Tarp or tent,, opinions ?

C

CellerDrummer

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I have allways slept out in a tent and own several...Most of the threads I read,, I see mostly tarps being used as shelter..Is it because of the weight savings or another reason??
CD
 
It depends on your style of camping, your other gear, and your AO. In many environments the weather will allow for tarp camping. Tarp camping can be light, you can use a fire for heat while you sleep. You get to see the sky, hear your surroundings, and they are inexpensive.
I backpacked in mountains of New Mexico quite a bit when I lived there. I loved my bivy sack, I would start off sleeping with it open, and maybe have to get inside. Other times I had a girlfriend and she wanted the tent. My tent is a convertable tent, great for wet, windy, or very cold conditions when fire is not an option.

Now I'm back in KY, I'm re-thinking my options. I've used both my bivy and tent this past summer. I have a dog, she comes with pro's and con's. In my tent, under my Kifaru Woobie, she and I are comortable down to about 30 degrees. I've slept under a tarp with her and she's up throughout the night, barks at noises etc. In my tent she just sleeps better, pays less attention to the random noises. Both of us don't fit in the bivy, she does try.

I see a tarp as a nice weather option, and to be used with an all night fire. I already own the tent, so during wet and cold weather, I just take it.
 
Tarps are great if all you need protection from is a bit of rain or dew. They are a minimal shelter that provides a large footprint for the amount of weight, and they allow you to utilize a fire next to your shelter. Tarps make a better living shelter, but tents make a superior sleeping shelter.

Tarps also typically take longer to pitch than a tent, usually reduce your campsite options, and are NOT the shelter of choice if you're dealing with lots of rain, wind, bugs, or snakes. Sleeping under a tarp is significantly cooler than sleeping in a tent, which can be good or bad, though in much of the world if it's hot at night, it's also buggy and snakey at night.

I have tents that are almost completely constructed of mesh and give the same open-air feeling of a tarp, but without having to worry about sharing my sleeping bag with other life forms. I also have mountaineering tents that will completely seal up against blowing snow and sand, regardless of the wind velocity. I've crawled out of a tent after a hard night of rain and found the whole camp, tent included, sitting in two inches of water. The bathtub floor of the tent kept me dry. A tarp would have just sucked.

When weight is not a bit deal I use both. A tent to sleep in and a tarp for a cooking/living area. When weight is a concern I usually use a tarp and a jungle hammock, or a small tent. You can split the difference by taking the rain fly off your tent and substituting a tarp that you pitch over it if it's going to be wet.

I look at some of the tarp shelters and by the time you add up the weight of the tarp, cords, ground cloth, stakes (or chopping tools to make them) I'm quite sure it's heavier than a proper backpacking tent.

I often find sleeping in a tent unnerving because I cannot look around as easily, but while a tent provides no actual protection from predators, bear experts agree that a tent reduces the risk of bear attack verses sleeping without one.
 
My MSR hubba is around 3 pounds. It can also be pitched with just the rain fly or the rain fly and ground sheet leaving the "tent" section at home for more weight saving. A good backpacking tarp is not cheap and cheap tarps are not light. If your on a really low budget and do not mind weight then a cheap tarp could make sense. For me a tent is way more versatile.
 
Tarps are great if you have plenty of trees to use for setting them up and bugs are not a major concern. I still use my tarp a lot, and prefer it to a tent, but I've lately went with a Shires tarptent as it is better suited to being set up where there aren't any trees, and it has bug net and floor built in so it gives a guy a place to do stuff without mosquitos draining you of your will to live.

A tarp can be used in very foul weather, but it requires some real thought and planning to set it up for that.
 
i never owned a tent (and only used once when i was 10 or so camping with friends) so i guess i'm just used to a tarp. also, whenever i pitch my 10'x10' as an a-frame i always feel too sheltered from the woods/can't look up to see the stars that i might as well have stayed home. at least in good weather i can pitch it more openly and quickly bring down the sides if i need to. like most gear i haven't tried first hand though, i haven't completely ruled out tents. at some point i'd like to try one again since i think they have their time and place.


