How To Use A Tarp When Camping

Make sure the tarp will cover the firepit, and the trees are high enough to elevate the tarp and keep it from melting. Most times the firepit cannot be moved, so pick your trees accordingly. After having tarps that were always too small, we finally bought a large one that measures 20 feet x 30 feet – enough to keep everything in the campsite dry, including the fire. This is the way we’ve found best to set up our tarp.

Both are respectable opinions, and there’s a sizable intersection between those two groups, who prefer tarps when the weather’s nice and tents when it’s not. Here’s a tarp and tent basecamp combo I used in the Wheeler Wilderness in NM last year. Cooked and ate under the tarp, slept in the tent, worked great! Dodging thunderstorms when hiking above treeline is a pain. Here is an open pitch with an extra set of poles holding one side up.

For wet or snowy weather, I would rather be in a tent. Tarps are great for having a dry cooking/eating area as well. You tell them tarps are for warmer weather, it goes in one ear and out the other with some folks.

Coil about 20 feet of rope and simply throw it up over a limb 12 to 15 feet high. I certainly did not know that there are so many ways to use a tarp when camping. As a newbie to camping, I never thought of anything else, but the basic use.

In some of the heaviest rain storms, you may find your tent shifting because of the dirt on which it is placed turning to mud, ruining your anchoring. Another issue is somewhat similar to water infiltration, but worse, you may sometimes have mud seeping through the bottom of your tent during a rainstorm as well. Another possible issue you will have to deal with when placing your tent is an influx of sudden rain. As most tents are weather resistant enough to keep rain out, you will have no issues with water infiltration from the top. You will, however, have a problem withwater infiltrating through the bottom of the tent.

Find A Sports Camp

Continue 1/3 of the way down the length of the tarp, and stake it to the ground. Fold the remaining third back underneath the tarp, staking both ends to the ground. If you are in an area without trees, you can use trekking poles to hold up the center of the tarp. If you turn your poles upside down, you may find that the tips fit through the tarp’s grommets, making them less likely to slip during the night. They can block wind, trap heat from a fire, cover you from rain, or keep you off of wet ground.

One end pulls out straight away from the lodge and the other pulls off to the side, preventing the canvass from sagging in too much. The flag is straight out on some one else camp in that shot, so the wind was up that day at the Auto Road for Mt Washington NH USA. Late last October my wife and I went on a weekend canoe trip in Idaho. It rained all day long, and rained and snowed all that night. Most people just buy one of those cheap blue plastic tarps and some 1/4″ nylon rope to hang it from.

This can literally become a lifesaver when you suddenly realize your $50 tent from Walmart isn’t going to cut the mustard for the unexpected rise in wind conditions. It acts as an extra line of defense against the rain so you can sleep with a peace of mind knowing you’ve done everything in your power to keep you and your family safe. A footprint is a piece of material that sits underneath your tent to protect the flooring.

How Do You Put A Tarp On A Tent Without Trees?

This pole is used to raise the tipi cover into place. Then ya sorta wrap it around the tripod, tie it closed and stake it down. You can see the stake down loops on the bottom hem in this photo. Don’t be surprised if it takes a while to sort it all out the first time, and it’s probably best to learn with a smaller tipi.

Grab some sturdy sticks or branches from the ground and wrap the tarp around both of the makeshift poles. A tarp will work well as a tablecloth to cover a dirty picnic table and is easy to clean up if there are food spills or sticky messes. If there’s no picnic table at the campsite, put a tarp down over a rock or bench to stay clean while eating meals. After the camping trip is over, put the tarp down in the backseat of your car so your muddy dog doesn’t get the interior dirty.

If caught by unexpected rainstorms, use your tarp as a hammock rainfly. Simply tie a rope several inches above you hammock to the same trees that your hammock is attached to. The drape the tarp over the rope making a tent like covering over your hammock. Just drape the tarp over a rope that you’ve tied between two trees.

Ways To Use A Tarp At The Campsite

It worked very well and was a very simple and lightweight way to shelter four people. Open the top of the pack, and take out your tarp. Of course, you already have short cords tied to the corner holes in the tarp, so this is done without having to fumble cord out of the pack. Tarp shelters can be used in treeless areas of course, if you are willing to carry poles or spend some time looking for sticks. Bugs are the scourge of tarp camping, turning even the most adventurous camper away from this exciting new prospect.

Nothing to worry about, just angle the tarp so that side is a little more sheltered, and you put your stove there. Like many tarp pitches, this probably works better with a square tarp. With a rectangular tarp such as this one side will be more open than the other.

Bring A Tarp

Since all precautions have been already iterated, I’m going to risk sharing a pro tarp story. To make a shelter out of this stuff, start by laying it out and using the included double sided tape to hem the whole perimeter of the plastic sheet. This thin plastic material can be hard to see clearly and difficult to work with.

If your tent doesn’t have a vestibule, just grab your tarp and cover any boots or backpacks that you want to stay safe and dry. Weigh the tarp down with some rocks or other heavy equipment such as hiking poles that you don’t mind getting wet. I never bring a bivy and it is rare to bring a ground cloth. Lifting the bed a couple inches (about 6″-8″ of forest duff is needed depending on the density) lets the bedding stay dry through nightly rain showers and thunder storms. Unless it is activle raining when you set it up, the pad will provide protection against ground water vapour and damp duff.

Keeping Clean Under A Tarp

As a nighttime thrasher, I really find the bivy sack, which only weighs a few ounces, indispensable for keeping me on my sleeping pad at night. Forget straps and all that bother that quilt makers try to put you through. In addition, I hate putting deet or other bug dope on my skin, and the built in head net obviates that need. But there are many ways to be comfortable under a tarp – this is just where I’m at in my evolution of comfort. Flat tarps can be set up in many more ways than shaped tarps, some of which are more comforting and feel safer than others.

Tarps provide you with a place to shelter from the rain or a day’s heat, a place to cook, and also to eat. But on your next camping trip, make sure to pack a couple of extra ones. And if you’re bored try out some bushcraft and see if you can build your own improvised shelter. Or I have seen multiple flattened tarps to form a type of ceiling cover among a set of trees.

Over Your Tent For Extra Waterproofing

Unless they have an experienced camper with them, most beginners will not have the skills to set up a tarp properly with just some instruction off the Internet. Recently I slept under a tarp like this with my three nephews. Two people per opening, and our feet met in the middle.