Anybody use their tarp to add vestibule size to their tent without poles? I'm thinking about arranging the tarp using the tent's frame and guylines only to provide weather coverage to the front of the tent. I use a Eureka! Amari Pass 2 man. Maybe I just need to buy some cheap poles . -Jake
Cheap poles, or trees. Otherwise, you're just making a longer, slightly less angled vestibule. I picked up a roached tent from Goodwill, and used the poles from it.
Roached tent... I like that . I'll see what I can find locally to see whether it'll be worth messing around with. -Jake
scratch and dent sale at the local outdoor gear store . . . or, as a last resort, Target/KMart/Walmart tent (13.95 is Walmart's cheapest, accoding to Google).
My cheap gene says to check out a pair of Ozark Trail Trekking Poles from Walmart. 17-18 bucks. They are great for tarp poles. And they double as trekking poles!
Wow! What a deal that is. I have the Noah 16 and love it. It totally changed my camping experience from wet, to dry. To have the tent covered by the tarp, with my bike under it too, and still having a large front "porch" covered area in front of the tent door is fantastic. I don't have any poles and have used my tent and bike as the high points when there were no trees available, but I do plan to get a couple poles at least 6' tall. I did use a tent pole as a tarp pole on my ride to Alaska but it is much too flexible. A tarp pole needs to be larger diameter to stay straight. It had started to sprinkle rain as soon as I finished setting up my camp in the picture below, but the rain got heavier until it was pouring down complete with thunder and lightning show. It was so nice to be warm and dry in my tent, and able to leave my boots and other gear outside the door of the tent on my little blue tarp front porch. Camping in Alaska is often a wet weekend. Not much fun sitting in full rain gear around a campfire until climbing into a tent all wet and trying to not get everything inside wet. If it is raining I can set up the tarp from underneath it and only come out to tie off the lines. Then I set my ground cover out and put the tent together all under the tarp. I don't have a wet tent to pack or set up, I don't have wet gear to pack, the only thing wet would be my riding rain gear and the tarp. However, I do NOT use the Kelty tarp bag. It is much too small to get the tarp in unless it is folded perfectly. I have a stuff bag that I stuff the tarp into from the middle, leaving the tie down corners at the mouth of the bag with their cords attached. Here is the comparison, my stuff bag and the Kelty bag: My wife made the stuff bag for me, but any camping stuff sack of similar size works great.
I use my Noah 12 for hammock camping and also in the way you described. Here it is pressed into service during some intermittent rain in Michigan somewhere last summer.
Looks like I may be using my Tiger as an anchor point on this trip . Even without trees it should be tall enough to make the tarp work. -Jake
Concerning the Noah's tarp: I hang mine in the diamond pattern, and keep a "pair" of 15-foot guy-lines on the long corners, and a single 8-foot line on each side corner. I keep stakes on all of the lines. I have two (I used to only have one) 7-foot Kelty collapsible poles as well. The reason for two lines on the long corners is that I can stick their stakes i the ground, then put a pole tip in the corner grommet, then keep tension on things as I slide my hand to the other long corner (i.e., the pole won't fall over), and do the same, or just tie it to something (tree, bike, etc.). This is followed by staking out the side corners. That said, when I pull into a campsite in the rain, I keep my riding gear on, and put on my FroggTogs rain hat, and can have the tarp up in under four minutes. I then set up my freestanding dome tent while under the tarp, and slide its backside out into the rain, leaving the door under the tarp. I then set up my chair, and relax a tad....
Nice setup! I'll likely be setting it up in the rain several times on this trip with my luck . Having just one pole allows you to do some fairly creative things with a tarp. -Jake
The addition of a tarp is a game changer with any kind of weather, hot or cold. For anyone contemplating carrying one or buying one, while the Noah is a nice tarp bear in mind it is big and heavy. It is coated ripstop nylon, about a 3-4oz weight fabric. For a guy on a big heavy road bike he probly has lots of other heavy gear and he's packed heavy so he doesn't care. However IF YOU DO CARE then you want a SIL-NYLON fabric tarp. They are silicone coated 1-1.3oz ripstop. They pack at about the third the size and weight of the bigger standard nylon tarps. A sil-nylon tarp of this size weighs less than a pound and packs the size of a softball. Unfortunately, yes they do cost about three times as much as well. Unless you make it yourself! Just FYI. My sil-nylon tarp I made (up-thread report and how-to) is tied off the ez-up here. I carry one 3-piece kelty aluminum pole and all the guylines and ridge. It packs about a third the size of the example above. The day I finished it...I was so excited!
I DIDN'T take my tarp on my Big Bend adventure. It would have made short hydration and energy bar breaks shady, and, therefor, much more pleasant. A mistake I won't repeat.
I second browneye's comments on sil-nylon, and I have a smaller one I use for backpacking. I just happened to already have a Noah's tarp. Your earlier post is great browneye, and that is a beautiful tarp!
A newish fabric for tarps is Silpoly (silicone polyester)- it's big advantage over silnylon is it doesn't sretch when wet, so your tarp stays taunt in the rain. It's slightly weaker than Silnylon (weight for weight), but it is more UV resistant.
One thing you might consider if Kelty still use the same stuff sack for their tarps as they did when I bought mine years ago is getting a better stuff sack (Walmart or Target will have some pretty cheap). The one from Kelty that I got was long and narrow and it was a pain in the rear to stuff the tarp back in it. This is not necessary, but I'll bet after a few times putting it back, you'll do this.
Looks like I got my stuff out in BFE within two business days which is impressive. I don't have trees in my backyard so I used the fence to do a simple lean-to and diamond pattern canopy. Setting up was much quicker than I had thought it would be. The dog isn't sure he likes it yet, but I do. The first things I'll be doing are buying a barrel shaped stuff sack and some MSR groundhog style stakes. I was able to get it back into the original bag this time but it took longer than I'd like and it will be easier to pack on the bike in a barrel shaped bag. -Jake