sutured said:
...but while a tent provides no actual protection from predators, bear experts agree that a tent reduces the risk of bear attack verses sleeping without one.
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that's good to know! i'm thinking it's a visual barrier to bears, fools them into thinking it's some kind of a strong wall they can't go through or something like that. i'm now going to pitch my 10'x10' in an a-frame even in perfect weather whenever i feel wussy while camping in the known bear areas around here :D
 
sutured said:
Tarps also typically take longer to pitch than a tent, usually reduce your campsite options, and are NOT the shelter of choice if you're dealing with lots of rain, wind, bugs, or snakes. Sleeping under a tarp is significantly cooler than sleeping in a tent, which can be good or bad, though in much of the world if it's hot at night, it's also buggy and snakey at night.
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I'm not sure I agree with all of this. I find a tarp faster to set up than a tent, but it requires trees to do so. I also find that a tarp provides excellent rain protection providing you don't skimp on size. My 9 x 7.5' silnylon has protected me in the worst of thunderstorms. I tend to think the main disadvantages of tarps are 1) less protection from bugs and vermin; 2) not self standing (albeit some types of tents require tie-outs to keep them upright). Tarps hold the advantage of being able to be put up under multiple configurations and they can be more than just a sleeping shelter, but serve as an easily put-up sunshade or to add a rain shelter for dining areas and fires, or to add protection to gear. If you need to accommodate an extra body under a tarp you can probably do so by changing the configuration. Its also easy to link together multiple tarps to build bigger shelters.

On the comment that ground cloth and line kits equalize the weight and bulk of a tarp relative to a tent....I think this is stretching the case. Most people with tents also carry a footprint for the tent, they carry line to serve as additional tie outs and they also carry the same tools for pounding in/making stakes as a person with a tarp does. Its true that ones line kit tends to get bigger over time because its always handy to have line around the camp site. This is true no matter what. I find that I keep adding pre-cut lengths of 6' and 12' sections to my line kit because experience tells me how handy these are to have.

I think tents and tarps both make great shelter options. I tend to go with the tarp in non-buggy conditions and with a hammock/tarp in buggy conditions. However, I bring a tent out in other circumstances. I usually feel more isolated from the environment in the tent (doors to open and vestibules to crawl under) compared to a tarp or hammock, but tents do have their place. The newer light weight tents are intriguing for their weight savings. In the past these were limited to 1 person units that amounted to space not much greater than larger style bivvies. Still seeing things like the tarptent brands providing 3 person tent options in a 1 kg package is pretty neat and has me really interested. Hammocks are a near ideal solution for me, but they are limited to solo sleeping which is frowned upon when I have the wife with me. They also require trees or structures to set up, albeit with the advantage that you don't need level ground and they are very comfortable to sleep in.

Having all options at your disposal and choosing the best one for the situation at hand is probably the best bet. Or you could be like Rick and just sleep in your clothes on a pile of plant debris...
 
kgd said:
Or you could be like Rick and just sleep in your clothes on a pile of plant debris...
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JackRbetter has a sleeping bag you wear as clothing lol. Kgd I really would like to get into Hammocks. I almost pulled the trigger on a warbonnet setup.


JV3 have you ever looked into a Tipi? They are really cool and you can even get titanium wood burning Stoves Seek Outside
 
Tarps and tents both have their places, but all in all you can't beat a good tent for SLEEPING accommodations, and you can't beat a well-pitched tarp for LIVING accommodations. A tarp in the Mojave Desert is pretty much useless, as the things you need protection from are bugs, snakes, and blowing sand. By the same token, spend a couple days in a tent on the Selway during a constant drizzle with no place to cook and nothing to look at, and a nice big tarp seems like nirvana itself.

By in large I think most people who use tarps would be better served by a proper tent, but it's their choice, and each person has different priorities. For a couple years of my life I was so spartan that I would just lay a sleeping bag out on the ground regardless of the weather. Being soaking wet all night was less inconvenient than the few minutes it took to pitch and strike a tent, and it made perfect sense to me at the time. I was living outside year-round and moving every day, and the constant pitching and striking of a tent or tarp just seemed like a tremendous waste of time. I got used to sleeping wet, and when I got too cold I'd just get up and move. I'm not like that anymore.

Want to go a little rough? Use a tarp. Want to sleep in a cocoon without bugs, snakes or water? Pitch a tent. Or do both and live in luxury...
 
I split my camping between a tent and hammock. Here in E. TN we have snakes, spiders, bobcats, and black bears .... so I'm not the biggest fan of staking it out in the ground. I really do like the like weight of the hammock, plus it is comfortable. They also make a 2 person model ... I haven't tried it but my brother did with his girlfriend on our last trip. They said that it wasn't bad, but I could see both people rolling to the middle and being pushed together. Also he uses a blue poly tarp which is nice and big, but it doesn't pack as small as the rain fly that I bought with my hammock.
 
