How To Stay Dry Under A Tarp

Description

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How do you stay dry under a tarp? How do you not get wet under a tarp? How do you avoid getting water running under your tarp? How to stop rain coming under a tarp? How to stop water coming under my tarp? All these questions are variations on a theme that have been asked of me for the #AskPaulKirtley show. I've also received some fairly dumb comments on other videos here on YouTube. So in this excerpt of #AskPaulKirtley Episode 35, I talk through intelligent tarp placement. In particular I look at macro factors and micro factors you need to consider in order to stay dry...

Watch the full episode of #AskPaulKirtley 35 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4cbC-nxwSw

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Video Transcription

okay how not to get wet and hit up those of you that follow my youtube channel will and probably smile at this question and to be fair to Jeff this question came before I made that video and that video about how to stay dry under a tarp wasn't made in reaction to this question from Jeff I think this this question from Jeff is a is a sensible question and the video on YouTube was made in is a reaction to some dumb comments that I got about my lightening the load videos where I was looking at lightweight tarps amongst other things and also the video that was linked from that about how to set up the lightest of those setups I got some fairly dumb comments like they'll be all right until it rains and and yeah okay fair enough some people are skeptical about whether or not tarps will keep you dry in certain weather conditions and I think we should address that and particularly in the context of Jeff's question here which is a sensible one so Jeff's question is I noticed you like to sleep on the ground under a tarp without the benefit of a tent how do you prevent rainfall from leaking under the tarp and getting your bedding wet and that's a genuine concern and actually if you don't do it right that may well happen you may well get wet under a tarp if you don't do it right and I think that's the key thing and you have to do things right you can't just buy it and and expect it to do everything for you without engaging your brain and again this is not aimed this is not aimed at you Jeff just to be clear it some of the comments that I've had on YouTube about tarps yeah okay if you if you put a tarp up high on the edge of a woodland with the prevailing wind coming from that side yes the rain is going to blow under the windward side of the top of course that's just physics but it's about being intelligent

with where you put your top so I have spent hundreds probably into the thousands of nights out under a tarp I live and work outdoors many months of the year every single year and I have done for a decade full time and before that part time in terms of working and I have hiked and camped since I was in my late teens and I'm now 43 so I am talking from 25 years of experience of hiking camping camping in the mountains camping in the woods camping in the UK camping in Scandinavia camping in mainland Europe camping in Africa camping in North America okay I am talking from that perspective when I talk I am NOT sitting here for the YouTube commenters I am NOT sitting here and speaking from the perspective of theory okay I'm speaking from the perspective of experience if you put a tarp up high on the edge of a piece of woodland when it's windy yes you will get water underneath it if you are under a very small tarp and it rains very very heavily that water can bounce off the ground and splash under your top yes those things can happen but I'll give you a recent example example from earlier this year we were between courses that we ran and actually one of those courses was the episode where we did the the live a sport curtly with a live audience asking the questions that was the 2-day course that we did and back in April I believe it was if I remember rightly end of March beginning of April and between that course and another course we had some really really bad weather and it was fairly unpleasant when we recorded that episode and you remember us talking about that and if not I'll link to it in the in the show notes and it was wet and it was windy but it had been a lot wetter and a lot windy before that and it was very wet very windy and after that course we stayed in the woods after that course and a storm came through and it was horrendous we had trees coming down in the woods and there were areas of the woods that were flooded but I did not get wet under my tarp and the reason I didn't get wet under my tarp was because I was intelligent about where I put it aside from making sure that I'm not under a tree that's liable to blow down or parts of it to blow off that's the primary concern you're then intelligent about where you put it where is the weather coming from make sure that you're not on the edge of the woods on the side where the weather is coming from or even on the edge of a clearing in the woods in the direction that the weather is coming from get into the woods on that course the 2-day course and we didn't have the students put their tarps up where they normally put the tarps up on the two day course to camp because of the way the strong wind was coming in to the edge of the woodland we had them camp just it was a very slight rise just on the other side of the slight rise maybe about a hundred yards at most from where they normally camp the difference in how windy it was between where we'd normally have students camp on that course and where we put them because of the prevailing winds that that weekend made a huge difference to their comfort both in terms of temperature and in terms of protection from the rain so being intelligent about where you put it is the first thing in terms of macro positioning where is the way they're coming from where is the best side of these woods where's the best side of this hill where am I going to get some shelter even one side of a tree stump or another will make a difference how much wind and rain will get anywhere near you the next thing you need to do clearly if you put your tarp up and you're in a localized dip what can happen is the rain comes down off your top hits the ground and then flows underneath your top and you end up lying in a pool of water you don't want to be doing that either so look for local minima look for local low spots and avoid sleeping in them avoid spanning your top between them and that is the primary thing to do there think about where water is going to go when it flows off your top think about where water is going to go on the ground generally if it rains heavily and as I say I spend lots and lots you know it varies but I spend between hundreds between schools and hundreds of nights out in a year under a tarp depending on you know what I'm doing what year it is and some years I've spent more time out than others some years I spent more time in tents some years I spent more times on trips in tents and less time in tarps it depends but I spent a lot of time out under tarps and only on a handful of occasions have I had any water run under my tarp because I always do my utmost to make sure I think about it and I position my tarp correctly doesn't need to spend it don't need to spend a long time this is not an involved process yet macro where do I put it micro where do I put it and then put it up doesn't need to take a long time a good tip from a friend of mine when you're looking for somewhere to put your tarp up is take your rucksack off when you come to the general area you're going to put your tarp up put you take your rucksack off because if you're at the end of a long day's hike and you're tired and this this rings true it's a piece of advice and I heard him giving somebody recently and it's not one that was at the forefront of my mind but it is now it's a good one it's something I do but it wasn't something that was sort of in my conscious mind as a piece of advice put your rucksack down and then walk around finding a good spot because if you've got a big heavy load on that you've had on your back all day the thing you want to do is put it down and so you'll put it down and if that means that's where you're going to put your camp up it might not be optimal so put your uggs AK down make sure you can remember where it is of course and then find that localised spot that you're going to put your camp

