It’s one of those things you should look up, once you realize. What the heck IS a ‘stition’, and why is a ‘super’ one so silly? Are regular Stitions NOT silly?
All I know is, you darn well better take a rainfly and a raincoat on camping trips. The one time everyone in the car thought that someone else had brought the tent? Yeah, it rained. No other way THAT one could have happened. We slept under a tarp. With holes in it. I think we might have tied it up with boot laces. It was a long evening anyhow.
Now that I’ve thought a little more about it, we need to find two SUPER competitive people. One of them, convinced that the bad luck of black cats crossing your path is the worst kind of thing, pitted against the other, who is absolutely positive that breaking a mirror will cause the most horrific bad luck. Provide them with an open space, a few black cats and a few mirrors, and things will get lively for a good long while, don’t you think?
Rain is inevitable if you didn’t prepare for it. Frying hot will happen if you expected cold, or you thought it would be unbearably hot and it about froze you solid. Give me my good old surplus wool army blankets. They are the best, wool keeps you warm even when wet, and it breathes (best blanket if you have a fever) That said me and wool get along. I’ve been told wool is the best birth control method ever invented….too.
Anyways, it would be cozier if they share the rain coat… at least the tent shouldn’t be floating away….
sincerely i would have expected rain anyway. times were WAY to good lol.
Kara should have been ready too hehe
I balked at “rainfly”. Do Americans use tents that don’t keep the rain off? Whatever for? I’ve never owned a non-rainproof tent before. I have gone camping without a tent, as rain was unlikely for a month in either direction (non-coastal Australia is a desert). I just slept in a swag out in the open, but the idea of using a tent which doesn’t keep the rain off seems very strange to me.
I have a tent that has a screen-vent in the top, so that the tent doesn’t get all hot and stuffy. It is great when the weather is clear, almost as cool as sleeping out in the open. When it rains, however, you do need to add the rainfly or everything in the tent would get soaked . . . again, almost like sleeping out in the open. =]
The roof of the average tent is a very fine mesh- you can see through it well enough- stars, clouds, weather, etc. But the bugs can’t get in. We have mosquitos around here that are big and nasty. Mesh allows for the breezes to wander through the tent, too. The rainfly is just in case it rains and you don’t feel like putting up with water in your face or down your neck or wherever.
And of course, the whole tent’s optional. If you don’t mind the bugs or anything, you sleep on the ground or in your hammock. These days, all gear weighs a few ounces. You can pack options.
Thisfox, from my days of travelling on a pushie, I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that mankind can make rocket ships but not waterproof tarps. As soon as you touch the side of a tent you’ll let the water in, which I believe is what the fly is for – that extra layer from where the water is. I’ve never liked tents. I started off with a light canvas swag and soon threw away the mattress due to bulk. Then I gave the canvas away because it wasn’t waterproof anyway. So I had the sleeping bag and a tarp. The best one was probably the plastic one, but that got holes. I’ve tried using water-proofing agents on the material tarps but that is useless. Having said that, it didn’t really matter getting wet as the sleeping bag still kept me warm, and it would dry out quickly during the day. A couple of things I’ll try not to repeat though, such as sleeping next to a tidal river which rose at about 1am, and sleeping in a small gully which filled with water overnight till I was completely waterlogged. But unlike the tenters, I could set up and pack up in seconds. At the end of a hot day, my camp would be made in the time it takes to throw a sleeping bag, and because I had to leave as early as possible to catch the cooler weather, all I needed to do was chuck it on the bike under the bungy straps. No complicated tent origami. I did have to spend a few times stuck in the middle of a muddy road due to my dog’s thunder phobia and wrapping herself around the wheels.
Went to a rock-swap-rockhound event and was put in a space on a hardscrabble parking lot, and leveled chunk, pitched tent, airmattress in middle. It started misting so we went a half an hour away to the hot springs and soaked. We came back to the lake. With the tent in the middle and the airmattress being a life raft in the middle. I trenched mightily but we were still going to be wet as it opened up that night, for most of the night. No we didn’t have a rainfly, our oversized pup tent didn’t have ceiling vents either. If you touched the tent sides you got soaked. The wind flapped the tent around and it would occasionally slap the bodies on the air mattress. I went to the emergency car army surplus wool blankets and he stayed with the poly wonder sleeping bags. He slept and soggy, and my body heat kept the blankets pretty well dried out, and if I took a hit I stayed warm. I slept well, he slept like crap. The rest of the event it was peeled hot baked… so everything dried out well. You want a rainfly tent!!!!!
Waterproof tents are a hassle; moisture from your breath condenses on the inside of the tent and it ends up as wet inside as out. Departure is delayed while it dries out before you can pack it up.
A breathable tent (or a screen skylight) allows that moisture escape and the rain fly keeps everyone dry.
Also, some of the places I camp, no tent = bloodsucking bugs.
“which one us”? Should that be “which one OF us”?
Just askin’ … also, I always carry my Fulton umbrella in my backpack – I hate being in the rain.
Opened up a can o’ worms with the tent conversations, didn’t we? I’ve slept in the rain in a sleeping bag so old that it had bears and deers and crap printed on the liner cloth. It was probably cotton batting on the inside. I’ve slept inside canvas tents that had fifty pounds of poles. I’ve slept in tiny military-style pup tents with guy lines all around them to hold them up. And of course, I’ve had my share of trips in Family Truckster style modern tents, “two person” backpacking tents, under a tarp, out in a hammock, and once, finished out a night in my Suburban’s back seat when I discovered that it was possible to plot the death of another cub scout Dad who literally snored loud enough to make a canvas BSA camp tent snap. It was all part of a life spent partly outdoors, for which I’m grateful- and I’ll never tell anyone they’re doing it wrong… ’cause I’ve done it wrong, and it still worked out. Remind me to tell you about once waking up in Colorado, stuffing everything that HAD to stay dry in an old feed barrel I’d brought for just that purpose, put my exhausted head back down on the soggy pillow atop my floating Therm-a-rest, and crash back out again. Actually, don’t remind me. That was the story, really.
I still swear by my surplus wool army blankets. Wool keeps you warm even when wet, and your body heat will dry out the blanket if the soaking wet tent side doesn’t keep slapping your fanny all night. 🙂 The night of total swimming for it was in Colorado…
I have camped with pretty much all options and nonoptions available. Best night of sleep I had camping was in a snow cave we dug as the Boy Scouts were doing their winter camp. Nice and warm with the perfect coolness to go to sleep.