Larger tarp shelters

[Nemo of Calh]

I love my tarp shelter. It's so light and versatile, and a simple diamond fly can handle most types of weather.

But last week was Dagorhir's biggest event, Ragnarok, and it was a week of solid rain. Luckily, I had the forethought to take my 10'x12' that lasted through a hurricane at the 2005 National Scout Jamboree, so I was one of the few people at the event who walked out with most of their equipment dry. It had another advantage of allowing me to stand up and change or stretch my legs if I was rained in. I don't want to always have to use a modern tent, though, if I want to be comfortable at long events.

I thought about some sort of pavillion, but I enjoy packing light. I don't want many poles, not even as many as I would need for some sort of carousel pavillion like Panther Primitives makes. I also feel like my character wouldn't have a second tent.

What he would have, however, is friends. I've seen some shelters made out of many military shelter halves, and I'm thinking about trying the same thing with tarps, the idea being that Nemo and some friends need additional room and body heat while they were stopped for a while, so they combined all their shelters into a mega shelter. Only I would be using the extra space for my own gear.

So, does anyone know of any tarp shelters that can be made with multiple tarps combined? I have a 12'x12' Panther Primitives Trail Tarp, and I can always get more.

[Daerir]

What I would personally do is buy a regular tarp and somehow attach snaps to it or you could fold the edge over and put a row of eyelets through the over lap, tie it to another tarp and fold the flap back over. I carry a 8'x10' tarp with a long piece of rope, (you could use paracord, nylon, twine, something that isn't stretchy). Tie the rope to a tree or a post about 2 or 3 feet from the bottom, then you have 2 options:
1.) Tie a loop in the end and drive it into the ground with the rope pulled tight
2.) Pull the rope tight and tie it to another tree at the same level.

Once your rope is up, half the tarp over it and stake it to the ground through the eyelets, pulled tight on either side. Then if you want you can put rocks on the tarp on the ground to keep it down and you can also take branches, leaves, dirt, etc. to camouflage it, although my tarp is hunter green so I don't usually do that

[deadextra]

My main idea about larger tents is that if it is housing multiple individuals is that one carries the tarp and others food and other gear, then the poles are their polearms. This is just supposition, I haven't seen depictions of tents other than late period pavilions. Here are some configurations I've employed before that are good for different situations: http://nwwoodsman.com/Articles/TarpSetUp.html

[Nemo of Calh]

Oh, wow. That's probably the coolest tarp shelter I've ever seen. Once I get back from my Fourth of July trip, I'm definitely going to have to try that. Hopefully my tent being 12'x12' instead of 9'x12' won't matter. I'm pretty short, so a six foot high peak sounds like plenty of room, and being able to easily close the front of the tent for privacy will be great. I even have a bunch of extra stakes, so I could put all of the stakes in, then tie the points to different stakes depending on the configuration I want. I'm looking forward to this. Thanks for the link!

[Nemo of Calh]

It's rained every single day for almost three weeks now, so I just got a chance to set up the tarp shelter in that configuration. Obviously I haven't tried it for real yet, but this is probably my new favorite way to set it up, provided, of course, that I have an appropriately sized pole.

I may not be able to set up a cot in it, but near the peak there's plenty of room to kneel, and for most of the tent there's enough room to sit up. Even though my shelter is a bit smaller than the 9' x 12' (I thought mine was 12' x 12', but, without measuring, it's closer to 8' or 10' x 10'), the side is long enough to fit a bedroll, and the space between the walls and the center support pole is comfortably wide. Since the tarp is made of oilskin, it doesn't leak if you touch it while it's wet, though that does make it incredibly hot inside. The other half of the tent should be able to store all of my gear well, though the chest I take with me to events to store my armor and such will have to be pulled outside of the tent before I can open it.

One of the best aspects has to be the fact that I don't have to crawl to get into the tent. It should be pretty windproof as long as the wind isn't coming from the front. I may add a flap to cover the gap between the two door flaps, and that would help quite a bit if there was a sudden shift in the wind.

So, I may still eventually want to get a huge period tent so that I can use a cot, have a chair, and stand up, but this is definitely going to work just fine for a long time to come.

[deadextra]

When I have erected a shelter in that configuration before, it has been maybe smaller than yours since I ended up shoving my things to the back corner of the shelter and curling up by the door and pole. I placed my shield in the front to cover the gap and I stayed dry through some pretty good rain over two nights. Something you may want to watch is the effects on your polearm from being used like that. I used an SCA halbard for mine and soon afterwards the head ripped off in combat. The strain on the adhesive may have played a part in this.

