt splash on the ground cloth but I did stay dry. The tarp was pitched very low, knowing that the storm would be a bad one. In 25 days, this was the only real bad storm. You have to know how to pitch a tarp for a bad storm!

[Dogwood]

Tarp camping, am I missing somthing?

YES, but most do. There can be a considerable amount to necessarily know to be a proficient happy tarp user. And, no one knows everything. BTW, you're missing an "e' too in something.

Literally, have 100's upon 100's of nights under a tarp. Spent many many a comfortable night dry not hot not getting eaten by bugs not getting myself or gear soaked in all night torrential downpours, under heavy bug pressure, with snow falling, wind howling, etc.

With proper site selection, which applies as several have indicated to fully enclosed tents as well, adequate sized tarps, appropriate tarp configuration for the conditions(rain, snow, wind), addition of a highly water resistant breathable bivy w/ a waterproof lower half w/ a nanoseeum partial(MLD Lite Soul for example) or full head net(Titanium Goat Ptarmigan for example) not enclosing myself in it(not always a need to and there rarely is IMHO when also using a tarp, in hot conditions the bivy can usually function as a sleeping bag and ground sheet), an inner net(sometimes referred to as a bug bivy, lots of examples, Zpack's Hexanet, Bear Paw's Pyranet, Outdoor Research's Bug Bivy, Antigravity Gear's/Six Moon Design's Serenity Net, Hyperlight Mountain Gear's Echo inserts, YamaGear's Cirriform net Inserts, Mountain Laurel Designs Bug Bivy are several examples), a groundsheet(I prefer cheap SUL window film - polycro), a bathtub raised edge groundsheet(I've made several out of different fabrics/materials - CF, polycro, silny, Tyvek, cellophane, etc, makes a doable MYOG cheap project), I'm fine as far as bugs and/or heavy downpours.

Many examples of different tarps that cause some confusion. Different tarps can possibly be configured in different ways which adds to a wider necessary knowledge and usage base to be a proficient tarp user. Not everyone wants to think much on trail about things like these. I get it. That's fine. Many types of bivies and their different uses that cause additional confusion. I disagree about the high cost of bivies. They have a wide dollar cost range from as little as $30-$40 to $400 or more. There's a table of reasonably up to date UL bivies with specs floating around on the internet you can look for if inclined.

I usually get away with just a flat wide enough ground sheet, which for me is about 32-34" wide. IF, by some event, which I can count on one hand, I get water running under the tarp will fold under a bit of the ground sheet creating a psuedo bathtub floor or place a water bottle or my shoes under the edge of the ground sheet to raise it up in the direction the water is flowing. If water is coming up from all around me under the tarp that's a sure sign my campsite selection was a mistake or I'm being swallowed up in a sink hole. That ideally shouldn't happen using a tent either.

If I erect a tarp on dry ground, configuring the tarp for storm conditions, and then during the night I experience all night downpours or snow I will take down my tarp in the morn and the ground coverage under the tarp will still be dry, water and/or snow free. That's an indication I made a wise site selection, used the right config., and used the correct gear for the conditions.

One of the benefits with some tents and certainly with most tarps is that they are modular. I can purchase components as desired in phases like when funds come in or my GF gives me back my credit cards or anticipated future conditions arise. I can add/remove components to tweak shelter characteristics based on what I've researched about anticipated trail conditions, my ever evolving hiking style, hike intentions, etc. For me, why do I want to carry the wt and bulk of bug netting when there is little or no chance of significant bug pressure? For me, why do I need a heavier more expensive bathtub floor, especially if it's made from CF, when a flat $ 3 sheet of polycro will address the conditions? For me, when I want to use a tarp in "tent mode" with an inner like a ZP Hexamid Solo + or a MLD Grace CF than I can have that too. No need to carry materials, wt, bulk, add to a gear investment cost, etc when I don't want to. Downside is there is more of a fiddle complexity factor that some don't want to be "hassled" by. Then again they aren't LD hiking with sub 15 lb kits which includes 8 lbs of consumable wt.

Hope that helps.

Got to get back to finishing a sub $10 sub 3 oz polycro bathtub floor w/ shock cord tie outs now for a Solomid XL.

[Studlintsean]

Dogwood- good insight. Care to share some pics and materials used on that floor for the solomid XL? I currently own a duomid that I've used on a few trips (and plan to use tomorrow night) with a simple groundsheet. I survived a night of hard rain this winter but was smart enough to setup in the leaves (vs sites at a shelter). Heading to the WRR this summer and was thinking about making something with some raised edges for a bit more piece of mind if I get caught in a nasty storm (and make a poor decision) a few days walk from the trailhead. Thanks

[Miner]

If you have water running under or collecting under the Tarp, you choose your campsite poorly. You do have to put a little thought into where you camp with a tarp. And there is more of a learning curve then with a tent. So you will make some mistakes during the learning process. The first thing, don't camp where people have been camping for 20+ years. The ground will be compacted into a bowl and will collect water. The ground will also have the hardness of concrete so you'll need a thicker sleep pad to sleep there. So don't.

