A tarp above treeline with strong winds and rain and mosquitoes.

I basically stick to Ryan Jordans guide for tarping in extreme conditions and Collin Ibbotsons talk about tarps.

I used a homemade tarp with 4 guy-outs on each side and one on each ridge-end.

As stakes I used:

• 2 Y stakes for the ridge-line
• 4 V stakes for the corners
• 5g Titanium needles for the rest of the guy-outs.

It worked fine, I could have left the V stakes at home for the corners as the titanium stakes worked well with the Scandinavian stone ground. I always put stones on the stakes to avoid that they are removed by a gust of wind.

In the end I stayed dry and had no condensation issues.

Not a single stake got loose even with strong wind gusts.

As the wind direction changed to the complete opposite, bringing rain and wind into the front opening, I was happy that my bivy protected me from the raindrops that made it over the security boundary( I sleep 30-50cm away from the opening).

For the mosquitoes I used a homemade bivy bag made of pertex quantum and nanoseeum.

It was perfect for quilt sleeping(wind) and keeping the bugs away.

I could even change my clothes in it.

It was interesting to see that the bugs didn’t like the quantum, I could offer them my whole naked leg and they never came to the idea to puncture it through the quantum.

Things I would change on my tarp:

• Add a beak at the front, because wind and rain direction do change
• use 5 guy-out point on the sides
• use 3 guy-out points on the  front opening(or beak)

Things I would change on my bivy:

• use a silnylon floor and back-head area again, as for wind changes and non-waterproof ground sheets.

As this trip was to try out ultralight hiking strategies under more severe conditions, I just had to try it out.

I used a pair of mesh trail runners which were in no way water resistant and had a good sole with some kind of spikes.

They were perfectly well sprung, so I walked in them as on clouds.

My prediction was: Wet shoes all the time.

I was right, and fine!

I had rain, wind, temperatures between 4 and 10 °C, rivers to walk through and a lot of mud and swamp(knee deep).

I always had warm feet, had absolutely no problem with blisters or cracked skin from the complete wetness.

I didn’t have to change my shoes the whole day. In the evening I changed the socks, used some fat creme and put on dry socks.

This brought me fine through the whole trip. It was especially nice in the morning to put on the wet shoes.

In boots I always had cold feet for the first half our, in the mesh shoes my feet were warm in about a minute.

From my point of view all the common prejudices are nonsense.

But there are definite downsides of this hiking technique (which were not mentioned by anyone):

1. Mud accumulates in the shoe. After 3 days I recognized that in my socks and between the socks and the insole a lot of mud accumulated(~2mm in the sock,~4mm on the insole). This led to an uneven ground under my feet and to a possible spot to build up blisters. Therefore I had to clean the socks every evening and the insole and shoe itself(under the insole) every second day.
2. They don’t dry. The often mentioned sentence that boots don’t dry on the trail but mesh shoes do might be true for warm Californian PCT sections but not for northern-European hiking conditions. As every other piece of gear, it will stay wet. Doesn’t matter how long you walk in the dry.
3. They grow stiff. The continues partly dry, wet and mud conditions made the shoes stiff, you had to batter them to make them soft again. This might be a special issue of my pair of shoes…
4. Socks wear out a lot faster. During this trip I completely destroyed the SmartWool socks I used.

Instructions will follow.

One note: Don’t use the tape as shown in the images, it really sucks, use a pen please.

[View with PicLens]

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My next trip will provide me with a lot of wind and mosquitoes.

As I’m tarp camping I need something against these two quilt-sleeper enemies

To make it short, I need a bivy.

After 3 of these prototypes:

I got to the final pattern:

It is designed to fit a side sleeper of size ~1.75cm, a 300g down(6cm loft) quilt and a prolite(2.5cm). It has got a total length of 1.90cm and a mid body(below shoulder, elbow)/shoulder width of 70cm/65cm.

The bottom is silnylon and the top is pertex quantum and nanoseeum.

The estimated weight( size² * weight of material + zipper ) is 205g including a 38g zipper of which I’m not sure if I’ll use it.

I first cut out the silnylon according to my pattern. There’s no secret, but I marked all edges of the pattern with a pen.

The result:

Then I sewed the edges of the silnylon together in order to get the designed cube.

I used double seams to secure the edges.

At the head area I appended two loops to tie out the bivy:

The next step was to sew the noseeum and quantum together.

Now for the interesting stuff, the zipper.

I first secured the edge of the quantum with needles to the side of the zipper.

Then I turned it around to double the quantum and secured it with yarn.

