Tent

  To Take or Not to Take?

First of all we must answer the question whether or not to take a tent in the first place. Believe it or not there are actually some who feel that a tent is not necessary and from my tone you can tell what my opinion is, can’t you? I always, always, always take a tent. Why? Let me tell you.

Let us say I come into camp and the most annoying thing happens,(one of many I can tell you about), the mosquitoes are buzzing me incessantly while I am trying to rest, clean up, wash or eat, and forget about taking a nap! But if I come into the camp, set up my tent first thing and jump in,I could be taking a worry-free, relaxing nap and eat and read all while you are being miserably “lightweight” in your approach and suffering the consequences. I guess there are some reasons for going without, I just cannot justify any of them! I need a place to be away from gnats, snakes, ( oh, yeah did I tell you about the time I was with my friend Mexican Bob and a rattle snake crawled under my tent?) wind, and we have not even gotten to the biggest reason for a tent, rain.

I can just hear the people who say they do not need a tent wanting to climb into mine when the weather gets rough. Too bad. You make bad choices you deal with ‘em. Well, I might let them in but I sure would not let them forget it!

Anyway, having said all of that, what kind of tent would I take? These days we are so blessed to have many different types and reasonable prices. When I was growing up it was a “pup tent”, a heavy, canvas contraption that took two men to carry and as many to set it up. Now there are so many choices it is mind boggling. One thing is certain for me, I always take a free-standing tent.

 Free Standing Tent

Free-standing  means you do not have to rely on stakes to keep it upright, you can move it in a jiffy if you have to because there is a better spot over there or there is a big rock in your back, and it is so easy to set up, even in bad weather. Now the tent I carry is a little heavy (6 lbs altogether, a North Face Talus-shameless plug) but I go with a rain fly and I like to have a little room in the thing so if I have to stay in there a couple of days for some reason I am not about to shoot myself!

This particular tent also has two entrances which is very handy, I use one to come and go and one to throw all of my gear in. There is also a “vestibule” they call it but it is really only a very small covered area outside of the tent under the rain fly where you can cook if you have to or keep your boots outside, which I never do because losing your boots to some curious critter in the middle of the night is what we call a “war stopper”, meaning you go to get out of there quick and go home. That is bad.Other war stoppers are no toilet paper,you get the idea.

So my routine is I pull into camp and set up my tent first thing. These types of tents take only a few minutes to unpack and set up, in fact it takes longer to unpack it than to set it up. Then I can decide what to do next, most likely I will sit and groan for a while and then take a nap, inside the tent. In comfort, away from the annoyances of bugs, wind and rain, while my “lightweight” friends are outside begging to come in. Ha, ha.

My friend Mexican Bob adds his two cents here:

I agree... People say that I use a little 3000 cubic foot, 30 pound, pack for multi-day backpacking.  Since everything still weighs what it always did, the  question is what did you leave out.  Usually it's the tent and stove. 
 
"Oh, I use a one pound tarp."  Since many people who backpack do it on the Appalachian Trail, where there is a shelter every ten miles, maybe that helps.  Too, many who do it, backpack in the southern Sierra, like the John Muir Trail, which has a Mediterranean climate--a dry warm summer, where again you can do without a tent.  But the mosquitos and other bugs will eat you alive without a tent.  

The reason I think there has been a push for ultra-light backpacking equipment is that  women have gone from three or four percent of the serious backpacking population to over fifty percent now of that population...So I think that's why there is a trend to push for less weight in tents, and drop the tent.

Do you have good Hiking Boots?