Everything on this page refers to "typical" 3-season conditions.  See my page on Winter Camping for snowy conditions.

Overview

A shelter is anything that protects you from environmental conditions to provide an adequate living space for brief periods of time in the wilderness.  Since different environments have different needs many different types of shelters have been developed.  

  • Freestanding Tents: easy to set up but can be heavy
  • Pyramid Shelters:  uses trekking poles (which many people bring anyway) to create a "circus tent" like structure.
  • Tarps:  Typically use in a A-frame configuration alone but may also be incorporated into hammock or biyv sack systems
Shelter Fabrics:  Waterproof Materials
Cuben Fiber: Also known as Dyneema Composite Fabric (DCF) is a grid of dyneema fiber which is the strongest fiber in the world.  These fibers are embedded in a translucent and flexible polysester film.  

Pros
  • Ultralight, extremely durable and waterproof  
Cons
  • Expensive!
  • Doesn't stretch, so pitching shelter and stuffing it into a small pack can be a pain.  
  • Not widely available.  

Basics of Freestanding Tents

The traditional freestanding tent has several different parts to make a water, wind and bug resistant shelter. 
  • The support structure for the tent body is provided by poles. 
  • The inner tent walls are composed of varying degrees of mesh and a water resistant fabric like sil-nylon to increase ventilation while still providing protection from bugs. 
  • The floor of the tent is the only part that is truly waterproof (at least in theory).  This "bathtub floor" is much thicker than the other walls and usually extends several inches up sidewalls.  
  • The outer tent (or fly) is more water resistant than the non-mesh parts of in the inner tent.  It is important to note that the function of the outer tent is shed water or snow to the ground and not to be a impenetrable barrier to water.  Water is easily transferred from one side of the tent walls to the other, (this is easily seen by just touching the tent whiles during a rain storm).  As such the fly should be set a minimum several inches away from the inner tent.  Once the water has been shed to the ground it should not come back in contact with the main tent body.  Thus the fly should be staked out as far away from the main tent as possible.  
  • The last part is the footprint or ground cloth.  Anyone in the outdoor retail industry will tell you that this is required but this is not really true.  The main reason to use one is that the waterproof coating on the bathtub floor is degraded by abrasion etc.  The first use of a brand new tent should see no benefit of a footprint.  However, I tend to use mine simply to provide an extra layer of protection for the floor of the tent ("protect my investment etc").  DIY options for ground cloths include simple household options like painters drop cloths, a wax table cloth, as well as more sophisticated options like  tyvek, polycryo, and mylar sheeting.  A final point about the ground cloth is that it should be slightly smaller than the extent of the fly.  If it were larger it would simply collect rain as it ran off the fly and eventually wind up inside the tent. 

​Tent Stakes

Tent stakes are like socks-you're always losing them.  I don't know why they don't paint these bright orange or neon green/yellow.  That would make them much easier to find in the morning when you're packing up.  Some options for replacement stakes:
  • MSR mini-groundhog.  A good option.  They have rarely failed me.  
  • Avoid really cheap stakes like these.  Despite saying all the right things (0.5 oz each, anodized, aircraft grade 7075 aluminum which I doubt is true) they bend easily when pounding them into the ground.  That said, the price per stake is hard to beat ($1.50 each).  
  • These Kungix stakes are a slightly better option for very cheap stakes.  They are slightly heavier but it's worth it.  

Tarps

Tarps are new to me (as of Jan 01, 2018) so we'll learn together.  I did a practice set up of my new cuben fiber tarp from Mountain Laurel Designs today in the courtyard of my condo building.  
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The catenary cut of this particular tarp makes getting a tight pitch somewhat complicated. It works best to start with the trekking poles angled out instead of straight up.
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An option if you only brought one pole. I could see how this one wouldn't be the best for claustrophobic people.

Pyramid Shelters/Tarps

Some good info on mids from Dave Chenault:
Picture
Testing my new pyramid tarp on a quick overnight trip to the Lost Creek Wilderness under benign conditions (early May 2018).
I have a MLD Solomid XL (seam sealed DCF version) and like it a lot.  It has become my standard shelter. I don't really use the inner net anymore since bug pressure is typically very low in my area (colorado front range). I use a Mylar emergency blanket as ground sheet (see below). My center pole is a trekking pole.  I really like this freedom to change tension and height off ground.

