Tarps sound like a good idea when trying to preserve weight, but here’s a couple of questions I have for whomever.
#1 I’m guessing tarps don’t have floors. How does one deal with this in weeks-on-end of rain? How do you and your bag stay dry?
#2 I’m guessing tarps don’t have doors. Any protection from mosquitoes at night when you’re trying to sleep?
The Great Whazoo
As Toni said; I have a Henry Shire Cloudburst with a sew in floor. Tarps don’t have traditional bathtub floors like a regular tent. If it flood you don’t float. Some site choice is in planning. They can come with skeeter netting, also the door/flap, as mine does. They don’t freely stand. Other than saving weight, a tent is less trouble. Each has its points.
Bushwhack
I have a Henry Shires tarp tent, the squall. I LOVE it. It has a sewn-in floor, bug netting and a door. Its very easy to set-up and weighs less than 2 lbs. I use my trekking pole for the front pole. Site choice is important as the floor is a bit slippery, even though I treated the floor. I just finished an AT thru-hike with this tent and was very happy with it.
Goosebump the snow princess
The more complex something is, the less useful it becomes for multi purposes.
Example, a tent is a tent and can be used for little else.
A tarp can be rigged as a tent, can also be thrown quickly across a limb and secured to provide quick shelter out of the rain. You can quickly get in and out from under a tarp (not so with a tent—you must zip yourself out and zip yourself in). You can trow a tarp over your head and pack (folding it several time of course) and hike in the rain under cover. It has a multitude of uses. A little square of bug netting is the same----throw it over your head and hat and hike in bug territory with no problems. Also use it to rig a bug net on your tarp.
Having said all of that, a tent does have advantages, but it’s single purporse and lack of versatility leave much to be desired. But there is a lot to be said about completely locking the bugs and snakes out and yourself in. Mice will and can chew their way in if they want to. Cost also a consideration, the tarp is much cheaper.
Hope this helps. Just my thoughts on the matter.
See you out there. :cheers
Maintain
Answer #1 - No floor, but you carry a ground cover the size of your sleeping pad/bag, plus a few inches on each side. Never wanna put your bag directly on the ground! Some folks use waterproof bivies as well as tarps.
Answer #2 - No door, but you can get a cheap mosquito bivy (www.campmor.com) that’ll attach to the same supports you use for the tarp. You can sleep with the skeeter bivy alone on buggy nights with no rain, the tarp alone on wet nights with no bugs, or both at the same time.
Also consider that you can add options to tarps, but these add weight. Sewn-in floors, zip-in floors, zip-in skeeter nets, doors, etc. Even adding all of these options in, you still get big weight savings because you don’t have to carry tent poles.
However, tarps often perform better than tents in the rain…mainly due to condensation and ease of pitching it in the rain. When it’s raining, you’ve likely got your tent zipped up to keep out the rain…including battening down your fly. This restricts ventilation quite a bit, and the tent gets muggy pretty quickly. With a tarp, the ventilation keeps you from getting so muggy. As long as the rain isn’t blowing water under the sides onto your bag, you might stay drier in a tarp than in a tent. If the water is blowing under, simply pitch your tarp closer to the ground.
Also, consider pitching each in the rain. With a tent, you set it up while you’re getting rained on…so the tent often gets wet as you’re pitching it. When you finally get the rain fly on, you have to duck under, wipe off your shoes, dry out the tent with a rag, etc. Then in the morning, you have to shake everything out of the tent before you pack it.
Now a tarp. You pitch it, and nothing gets wet but the tarp (assuming you’re wearing your rain gear while pitching either one). When it’s up, you step underneath and start unpacking. As long as you’re on decent ground (duff is best), the rain has already soaked in and there won’t be any puddles. So you throw down your ground cover, which is still dry since it was in your pack until you got under the tarp. Take off your muddy boots and set them on the ground beside you…no worries about getting mud and muck on your tent floor. If you spill your water, it just soaks into the ground. But the biggest advantage is the weight…less than a pound, vs. 2-4lbs for a tent.
It does take a bit of skill to pitch a tarp correctly in various situations, and site selection is more important than with a tent and sometimes takes a little longer. I only camp in a tent when I’m car camping with the family. When backpacking, I usually take my hammock, but sometimes I take a military poncho that I pitch as a tarp.
Jeff
Jeff