Tarps for extending social area

[Ent]

Hi

A friend and I enjoy the comfort and social side of walking and between us carry four walking poles and this means a tarp sounds like a good idea to provide some standing and cooking. Basically a pergola for the Hilleberg Hilton. Interested in the 4.4 by 4.4 tarp Hilleberg make or something that can be as tough and light. Ideally we are looking for a configuration that gives a roof and three sides using four walking poles. Napkin mathematics tonight suffered a little with the wine but what sort of configuration options would give a decent height and three sided protection. At around 1.1 kilograms extra weight I am hoping to get a decent area covered. Lets assume I am an avid tree protectionist so lets stick to four poles and the tarp. Could use the Katium in the mix which is a tunnel tent design.

Anyone tried something similar and more importantly do you still do this? An alternative option would be to combine into tent/tarp configuration like the good old A design tent but such a commercial product would need to have an inbuilt floor as my friend likes the idea that the wildlife remains free to roam outside an enclosed environment as I do.

Cheers Brett

[samh]

Can' t really come up with something out of the top of my head, but I think using 4 poles makes the whole thing unnecessarily complicated. I'd just use 2 poles. Anyway here is a configuration with three poles and a Hille tarp from the web. If you only use a rectangular tarp, why not take a groundsheet or one of those blue tarps from the supermarket and try out some configurations. I tried that some time ago and came up with some reasonable seeting for creating a one-person shelter with my groundsheet.

Sam

[Ent]

Hi Sam

Nice to hear from you again. The idea is to tape one or two of the poles together to get a 2m plus height so something like the configuration posted by you would work well with the four poles but I looking for three sided protection as it is the wind that makes for less than enjoyable evening socialising. 4.4 x 4.4 sounds large but side walls soon make short work of that size assuming that the dinner napkin scale was right

Cheers Brett

[etrangere]

some configurations

[Ent]

some configurations

Thanks etrangere for the designs, the group shelter looks promising so next trick to find out how many tie down and mounting points the Hilleberg tarp has and to work out the effective headroom height to floor numbers.

Cheers Brett

[Son of a Beach]

The authoritative guide, by David B. Macpherson, is on the 'Equipped to Survive' website on their tarp shelters page. There's also a link there to download it as a PDF.

It's very long... you may need to scroll down quite a long way to get to the actual shelter configurations, some of which are quite complex, and some very simple.

[etrangere]

The authoritative guide, by David B. Macpherson, is on the 'Equipped to Survive' website on their tarp shelters page. There's also a link there to download it as a PDF.

It's very long... you may need to scroll down quite a long way to get to the actual shelter configurations, some of which are quite complex, and some very simple.

Seen that PDF document before.....the guy seriously has WAY to much time on his hands lol. Its also not so user friendly to read at times. If anyone else has any links or pics of tarps configurations i'd be interested to have a look myself. I have the StS 3 x 2m, 3 x 3m, 3 x 4.5m and poncho tarps so always keen to see any new set ups!

[Nuts]

Brett, the XP (or UL) 20 have 4 on each side (Including the corners) with traditional (centre supported ) pitching they'll sit 8/10 easily enough!

[Ent]

Brett, the XP (or UL) 20 have 4 on each side (Including the corners) with traditional (centre supported ) pitching they'll sit 8/10 easily enough!

Thanks Nuts for that information. It is very tempting but I assume that it is the usual Hilleberg price but also with the usual Hilleberg quality as well. Yours holding up well? Does it have an eyelet for the poles to go through or do you simply wrap the guy rope around the walking pole sharp end?

Also thanks Nik for the link. I have some serious reading and calculations to do to get the idea social area that can block the wind and still have good head height.

Cheers