Tarpology - (Treeless) Two Pole Square Tarp Tent (3x3 Meter Tarp)

hello everyone Simon here with pack to live today I'm going to show you my favourite type of ground pitch and the reason I'm doing that is because I think in every video that has ever made it to the Internet I've been hammer King and so you've not seen me ever really do a proper ground pitch that's easy to pitch it up when you have a couple of trees reasonably well spaced all you have to do is string a ridgeline and throw some guidelines or even just peg it straight to the floor and you're done but when you have no trees obviously I have plenty but when you have no trees it's good to know how to do a couple of different ground pitches now I've practiced quite a few truthfully probably forgotten most of them indeed the picture I'm about to show you I haven't done in at least eight months probably more so a little bit rusty and by no means the best of doing this but I figured look I get asked all the time what my favorite ground pitches and whether I even know any rather than trying to explain how to set it up it would be easier just to demonstrate it on video and you never know it may be helpful to others at the top I will be using today is the DD 3x3 the pitch is ideally suited to any square tarp you can do it with the DD 4x4 but I find that I have to use either a longer pole or a pole extender if I'm using my hiking poles for the sake of this video I will be using a pair of shock-absorbing but that's irrelevant as a pair of hiking poles I'll tell you how many pegs I'm using as I use them but you want a good complement off of pegs and I'm using three separate guy lines two of which are actually very short anyway or need only be very short anyway okay so before we even think about laying the tarp out the very first consideration we have to make is the direction of the wind now the wind is actually blowing directly towards the camera from behind me that means that when I lay my tarp out I want to have the ridge line facing the camera the actual ridge peak of the tarp facing the camera and the side furthest away from the camera will end up being the back the side currently facing the camera will end up being the front so I'm going to lay the tarp out now because I haven't already done it and we'll cut back and we'll go over the next step okay so what I've done there is basically just put a peg on each corner portly spacing the tarp out in a square and the reason I've done it that way is so that the top can't blow around or blow away while I'm lining up all of the ground contact points now for the sake of this pitch the backside of the top the rear of the shelter we're building we can actually peg the whole thing down permanently because all of the tape points at the back will probably end up needing to be pegged anyway so at least sticking one in the middle is a good idea which I'll go and do now and then I will more solidly fix the back corners into place okay so with the rear pegged out at least in three places the two corners and in the center it's a good start what I need to do now is focus on the front of the top and how I'm going to actually make an opening on this thing and raise it up so we'll get to that nail okay so what we have here is one of the front corners but we don't want to peg it out as a square because otherwise you wouldn't be able to lift it up and you wouldn't be able to get anything underneath it which is kind of pointless so what we need to do is on the front side of the tarp bring this corner in at least as far as this some second tape in preferably as close to halfway between that tape and the center tape as possible so we'll do that now okay so we bring it in remembering to keep the side taught all the way back now we want to come in at least as far as that plus a little bit about they're keeping oh there we go keeping the side as taut as possible all the way down to the rear corner okay and then we're going to repeat that process on the other side okay so we're just repeating the same process we've just done what's best to do is to get in front of the it's best to get in front of the top and just pull on the second tape in just to keep it taut so that the reference point that we're moving towards is about the same as it was for the other side and again we want to keep it nice and taut down to the back corner and then press that peg in okay so now that we've got our corners pegged all four corners are pegged where they need to be we need to create the opening and to do that we're going to use one of the hiking poles so I'll get one now and then I'll show you where we're going to fix it but basically we want to put it underneath the second tape in along the ridge from the front of the top and the reason for that is because this tarp tape is reinforced and so our walking pole won't tear right through it the other important thing when putting a walking pole or a hiking pole against a tarp is that you want to make sure that nothing sharp you don't want to use the carbide tip at the bottom of the hiking pole against the tarp or it will simply cut right through and ruin your tarp I tend to just use the handle of my hiking pole but you can get something called a Ferol which is say I'm like a rubber stopper that goes over the carbide so if your pole tight requires a pole extender that links the two carbide-tipped ends together the former a center a center pole then you'll want to put a furrow at least on the top and if you've got a ground sheet to go inside and you want to put the pole on the ground sheet you'll definitely want one on the bottom - I'm just going to use a plain old hiking pole with no extenders nothing special and I'll show you how that goes now loosening off the pole what I want to do is put a fixed amount of length on the rear set the bottom section so I'm going to put that at about 130 on my pole and then the remainder of the adjustment will take place on the top tube