I've been using a tarp since 2006 and have been in all sorts of weather. That and bugs have not been an issue. I have only experienced water running under my tarp once. And it was because I choose a poor campsite in the dark late at night. I knew it was less then ideal, but I just wanted to goto sleep and compromised too much on the site. Wouldn't have happened if I had stopped earlier instead of doing a forced march at night to make up some miles. What I did was pack up before things got worse and hiked on. It was close enough to morning to not be worth trying to find a better spot in the dark while it was raining. Took a very long nap at lunch to try to catch up on the lost sleep.

[Huli]

All good info!
Here is the missing letter --> e
😝

I get the idea of sight selection, have only had an issue once in my tent, because I rained for 3 days non-stop.

Usually I am in a hammock, I want to figure out this tarp thing so in case there is an issue with the hammock I can use the tarp with carrying a complete additional tent.

[Lyle]

Site selection is very important . Bug problems are over rated. A head net works most of the time . Full bug net is only 4oz. Shelters have the same bug issue .

Exactly what I was going to say. In 40 years of regular backpacking, I can count on one hand the number of nights where bugs were what I would call terrible. Maybe 15 or 20 nights when they were substantially annoying. By far, the vast majority of time they are a non-issue or easily controlled with a head net and long sleeves/pants. Very occasionally, a bit of DEET can also help, but my repellent bottles usually leak the repellent out before I get around to using it. I have been using tarps of one form or another for many years now, in the east and out west.

Pay attention to where you decide to pitch your tarp and you avoid the vast majority of bug issues.

[Tipi Walter]

A tent in a puddle, unless maybe if it's brand new, will be wet inside. Often very wet. Places that flood are obvious, and usually at hardened sites.

You may be right about most tent floors leaking. Look at the tent floor deniers and hydrostatic heads they are using---20/30 denier floors with low hydro head. Some floors never leak, even when sitting in a small lake with me on them. My Hilleberg tent floors may be the best on the market and they have never leaked in Lake Effect or Ground Sheeting, the two phenoms which happen in Southeast deluges.

If you have water running under or collecting under the Tarp, you choose your campsite poorly. You do have to put a little thought into where you camp with a tarp. And there is more of a learning curve then with a tent.

The policy of "proper site selection" is usually the sound bite which comes out from a discussion about ground water coming under a tarp, but as Miner said, he did set up once at night and got ground water---due to lateness of the day or being tired or getting dark.

But too many people use the "proper site selection" mantra to justify their use of substandard shelters like tarps or UL tents for the conditions at hand. In the Southeast mountains where I set up (think NC and VA and TN), ground water is always a possibility no matter where you set up camp. I have seen hard rain deluges cover an area in sheeting ground water in pristine campsites never used before; it all depends on how hard it rains.

I have posted this vid several times before but it's a good indication as to what can happen in the Southeast during a thunderstorm. This campsite was new and not packed down into concrete and was on top of a 5,300 foot ridge with adequate drainage, except all drainage must pass over the ground in sheets---



If it rains hard enough, this will inevitably happen no matter where you are camped. The tons of water hitting your tent or tarp must drain off the fabric and guess where all this water goes? Onto the ground and around your tarp and eventually it has to flow somewhere to get where it wants to go, i.e. under your shelter, as it makes its way off site. Even a tilted "well-drained" site will get this ground sheeting water.

I know what it's like to be under a tarp when ground water hits---Everything is piled high on my sleeping pad and I squat in the middle waiting for the pool to subside. Otherwise, you wake up with a wet sleeping bag because the water finds its way over your ground cloth.

SITE SELECTION
I'm a firm believer in letting your shelter dictate where you set up and not the site. Therefore a good shelter gives a person more freedom to camp wherever they want or must despite the lay of the land. (Within reason---you wouldn't set up in a creekbed before a flood or under a dead pine snag in a windstorm).




These are examples of what can happen in the Southeast if it rains hard enough. And this was taken on Whiggs Meadow at 5,000 feet in January 2014 after a 150 hour rainstorm. Yes, a long 6 day rain. A good tent floor will keep you and all your gear dry in such conditions.

[Dogwood]

If you have water running under or collecting under the Tarp, you choose your campsite poorly. You do have to put a little thought into where you camp with a tarp. And there is more of a learning curve then with a tent. So you will make some mistakes during the learning process. The first thing, don't camp where people have been camping for 20+ years. The ground will be compacted into a bowl and will collect water. The ground will also have the hardness of concrete so you'll need a thicker sleep pad to sleep there. So don't.

