[pct-l] Contrail Tarptent

[I Discovered That By Going Out I Had Really Gone In]

Bubbles!  I stand corrected. I didn't remember you being at Pioneer Mail. Personally, I cowbow camped there. Although when I left at first light the wind tore my GG pad out of my pack. The last I saw of it, it was was accelerating and still climbing out over Oroflamme Canyon before it disappeared. 

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Katie Muilenburg <katiedm at gmail.com> wrote:

>Chili Dog and Seahorse had a SIx Moon Designs Lunar Duo, not the Double
>Rainbow.  It did blow over, but most tents blew over that night!  My
>Contrail got uprooted that night too...
>
>On Sun, Nov 6, 2011 at 5:14 PM, Timothy Nye <timpnye at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I'm not a cheerleader for the Contrail for one reason only and that's it's
>> performance in high winds.  I used a Contrail in 2009, a year which differs
>> from the last two years in terms of the amount of bad weather (high winds
>> with snow and sleet) encountered through the desert portion of the trail
>> more recently. (I know you've been out there since 2009 too, Burning
>> Daylight)
>>
>> I had no difficulty in obtaining a taut pitch.  With tarp style tents I've
>> found, as the instructions advise, that you need to re-tighten the lines
>> after 15-20 minutes or so; I've always done it a third time as well, right
>> before I turn in or after rain begins.  In winds, the Contrail is supposed
>> to be pitched with it's smaller end facing into the wind, which I did, but
>> a gusting wind storm resulted in my being buffeted by the tent sides
>> throughout the night.  Vulnerability to winds is not a feature only to the
>> Contrail, it's shared by a number of tents.  In 2010 a couple of instances
>> of actual tent collapse were shared with or witnessed by me; in one
>> instance during a storm with high winds and freezing temperatures the hiker
>> wound up getting off the trail. This year I believe Chilidog and Sea Horse
>> had a Double Rainbow which went down at Pioneer Mail, and I think Splash
>> may have had one that when her tent went down at the island encampment at
>> Cascade Locks.  Although others may speak more knowledgibly on this subject
>> than, the thing about high winds for me is that they seem to be more often
>> that accompanied by some form of condensation and a drop in temperature.
>> The desert, especially at the beginning of the hiking season, seems to be
>> where the most severe conditions are encountered.
>>
>> My observations in 2010 led me to conclude that the plains Indians knew
>> what they were doing, a conical, tee-pee shape appears to be the most
>> stable.  There are a number of these, but I used the Six Moons Designs
>> Lunar Solo (with a reinforced floor).  At PCT days at Cascade Locks I was
>> camped on the Eastern end of the island, near Splash, without any wind
>> breaks.  The tent was still standing in one of the most exposed positions.
>> As an experiment, I left it there for the whole time I was there, using the
>> small Ti stakes. During this entire time the wind was ferocious and the
>> tent was constantly under assault.  The lines never loosened and the tent
>> walls were taut when I left; that was from Friday afternoon to mid-morning
>> Sunday.  The kicker for me was that I wasn't sure which way the wind as
>> going to be coming from, up river or down, so I pitched the tent at a 90
>> degree angle from it's optimum pitching position that would maximize it's
>> wind shedding ability.
>>
>> The major plus of the Contrail, from my viewpoint, is it's roominess.
>> Also, condensation is alsways going to an issue with a single wall tent.
>> The roominess offsets this somewhat; although increasing the amount of
>> netting (not using or closing the vestibule unless it's raining) will also
>> offset this, especially for a conical type set up.
>>
>> My two cents.
>>
>> Gourmet.
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