Tarp slagging off on outdoors forums
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OK chaps, lets settle this 'I'm more bushcraftier than thou' once and for all - what would Bear Grylls use?
.............Probably his own loincloth rigged up as a pyramid tarp with a ridgeline made from platted proverbial.
OK chaps, lets settle this 'I'm more bushcraftier than thou' once and for all - what would Bear Grylls use?
Handkerchief.
OK chaps, lets settle this 'I'm more bushcraftier than thou' once and for all - what would Bear Grylls use?
Whatever motel roofs are normally made of?
OK chaps, lets settle this 'I'm more bushcraftier than thou' once and for all - what would Bear Grylls use?
He would probably advise that you should track down a grizzley, defeat it in unarmed combat and then skin it and use that..... whilst he toddles off to the nearest travel inn.
Some of what he says is usefull but most is dangerous twaddle, My 10 yr old girl was watching it with me and she turned round and said "daddy that man is an idiot, i wouldn't climd down a vine that i'd found in the forrest what if it breaks?" and thats from a 10 yr old!!!
Sorry for the rant
Dave
Sorry I started this thread. TBH I was only complaining about another forum having no understanding of how a tarp can be used and their benefits. Kinjd of a complaint about how some forums only see things from one side and are blinkered to the other.
I use both tents and tarps. There's use in them all. Pick the tool for the job in hand and stuff those who are ignorant.
All I wanted to say is people should learn about what they are talking about. The people on the other forum who were slagging off tarps did not know much about them IMHO and as such should have kept their opinions to themselves. Just wound me up. After years of plucking up courage to buy and use a tarp following doubts over midges, driven rain and pitching technique I got one and used it. A frame in benign conditions. It was ok but in later trips that pitch style would have left me cold and wet. I learnt a cave type pitching style and have never looked back. I still take a tent on some trips. And my two man is used as a car camping tent. My single skin is by really bad or cold weather tent and my tarp is from spring to autumn option. Unless midges are going to be really bad as I don't have a midge net set-up yet.
I think it is a lesson to learn about something before you have an opinion. That's all.
Anyone get out over the weekend? Got a lot of walking done past week myself. Courtesy of a day off and the weekend - three walks, good to get out no matter what the weather. Rain was not too bad once you are kitted up. What did you get up to?
(Attempt to lead the thread off topic to better areas).
I use both tents and tarps. There's use in them all. Pick the tool for the job in hand and stuff those who are ignorant.
All I wanted to say is people should learn about what they are talking about. The people on the other forum who were slagging off tarps did not know much about them IMHO and as such should have kept their opinions to themselves. Just wound me up. After years of plucking up courage to buy and use a tarp following doubts over midges, driven rain and pitching technique I got one and used it. A frame in benign conditions. It was ok but in later trips that pitch style would have left me cold and wet. I learnt a cave type pitching style and have never looked back. I still take a tent on some trips. And my two man is used as a car camping tent. My single skin is by really bad or cold weather tent and my tarp is from spring to autumn option. Unless midges are going to be really bad as I don't have a midge net set-up yet.
I think it is a lesson to learn about something before you have an opinion. That's all.
Anyone get out over the weekend? Got a lot of walking done past week myself. Courtesy of a day off and the weekend - three walks, good to get out no matter what the weather. Rain was not too bad once you are kitted up. What did you get up to?
(Attempt to lead the thread off topic to better areas).
I'm off to drive Route 66 in September. then perhaps go work in Costa Rica for a while. I'm planning on having a tent for the road trip (more privacy) and a tarp/hammock for mucking about in the Costa Rican rain forest. Seems funny that people think tarps will let water in when they're the recommended kit for rain forests.
Great to hear you've been out while we're bickering
Myself, a 13km run through the bush on saturday. Lovely!
I don't know why but I have never really been too fussed about visiting Australia. Hang on, before you take offence, let me finish. I always thought NZ would be nicer place to visit. Anyway I was talking to someone who had nearly a month down there and he said that if I did visit he would place money on me wanting to move down there. I must admit in the past, through ignorance, I took the old image of Australia as being a big red rock with flies on it. Now I know it is so very varied in its climate and landscape. Even has ski resorts I believe. Now I must admit that is had been added to my list of must see before I die places. After NZ and before Peru and Chile. Just wonder which part is nicest. The guy said that Tasmania was closer to UK climate as more south. I must admit I prefer cooler climes and mountains to arid regions.