I've been using a tarp since 2006 and have been in all sorts of weather. That and bugs have not been an issue. I have only experienced water running under my tarp once. And it was because I choose a poor campsite in the dark late at night. I knew it was less then ideal, but I just wanted to goto sleep and compromised too much on the site. Wouldn't have happened if I had stopped earlier instead of doing a forced march at night to make up some miles. What I did was pack up before things got worse and hiked on. It was close enough to morning to not be worth trying to find a better spot in the dark while it was raining. Took a very long nap at lunch to try to catch up on the lost sleep.

+1 This. Glad another experienced more qualified to answer tarper is chiming in.

You may be right about most tent floors leaking. Look at the tent floor deniers and hydrostatic heads they are using---20/30 denier floors with low hydro head. Some floors never leak, even when sitting in a small lake with me on them. My Hilleberg tent floors may be the best on the market and they have never leaked in Lake Effect or Ground Sheeting, the two phenoms which happen in Southeast deluges.



The policy of "proper site selection" is usually the sound bite which comes out from a discussion about ground water coming under a tarp, but as Miner said, he did set up once at night and got ground water---due to lateness of the day or being tired or getting dark.

But too many people use the "proper site selection" mantra to justify their use of substandard shelters like tarps or UL tents for the conditions at hand. In the Southeast mountains where I set up (think NC and VA and TN), ground water is always a possibility no matter where you set up camp. I have seen hard rain deluges cover an area in sheeting ground water in pristine campsites never used before; it all depends on how hard it rains.

I have posted this vid several times before but it's a good indication as to what can happen in the Southeast during a thunderstorm. This campsite was new and not packed down into concrete and was on top of a 5,300 foot ridge with adequate drainage, except all drainage must pass over the ground in sheets---



If it rains hard enough, this will inevitably happen no matter where you are camped. The tons of water hitting your tent or tarp must drain off the fabric and guess where all this water goes? Onto the ground and around your tarp and eventually it has to flow somewhere to get where it wants to go, i.e. under your shelter, as it makes its way off site. Even a tilted "well-drained" site will get this ground sheeting water.

I know what it's like to be under a tarp when ground water hits---Everything is piled high on my sleeping pad and I squat in the middle waiting for the pool to subside. Otherwise, you wake up with a wet sleeping bag because the water finds its way over your ground cloth.

SITE SELECTION
I'm a firm believer in letting your shelter dictate where you set up and not the site. Therefore a good shelter gives a person more freedom to camp wherever they want or must despite the lay of the land. (Within reason---you wouldn't set up in a creekbed before a flood or under a dead pine snag in a windstorm).




These are examples of what can happen in the Southeast if it rains hard enough. And this was taken on Whiggs Meadow at 5,000 feet in January 2014 after a 150 hour rainstorm. Yes, a long 6 day rain. A good tent floor will keep you and all your gear dry in such conditions.

While I agree a flat or even shaped tarp may not be the most ideal shelter in all situations for all people neither are they relegated as a substandard shelters as a matter of generality when employed in experienced hands.

I've slept atop Whiggs Meadow several times(just missed you Tipi on one occasion). Two times in downpours. Once on a BMT/AT Loop experiencing rain 14 days out of 17. It rained on that hike for four days straight with a 1/2 day morning let up just previous to that wind driven heavy nightly rainfall Whiggs Meadow stay. I know the site you set up your Hilleberg. I chose not to camp in that site because it was compacted probably by previous farm machinery, growing of crops, raising of livestock, possible automobiles or horses that visited the meadow in the past creating compacted ruts/depressions(It was once a farmed homestead!), and what looked to me like an old compacted heavily used campsite from the past. Plus, as you can observe in your last campsite photo, it's on a slight downslope. Notice where the water is channeling down to your site, in what is obvious to me even if there wasn't water, a slight compacted depression likely cause by horses, motor vehicles, livestock trail, etc. That little green island with the depression around the island holding water in front of your tent is likely an old camp fire ring. I recognized all these things even though there wasn't nearly that degree of standing water when I've last tarped on Whiggs Meadow in rain. Instead, on both rainy night stays I chose higher ground with ground sloping away on all sides closer to or in the treeline or opted on that non windy but rainy other night to tarp out in the open in an A frame battened down side config on the highest Whigds Meadow ground not directly in a highly compacted typical campsite that had grass growing. Beautiful!

[QiWiz]

For a tarp + groundsheet shelter, finding a raised spot from which the ground slopes away in all directions is a skill to cultivate for keeping water at bay. You can use some kind of headnet, or "net tent" inside the tarp for bug protection. There are even shaped tarps that have bathtub floors and netting (like Zpacks Solplex), if you want to have all of the advantages and none of the disadvantages of simple tarps. Or look at poncho tarps like the Gatewood cape with NetTent. I love tarps.