After sewing the zipper I sewed the two pieces of quantum/noseeum together (the zipper was not full length).

I started sewing 2cm away from the ends of the zipper. I sewed the 2cm’s by hand to ensure that it is midge-proof

The final step was to sew the top piece to the bottom piece, this was done with one simple seem and one insurance seem before the first one(so 4 layers of fabric were secured).

The sad thing is, when I finally took this bivy out to test it, I got a lot of condensation were the silnylon was. In fact it was so much that my sleeping bag was completely wet on its sides. The quantum was no problem and worked fine.

I now make a second bivy consisting of quantum only with the same pattern.

The final weight of the old bivy was 200g without lines, 217 with elastic lines.

The new bivy will weight(estimated again) 178g. I’m really looking forward to it, because it offers full bug protection and I can turn and toss in it. It also offers wind protection

This time I had a pack weight around 5.7 kg for the whole trip.

My friend Christian joined me on this tour through the Arnsberger Wald.

He tried his simple can alcohol stove, with more or less success, while I enjoyed my special trail bread(409kcal/100g) and freezer bag cooking(because water is always a problem).

[View with PicLens]

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But in my case I’m simply one of these DIY people, and I sewed a silnylon tarp.

Material:

As material I used silnylon, because it is cheap and does the job. I would prefer cuben….but the price

Cut:

Hiking alone I don’t need a big tarp, but I want a luxury size. I already own a 3x4m tarp which is simply too big. 2,5×3 is also too big. I decided to cut the foot part half the size of the head part. The following image shows the final draft I used:

The draft includes the seem allowance. This was transferred on a sheet of paper and then cut out of the silnylon.

Cutting:

One note on this: Cut the diagonal sides very straight or your tarp will sack and be difficult to pitch.

Sewing silnylon:

This is the difficult part. To make it easy for you: USE NEEDLES. I stichted my seams with needles every 5-10cm, otherwise my sewing machine will not transport the material correctly and I will have a lot of mess. The lap seem is quite easy, I used the tutorial from http://www.flusslinie.de

On the tieouts I used 3 layers of silnylon to secure the straps, this is bomb proof.

Result:

Thinks I will do differently the next time:

• create a pocket at each tieout to store the line when packing the tarp away. I will use one of the extra layer of material for this.
• make the tieouts very short and use lines instead.

Silicone coated nylon. Coating is either on one or on both sides. Can be mixed with PU coating.

Weight: 45-?g/m²

Properties:

• As ripstop material it doesn’t tear out on cuts
• stretches alot when wet, be careful about this. You need the possibility to strengthen the pitch of your shelter
• very durable, but thin and you can cut it very easy
• when cut, it doesn’t fringe
• it’s very slick, mud doesn’t stick.
• silent in wind

PU Nylon:

Polyurethane coated nylon. Coating is either on one or on both sides. Can be mixed with Silicone coating.

Weight: 60-?g/m²

Properties:

• As ripstop material it doesn’t tear out on cuts
• doesn’t stretch
• is not slick
• very durable, but thin and you can cut it very easy
• when cut, it doesn’t fringe
• not as durable as silnylon

Cuben Fiber:

The current hype Comes in many weights and is the most expensive material available.

Weight: 27-?g/m²

Properties:

• very light, fully waterproof
• need more information about it

German:

Silnylon:

Silikon beschichtetes Nylon. Kann auf einer oder auf beiden Seiten beschichtet sein, eventuell zusammen mit PU.

Gewicht: 45-?g/m²

Eigenschaften:

• Franst als Ripstop nicht aus
• dehnt sich bei Nässe, hier ist Vorsicht geboten! Du musst deine Unterkunft nachspannen.
• sehr haltbar, aber dünn und leicht zu schneiden
• es franst nicht aus an Schnittstellen
• sehr rutschig, Dreck bleibt nicht haften
• ziemlich ruhig bei Wind

PU Nylon:

Polyurethan beschichtetes nylon. Kann auf einer oder auf beiden Seiten beschichtet sein, eventuell zusammen mit Silikon.

Gewicht: 50-?g/m²

Eigenschaften:

• Franst als Ripstop nicht aus
• dehnt sich nicht
• nicht rutschig
• sehr haltbar, aber dünn und leicht zu schneiden
• franst nicht aus an Schnittstellen
• nicht so haltbar wie Silnylon

Cuben Fiber:

Das neueste und leichteste Material. Leider sehr teuer.

Gewicht: 27-?g/m²

Eigenschaften:

• sehr leicht, komplett Wasserdicht
• ich brauche mehr Informationen hierrüber