Tent stories 2: Have tents, will travel

As promised, here’s the lowdown on my third tent.

It’s actually stretching things to call it a tent. It resembles a very large shower cap more than it does a tent. It’s essentially fabric fitted to cover the opening of a hatchback or small SUV with the liftgate open, attached to the car with bungee cords. Here’s a picture of it on the car:

It’s designed to fit a range of vehicles; my car is at the low end of the range. The corners are nicely reinforced, but my liftgate doesn’t even come close to the reinforced area. So I decided some tent modification was called for. It took me most of the day yesterday, what with figuring out exactly what to do and then doing it, but it now has a couple of extra layers all along the edge of the liftgate, and is heavily reinforced where the corners hit the tent. I added some tie lines also, to adjust the fit.

Here it is, opened up, but with the anti-bug mesh in place. Please do not strain your eyes trying to see into the car–it’s a bit junky right now 🙂

I figure this one’s mostly for sleeping in rest areas or when I just pull off to the side of a road overnight, though I can also use it as a bit of shelter when I stop for lunch. I fixed it so I can deploy that little wall covering as an awning, and set my little table up underneath. Should work nicely.

There’s further news on the Northern Breeze, too. (Beginning of the story here.) The new support pole arrived, so this morning I decided to try setting it up, using what I learned the first time, to see if I can really handle it. And I can! My new procedure totally worked. Here’re the instructions, just in case you ever find yourself in need of setting one up:

1. Attach all four poles to the center lug, lining up the holes previously created and screwing in the wing screws for stability. Do not insert the bottom piece of the poles, so that the top is easily reached.

2. Lay out ground cloth underneath, anchoring it with rocks. Dump the tent out on the ground cloth (so it doesn’t get full of stickers) underneath the center of the 4 poles. Here’s a picture with these steps completed:

3. Locate the tent peak and hook it to the center lug.

4. Attach all roof hooks to the poles, first the inner set, then the outer set.

5. Attach the corner loops to the hooks at the corners of the poles. This takes a bit of pushing and pulling and stretching, but was actually a bit easier than I had anticipated. Here’s the result:

You’ll notice I had stored it with the walls–both fabric and mesh–rolled up. Part of my strategy; keeps the mesh out of the dirt and stickers, and leaves less for the wind to catch while putting it up.

6. Go around the tent, lifting the corner and inserting the last section of each pole. This raises the roof up where it’s supposed to be–around 8 ft. up– with no stepstool or assistance from another person required, which is exactly what I was after.

7. Undo the mesh walls (leaving the fabric walls furled) and attach the corners of the tent to the poles. This entails some adjusting of exactly where the poles hit the ground.

At this point a breeze was starting to kick up, so I also staked the tent walls down at all eight points. Here it is–proof that I can do it all with no assistance:

I was basically done now, but I decided to see if I could do a couple of awnings too. I got them up, at which point I noticed the wind was kicking up a notch. You can kinda see it here–check out the awning at the left:

so decided I’d better put out guy lines as well.

Here it is all guyed down, looking at it from the windward side:

I decided I wanted one more guy line out on that side, so added another on the corner that faces most directly into the wind (the white one, below). Here’s the final product, held down by an estimated 130-135 feet of guy line:

Here’s a shot with both tents in it. You can see better how the car tent fits onto the car (and the cartop carrier that’s going to make it possible–I hope–to carry all this gear, three dogs, and a passenger), with the Northern Breeze in the background.

The wind is hitting its stride, as you can see, and the big tent is standing up to it fairly well so far. It took me about an hour to get everything set up, which considering I had to go back for things, and figure things out, and got interrupted a time or two, and went for the camera several times to take pictures, isn’t too bad. Altogether, I’m feeling MUCH better about it than I was after my earlier misadventures with it.

One of the reasons I went to the trouble of setting everything up here at home is I believe in hands-on learning. Here are a few things I’ve learned:

1. It’s a good thing I ordered the replacement pole. I totally don’t think the bent pole would be holding up to the wind right now.

2. The ground cloth (actually plastic) they sell, while it feels pretty tough when you open the package, is easily penetrated by small sharp botanical objects (in this case, the stubble from mown weeds). It now has a bunch of small holes in it from me walking on it. I may supplement with a tarp, giving me three layers underfoot: tarp, ground cloth, tent floor.

3. Putting the big tent up in the wind is going to be a serious challenge. But by guying down the frame before I attach the roof, I think I can do it if necessary. It’ll take longer, because it means guying and re-guying, but I think it’s possible.

4. I need more metal tent stakes. The plastic ones they send along with the tent aren’t worth a whole lot.

5. I want more line to tie things down with.

6. I need to move the ties I put on the car tent.

7. You have to wait awhile after you stop driving to put on the car tent–it touches the tailpipe. What I don’t know yet is how long it takes for the tailpipe to cool down.

8. I should try putting up the Kelty in the wind, just to see if I can, but I’m tired now and need to do other things, so may not get it done.

Things are shaping up for me to get out of town on Thursday. Yippee!

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PS A few hours later

What I learned from taking the tent down

1. It’s going to take longer to take the tent down and get it stowed than to get it out and put it up. The taking down part is about as long as the putting up part–but subduing it enough to get it back in its stuff sack–that’s a chore. But it makes sense that that would take longer than getting it out–you’re fighting entropy, going from a higher state of disorder to a lower one. Of course, it was windy when I took it down, which made it harder.

2. I really should add a couple of ties on two walls of the tent so I can furl them and tie them up. But I don’t know if I will–after all, I did manage without them.

2. It is entirely possible to pound in a tent stake too hard (at least if you use a small metal sledgehammer). The first stake I tried to pull bent the stake puller on the handle of the mallet. (I’ve now replaced that flimsy hook with a much beefier round eye hook.) Another stake broke its plastic hook when I tried to pull it up. Notice where I place the responsibility.

3. You can make a pretty good stake puller by tying a loop in one end of a guy line, then wrapping the rest of the line around a mallet handle. That worked for all but two of the stubborn ones.

4. If you can’t pull up a tent stake, you may be able to get it out by digging down and bit and then pulling. That worked for the two I couldn’t get up by just pulling. Yes, I always take a small shovel with me when I camp.

5. I want lots and lots of pre-made guy lines with those handy plastic clamp thingies on them. Guy lines have to be adjusted from time to time, and especially when taking the tent down in the wind (or putting it up in the wind, I’m sure), and you need those thingies to adjust the lines quickly. They’ll make the job much easier.

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