I own four tents...A little tiny one person that I bought for emergencys and never used yet...My go-to tents are a Eureka 2 man and 3 man domes..I also have a large 9 person tent we used to use all the time when we car camped...In PA we have the bug and snake issues at night..(mostly black and garter snakes but there are copperheads and rattlers up north)..When I close my eyes I like to know nothing will be crawling in my bag...We do use a tarp/open shelter for cooking and relaxing with the family..

When I was younger I had a snake phobia...There was no way I was sleeping on the ground without being in a tent...I did it once in scouts when we made a large survivial shelter for 4..Luckily it was in colder weather and I knew the snakes didn't move around too much in the cold...

CD
 
A tarp and a bivy bag is the optimal solution for me. For me that combination addresses the issues above and more. I'm not afraid of anything out there so I take no comfort from having a tent as a barrier between me and the wildlife. I recall a single exception and that is the Scottish midge. Miserable swines they are and there's not much fun to be had apart from burning a chemical coil in a tent, poisoning everything, then diving in and slamming the door shut. Having fallen for that once I wont again so it's a non-issue. And that has to be set against that if I were somewhere with genuine threats rather than just pests I would get a hammock with a net and use it with a tarp anyway. Tarps a lighter for me to carry because Silnylon is especially light and they make use of stuff I have anyway, such as walking poles. Then there is the flexibility with a tarp. I can put one up in places that would be a real pain with a tent because of the difficulty in getting pegs to hold on moss covered rock and in places without trees. I find the bivy / tarp combo superior to a tent in wet weather too. Regardless of the tent unless I just hang out in it waiting for the rain to stop water will migrate its way inside. It comes of me, it comes off the dog, it comes off everything. A bivy bag in a tarp insures my sleep system will be dry no matter what. Wind in the niceties like I can rig a tarp so I am much more in touch with everything than I possible could be in any tent and the appeal is even clearer to me. Tents do have an advantage in that they are warmer than tarps, but then a tarp has vastly superior ventilation and no condensation problems. Plus, I despise that cretinous “the more TV you watch the less you take” mentality at the best of times – the less you take with you the more you have to take from the environment. On that, I make sure that I have the appropriate clothing and sleeping systems that will keep me warm and comfy without the need to start setting fire to stuff, with that I don't notice a tiny bit of extra warmth a tent would bring. Lastly, cooking under a tarp affords me huge advantages over cooking in a tent. There are two chances of me going back to tents. 1] I go somewhere where tents are the theme amongst the group and taking my own separate tarp gear would make for an awkward group. 2] I lose my woman and have to break in a new one. I've found only a handful so far that are into the tarp thing. Most prefer more of a fireside tent picnic thing. Well in the early stages anyway.
 
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I can totally see the appeal of a tarp set-up: lightweight, spacious, you don't feel cooped-up, but generally, I'm a tent guy. I spend most of my time climbing, skiing, and hiking in mountainous areas where pitching a tarp is a brutal affair - plus they're horrible in poor weather or windy conditions. There are some light tents out there nowadays so I'll be sticking with them. Occasionally, I'll set-up a tarp outside of my tent just to provide a covered outdoor area. If I want to go crazy light, I'll go bivy sack only, not my favourite choice b/c in poor weather you really have no refuge and I find them confining. In the winter [in high-snow areas], you have the option of digging a snow cave which I did the other night. In this instance, I just bring a bivy sack and a warm sleeping bag.
 
How about a tarp tent...I recently bought a Six Moon Designs Trekker. It weighs a mere pound and a half.

It's got fully enclosed bug mesh and the sides roll up for excellent ventilation during humid and hot times. It's all one piece, so setup is extremely fast, and it doesn't require trees for setup.

It really bears more similarities to a tent than a tarp, but it has quite a few advantages over a typical tent, assuming you use trekking poles (though other poles could substitute for a small amount of extra weight). I wouldn't want to use it during the winter, but otherwise, it should be dandy.
 
i have never slept under a tarp but this is my opinion. a tent (imo) would be better for longer trips and obviously better protection. we use tarps for daytime shelter (rain etc). now if i was only going out for 1 night and maybe 2, had to pack light, and know the weather will be ok (not to mention skeeters) i would take a tarp and not think twice about it... in my situations of camping, a tent is best
 
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