put your tarp up it doesn't need to take a long time five minutes at most choosing to the spot all right that's that's that thing and then the third thing is then use a bivy bag it use a waterproof cover for your sleeping bag and your sleeping mat goes inside that and your sleep bag goes inside that that gives em multiple levels of protection for your sleeping gear it means that it's not going to get wet and we'll come back to that in a second it means it gets dirty less quickly and which is important because dirty sleeping bags don't work as well in terms of keeping you warm and it also gives another layer of protection in terms of thermal efficiency stops and drafts just in the same way as you putting a waterproof jacket over you stops the wind getting into your thermal layers putting a waterproof cover over your sleeping bag stops the wind taking the warm air away from your sleeping bag it also traps another layer of air between the sleeping bag and the bivi bag so it makes it more thermally efficient it keeps it dry it keeps it clean in terms of keeping it dry you can if it's a really good bivi bag it will stop the rain getting in you can even have your feet sticking out the bottom of the top if it's a small top pop the bottom of the bivi bag out the bottom of the top a little bit that means you can get your rucksack well in above you that stops drafts coming down your neck you can put your dry clothes on top of your sleeping bag on top of your rucksack rather above where you're sleeping your nicely cocooned in your nicely and encapsulated in your sleeping bag in your bitty bag everything's together as well remember I said put your sleeping mat inside as well then you're not going to slide off it the exception to that I would say now is with the advent of those thick ex bed mats and similar they can be quite hard to get inside a bivy bag and a sleeping bag that's that's the that's the flipside of those that said if I was doing a lightweight tarp trip I wouldn't have one of those I've used those more for sleeping on rock on canoe trips and I use them for winter trips sometimes and when I'm in a heated tent I generally use a thermo rest either a full-length one or a three-quarter length one and a bivi bag and a sleeping bag and if I'm sleeping on the ground and I'm comfortable and I've done that for years and I have never got my sleeping bag wet sleeping on the ground unless I've been sleeping out just in a big bag

there isn't a completely em like a mini ten I could double who baby bag so sometimes you want to sleep out under the stars I remember one evening I slept out sleeping mat inside this inside the bivi bag sleeping bag inside it had pretty heavy rain storms overnight and and even though I've hacen things quite up water is going to get in and what I find in those situation works best is if you don't have a bag that will zip over completely and have a little hoop in it like some of them do and I don't tend to use those anymore if I'm if I want a lightweight tent I take a lightweight tent these days because lightweight tents are so much lighter and but if I am sleeping out in a bivy bag only a bivy bag and no tarp over me and it starts to rain most Biffy bags have got some sort of hood that will cowl up around your face the best thing to do with those is not try and put them up over your face because water will just come in the best thing to do is lie on your front with the hood over your head so it protects and it stops the rain coming in and that will work well and people are going to ask about biting insects and things yeah if you've got biting insects you're not going to be sleeping out like that in the first place if you know there's going to be midges or mosquitoes or black flies or anything else you take a shelter that's appropriate so hopefully that helps choose the right spot macro sense within the woods choose the right spot micro in terms of localized low spots make sure you put your top up in a sensible spot make sure that your sleeping bag is inside a bivy bag and that bivi bag is waterproofed and you will have no problem as I say hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of nights spent sleeping out like that I really enjoy it I like sleeping outside I know some people prefer hammocks that's fine and I don't personally I quite like sleeping on a flat piece of ground I find it better for my back I find it's better for my kidneys I find I sleep better that way that works for me I don't get wet I don't get water coming in the side I don't get water flowing underneath it's just about intelligent choice of where you put the tarp in the first