Quote Originally Posted by Hangfire View Post
So I'm guessing they had their tents set up in the shelter in an attempt to dry them out? It was a rainy day as the OP stated. I only saw this once on my thru-hike and it was a small half dome style tent that didn't take up more room than a foot print...the shelter filled but no one said anything because it didn't take up any extra room.
But a tent can be dried without being pitched and shelters have ways to hang things. That a tent needs to be pitched to be dried is confusing to me.

When I return from trips and dry (or as I like to say "dehydrate") my tent before putting it away, I hang it from the shower curtain rod in my bathroom, unpitched, and it dries a treat.

Are the rest of you pitching your tents to dry them? Is there some advantage to pitching a tent dry?

Or is this simply the excuse that shelter tenters are giving themselves for a lack of consideration? Because I continue to see no reason why someone needs to be in a shelter in a shelter.

If the goal was simply to keep a tent dry that hadn't yet gotten wet, then not using the tent at all would have done. Or keeping the poles out and using the tent as inefficient bug netting, suspended from the shelter roof, if bugs are that much of a concern. But if it was raining, then naturally, bugs aren't a concern. Bugs don't swarm in the rain.

Surely there is something that I am failing to understand, here.

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