BTW I had a good ride into work today. Only medium rain. Just hope the heavy stuff holds off until I get home. Enjoying getting back into it after two weeks of laziness and heavy rain.
I use a pattern 58 era poncho and an Australian hootchie as long as I have been hiking and have been wet, cold and invaded by slugs and yet I find it the easiest and simplest form of shelter to assemble and disassemble, particularly if I have to break camp in the pouring rain. I don't really have a perspective of using tents although the bloke I hike with swears by his one- man tent.
It was the day that Usain Bolt won the Olympic 100m- I was just outside of Abbotsham in North Devon, hiking toward Clovelly; it was around 4:00pm I think, and suddenly, the heavens opened and as I was close to stopping for the night anyway, I jumped a farm gate and threw up my poncho in an empty field. After about an hour of rain, the first slugs appeared- just one or two, but as the sun went down, they began to be more numerous, seemingly advancing toward me from all directions. Over the course of the night, I was awoken several times by slugs on my face and each time I would remove one, I could feel 10 or more all over the hood of my sleeping bag. I woke in the morning to find absolutely everything covered in slime (it is hard to be sufficiently expressive here) and above my head, on the underside of the poncho, there would have been about 40 slugs in a circle about the circumference of my face. There would have been another hundred throughout my shelter.
It's the only time I have experienced and my theory is that they were attracted to either the heat or to carbon dioxide (which would explain why there was such a concentration above my face).
It's the only time I have experienced and my theory is that they were attracted to either the heat or to carbon dioxide (which would explain why there was such a concentration above my face).
Back from the Lakes after a 3 night camp in my new tent - SWMBO doesn't do tarps!! I did use the KK though AND whittled feather sticks so 'up yours' Ray Mears!!! For the campers on here I can heartily recommend the Parkgates Holidays campsite - the name doesn't inspire confidence, I know. It is a very basic one bog one shower site that allows campfires near Eskdale Green, just a field with fantastic views run by a lovely couple. I do use a tarp on solos in woodland but tent for me in the hills etc.
para106 - that's the one on the road towards Santon Bridg from Eskdale Green isn't it? IIRC its also rather near to the George IV or VI pub which is small but perfectly formed with good food, beer and an outstanding malt menu. Seriously, the guy who runs it is a real malt whiskey afficionado who has bought up some rather special malts for his more discerning clientele (and me if I ever win the lottery so can afford London fancy restaurant wine prices for the rarer malts he has). IIRC he has malt casks from distillieries that no longer exist from their best years that are rarer than hens teeth. I'm sure it was that place that had a cask fo malt that the only other known cask was in a collection in Japan. But I could be wrong there.
Good you got out, even if it was in a <Pah> tent!!
Me I'm kind of tempted by a fast roudn of the Yorkshire Three Peaks on saturday and to make sure I have nothing left for the week in the tank a long walk in the Pennines.
Thats a 25 miler and probably something in excess of 20 miles over pathless bog and grassy fells and moorland. Should be enough to tire me out. Is sub 9 hours ok for the Y3P?
Me I'm kind of tempted by a fast roudn of the Yorkshire Three Peaks on saturday and to make sure I have nothing left for the week in the tank a long walk in the Pennines.
Thats a 25 miler and probably something in excess of 20 miles over pathless bog and grassy fells and moorland. Should be enough to tire me out. Is sub 9 hours ok for the Y3P?
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hehehe - have only had the slug thing once or twice while bivi-ing and never as bad as that. I reckon they're actually carnivorous but lack teeth so they gang up and try to gum you to death.
Did youhear about the guy in a tent who was camping with friends in the hills (also in tents) and from one of his friends accounts there was a loud shreik one morning and the guy was seen just outside of his tent banging his head on the ground screaming in pain. Tunrs out when he stopped screaming and they looked at the cause of it they saw a devils coachman. In cas someone hasn't seen one ( I saw my first in the lakes last year) it is kind of a larger more evil looking earwig. Apparently it got into his tent and crawled into his ear. Then it got scared and confused so it couldn't get out sso started to try to chew its way out through hius eardrum. Apparently the pain induced him to come out of his sleeping bag out of his double skin tent and hammer his head against the ground in as forcefull a manner that he could.
Just goes to show that **** happens and a tent is not 100% safe. Still better than a tarp if scared of nature getting too close to you.
Just goes to show that **** happens and a tent is not 100% safe. Still better than a tarp if scared of nature getting too close to you.