I'm 5'6" and I have tons of room. The offset pole design is very effective at making a large vestibule.

​I think of 5 stakes as the minimum required to get a roomy pitch (4 corners plus door/vestibule). Setup isn't as simple as free standing tents but once you get used to it it's pretty fast. It does take practice. The tie-outs on the end walls are useful but not required for eliminating sag and keeping your head from touching walls. Since I'm short, if my head touches the walls I can just shift down but sometimes this is annoying. This adds two stakes. For real storms, the 4 base tieouts are helpful.
Protection: I've been through a few storms with it and haven't wished I had more protection.

Solomid XL Dimensions: 
Length = 112"
Width = 54"

Pitching the Solomid XL with a double inverted V pole configuration: ​backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/86482/page/2/

Some tips on pitching a DCF Solomid XL

For such a simple shelter, getting a good pitch in a DCF Solomid can actually be somewhat tricky.  This basically means you have to stake and support the pyramid out to their natural dimensions, since you won't be able to compensate by just pulling the guylines tighter.  Compare this with a freestanding tent made of silnylon.  Even if the poles are badly bent you can usually get a functional pitch by simply adding tension at the tie-out points.  This will fail with a DCF pyramid or A-frame tarp.  I'd struggled with this occasionally over the summer/fall so one day in early 2019 (winter) I decided to do some careful pitches at home.  
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Even on a lazy Saturday when you aren't hiking, and just hanging out in your backyard, the views are pretty good.
The first step is to pitch the 4 corners as square as possible.  The third corner is most important.  If you get a 90 degree angle here, the last corner will follow.  If you don't get the corners square, one corner will basically always lie on the ground no matter what you do to try and compensate.  
​
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The first step is pitching all four corners out as square as possible.
The next step is to get the angle and position of the center pole correct.  Basically you want the center pole to be slightly more vertical than you might think.  It's tempting to place the pole close to the door so that it minimally interferes with the sleeping area.  This introduces sag on the back wall (see left photo below).  This sag is eliminated by simply pulling the base of the pole inwards (towards the back wall--see right photo below).  This rotates the peak towards the door and adds tension to the back wall.  
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Sag in the back wall caused by the center pole angle being too shallow (base to close to the door).
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Pulling the base of the center pole towards the back wall eliminates this sag.
How close should the center pole be?  Well if you measure it, it's about 45-46" from the center tie-out.  Here I've actually pulled the center somewhat "out of line" with the back corners so, maybe 40" if completely square.  This happens to be right in line with one of the seams in the side walls (see photo on right).  This is easily visualized with my DIY floor attached that just happens to sit at the same distance as the center pole.  
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The pole should be about 45-46" from the backwall if the middle tie-out is pulled tight or about 40" if the center tie out is inline with the corners.
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The pole should line up with this seam on the sidewall. This homemade floor I was testing just happened to serve as a nice visual illustration of this alignment.

Guylines

Guylines are attached to the tarp with a Bowline knot and tensioned and secured to the stake with a McCarthy Hitch.  There's a video below of Andrew Skurka demonstrating these knots.  Andrew's page on guylines and tension systems is here.
  • Skurka's page on recommended guyline lengths here  

MYOG

Someone translate this from german for me?: https://ivovanmontfort.blogspot.com/2015/05/de-ultimat-trailstarcopy.html

Ground Sheets

These days my preferred shelter is a floorless tarp of one kind of another.  For a ground sheet I use my trash compactor bag (internal pack liner) laid on the ground and and a mylar emergency blanket over that.  The trash compactor bag is pretty robust but the mylar is quite delicate.  To protect the mylar, I put the compactor bag under my torso where weight is highest and wear and tear from abrasion will be highest.   

Mylar
Tyvek
  • 3' x 7', 4.5 oz
  • 5' x 9' , 9.47 oz
lightweight_shelters_nov_26_2017.xlsx
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