because there's more strength there than there is in pivoting against this little spindly bit at the bottom so keep it loose if you pull on the top top tape here as I am now you pull it towards you and up then you get a good idea as to how long you need the point of the pole to be so I'm sorry I'm blocking the shot but I need to adjust my pole here okay so you should be able to see that the pole is sitting perfectly under the center of the second tape in along the ridge from the front so there's the front tape you might not be able to see because you've got the cab got the camera zoomed in but the point is that pole must be sat perfectly underneath the tarp tape otherwise you risk over stressing the tarp and possibly tearing it okay so now that we've got the the actual pole in there nice and sturdy everything's staying still we could really do with tying off the front term tape of the Center Ridge and what we do is we just put a guy line around it and run it down and away as far as we can and put a peg in or we don't want it's the pole to shift okay so what just happened there was I didn't quite do the pole up tight enough I didn't secure the pole properly and it just started to lower as the wind pushed on the top and just applied a bit more pressure I've tightened that up now raised it back up tightened it just make sure you tighten your pole off properly before you move on to the next step now the guylines that I cut from my tarps are actually very long and the reason for that is because I'm normally suspending them in the trees I normally want them up off the ground with airflow underneath them so I tend to tie off to opposing trees where possible so my guidelines are a good several meters long we don't need several meters we need maybe a metre and a half to two meters at absolute most and a peg so all I'm going to do you can use basically any knot you want to secure the line I'm just going to use two half hitches just because it's easy to untie and then all we want to do is come out of it and the further away we go from the top the gradual the angle will be on the rate on the guyline and the more peak you can get on there now I don't need that much height this will do for me and then all I'm going to do I'll show you this knot because it's really straightforward I'm just going to take a loop okay so it doesn't matter which way around the loop is curl it under and pull it on my fingers there and that creates a loop slide the peg through the loop and when we pull everything's nice and tight really easy you can slip the peg out the whole thing will come undone without having to untie anything in particular okay so now that we've got the ridge line of our tarp pegged off on the ground we've got these two flappy bits which people call the door it's not really a door because it doesn't close up all the way this type of pitch but there is one cool thing we can do with it and that is we can take these two tapes on both sides pull them together and we can either time together with a line or just slip a peg or a carabiner basically anything you like you can slip it straight through there just to hold these two together carabiner obviously works better I'm not going all the way over to my pack just to get a carabiner for this but the point is you can tie them together you can you can time together and then put a peg in the ground and it creates a more closed space so basically we now have a better shelter from whatever conditions may be ailing us in this way that I have to say it is very very hot in here now what we typically want to do with the doors and we do this on both sides same process is we want to tie a guy line so I'll get another guy line at my bag onto the tape that remains now on the 3x3 there is only the one because we got the center-to-center tie out the tie out in question and then the corner that's on the ground in this case I'm just going to do another two half hitches the same way I've done with the other because it's easy enough to undo you could do anything you like you can just create a single bite and pull it through if that's your thing take a single peg run back to the missing aid tape so we're missing a tape here along the side we're going to the next one back so from the peg corner it's one two back and then we will not only peg the top to the ground at this point but we will tie on our our rig I line to hold everything together shut down and I'll just use my foot okay so as you can see that door is now held open nicely we'll repeat the process on the other side and then I'll give you a different angle and then we'll take a look at the finished product okay so the other door here then the same thing again just taking a guyline attaching it to the tape along the vertical just using two half hitches any securing not will do I suggest using one that is as easy to open or undo as possible we take an additional peg we go over to the second one back if we pull it out a little bit and run our peg in just loosely all I'm doing with this one is coming around the back around the front over the top round the back and I'm just doing a cross and then a couple of rounds then I don't have to actually not anything and the reason for that is because I want to be able to undo these easily and quickly if I want to close everything up at the front there we go well you're now looking at is the rear left-hand corner as if you were sat on the inside looking out or right-hand side if you were looking at the opening from the outside and that is the corner tyre call a peg over there this is one in from the rear corner we need to put pegs in these we need to do this on both sides so I'm going to go ahead and do that now so I put this in before but when I tightened up the outside which I really should have done first and it shows you why it's always good to practice these things it just forced this to move forward so we'll open it up put it on its lowest setting I think for