[Nemo of Calh]

Thanks for the tip. I used my pollaxe trainer because it happened to be the right height. I'm going to make a better pole before I use the tent for any length of time. I did notice the stabbing tip staining oddly, so I took that section off of the pole. Now the hammer head is just preventing the loop and the rope from sliding down the pole, which isn't where most of the force is.

I would have taken it down, but, of course, it rained again. . .

[Chris Russo]

I've seen some very nice shelters made by combining tarps about that size. These were done by the American Mountain Men at their demonstration in the Catskills a year or two back.

(Scroll down after clicking link)

http://outoftheashes.xanga.com/2013/09/ ... e-2011-061
http://outoftheashes.xanga.com/2013/09/ ... e-2011-062

[Cinead]

Enjoy:

http://s16.photobucket.com/user/Stonedo ... ort=3&o=19

If you use a 10x10 tarp....it will be about 5' high at the front....easy to sit under, in a chair....nice and dry....of course, this will work with pretty much any size tarp!

[Nemo of Calh]

Sorry I haven't replied for a while, but I got a chance to try this shelter this weekend, and it was amazing! Plenty of room for my bedroll along the side, and plenty of room on either side of that to shift during the night. The high entrance made it easy to get in and out and move gear around from outside the tent. It was incredibly easy to set up even though it was dark. Not having a floor actually made it more comfortable than a normal tent, in my opinion, but it did lead to a creepy event one night where, as I was climbing into my blankets, my hand brushed a weird slimy thing on the ground. I turned on a light quickly and saw what I thought was an absolutely huge worm. I'm not creeped out by worms or even snakes, but I flicked it out of the tent with my tomahawk. The next morning I looked at it, and it turned out it was a fishing lure. We were set up right next to a pond. Of course, if there were old lures sitting around, I'd hate to think about what other fishing stuff might be lying in the grass around there. . .

I also was relatively comfortable in mid 40s temperatures for the first time ever thanks to finally thinking keeping warm through. I always use my Therma-Rest air mattress, and my plan is to make a cover for it so it isn't glaringly modern. The idea behind that is that, if I weren't at a campground, there would be leaves and such to stuff into the cover for insulation, but, since there's never anything on the ground, I simulate that with a thin air mattress. I used my haversack stuffed with my extra clothes as a pretty darn comfortable pillow. I used two wool blankets, which made the whole tent roll a bit thick but I could go with just one in the summer. I was only wearing linen, so no insulation there, but I left my boots on so my feet were always warm. I did make one big concession, though, and that was that I brought my modern backpacking sleeping bag with me. It's a mummy bag, but, instead of sleeping in it with the blankets over me, I opened the bag up and used it as an additional blanket. I don't think that in and of itself gave me much insulation, but what did was putting the mummy part over my head. Once I breathed into it for a couple of minutes, I was nice and toasty warm. So, I have to come up with something similar to that for the final kit.

I wish I had some pictures of the event, especially since I set up right next to Frothgar's shelter, but I never thought about it. Also, there were modern tents next to and behind mine. I'll be using this set-up for all of my weekend events from now on, since it's so easy and comfortable for these shorter events. It also gives me plenty of privacy for myself and my valuables at night. I might still go with a larger tent for week long events, though, just so I can have a cot and have room to stand up. Maybe I'll get one that is theoretically multiple of these tarps placed together. Who knows?

[Taurinor]

Sorry about the necro-posting, but I was looking up tarp tent setups when I found this video showing how to put two tarps together into a tent -



It reminded me of this topic, so I figured I'd put it up here.

[Kortoso]

My main idea about larger tents is that if it is housing multiple individuals is that one carries the tarp and others food and other gear, then the poles are their polearms. This is just supposition, I haven't seen depictions of tents other than late period pavilions. Here are some configurations I've employed before that are good for different situations: http://nwwoodsman.com/Articles/TarpSetUp.html

I like that; nothing is more stable than a tripod, and many times the ground is too soft or too hard to root a vertical pole.
Mind, a Ranger in the field would harvest saplings for tent poles.

[Daerir]

I have an old military pup tent now that I carry. I don't think its that heavy and it rolls up nicely with all the stakes and the two poles in it. If push came to shove, it comes in two parts so if I have a second ranger with me, we can share the load, as Samwise once said.