this one your poles may vary depending on their size and then just or get it ins nice and taut as you can okay now the creases that you can see from the inside they don't actually matter rain will still gutter down them and run off they don't pose any real any real problem there's still plenty of room in here now I could lay full length across the floor here and there's actually enough room for another person in here or two people can lay from the front to the back down each side of this Center pole this room in the bottom for the gear and it is a very spacious very spacious shelter and that's a good thing because I'm actually going to be sleeping in here tonight I spent last night in the hammock which I enjoyed I loved coming out hammocking but I decided that today I'd like to do this video and then well sleep on the grass for a little while although obviously I'll be bringing my bed stuff in here but this is my favorite type of ground shelter it's the one that I most commonly commonly produce again you can make a larger version of this with the DD 4x4 tarp however if you do so you'll probably find that a normal walking pole doesn't produce the kind of length required to get the ridge height I should point out that the ridge height is directly proportional to the width of the door if you make the door wider because I make the opening wider then the peak will be lower and if you make it narrower the peak will be higher so technically with the 4x4 you can do it with a standard hiking pole except I personally I feel that you then have to make the opening so wide that any heat that you try to build up in here in particular in the cold season made it just goes straight out the door and you lose it it's not not really worth it there are better designs of pitch that you can use larger tops for just to make it clear that this type of shelter is best suited for square tarps so this is the DD 3 by 3 3 meters by 3 meters it'll work with the 4 by 4 as I've said only personally I would want to a longer pole or a pole extender in this case - to get the kind of rich height obviously with the 4 by 4 and having a higher Ridge there's more Headroom and you get much more base room with it being a meter wider all the way around as a tarp this this is one I'd recommend it's good pretty much all year round the shear if you that the higher you make the ridge and therefore the narrow you make the opening the better it is it's shedding things like snow in the winter the wind rolls off reasonably well without putting too much stress on the poles I've leaned this pole at about a 35 degree to 40 degree angle outward so the the bottom of it on the ground is closer to me than the top which is at about arm's length from where I'm sitting between it and the center pole at the moment that way if the wind presses down it just tries to bed the walking pole into the ground rather than causing the walking pole to slip forward and blow and blowing side in which would be very uncomfortable in the light the center pole it's not going to move with the ridge tied off at the front in the center of the opening it puts enough tension over the pole to hold the pole firmly upright and I haven't I've never had a pole come out doing this with a piece of random wood ie not with the walking poles it's quite a bit more difficult because then you have to actually tailor the width of the opening of the of the tarp tent to fit the height of the pole that you have available so if you're doing this with a bit of wood just a branch that you've cut then you will have to do the you'll actually have to design the pitch around the pole as a - fitting the poll to match the shape and size of the page being able to close the doors off is brilliant all of the rain will be shed away from me but of course it's important to keep in mind the gradient of the ground in other words if if if you're in a bowl or down a hill so all the rain will still run down - you come under the sides of the top and you're still going to get wet where I am right now there's enough drainage that if it did rain the water would absorb into the ground before it got to me but also I'm on relatively level ground there's bumpy ground I'll grant you but it is relatively level and one other thing we can do to help prevent rain and other elements from getting in is to go round the outside edges all the way around and get things like leaves dead leaves and just make a pile of them all the way around the base the other thing that will do is it will stop any air from coming in underneath but because of the nature of the opening you will never be able to close it down enough to be at a risk of asphyxiation in warmer weather I recommend laying with your head by the front door and cold the weather I tend to lay but I tapped to be honest I tend to lay I'll lengthways inside between the ridge but the center pole and the rear pole but you can also lay with your head at the back end and your feet at the front end if you must there are two tapes currently at the sides that can be pegged down I'm not doing it because I just want to count the pegs so all in all we're using one two three four five six seven eight nine so I'm currently using nine pegs to peg all of the takes out you would need 10 11 12 13 pegs so you'll actually need 13 pegs to peg all of the siding down personally I don't think that's necessary I think that would be a bit overkill especially at this time of year and 9 pegs is sufficient so this is where I'm going to be spending the night in a moment I will go and get the rest of my equipment and bring it in I hope you found the video reasonably informative if if you have any questions if anything wasn't illustrated clearly in the video first of all I apologize but secondly you are more than welcome to ask any questions you need to and I will answer them but more and more than anything else have fun be adaptable if this pitch doesn't work best for you and the way you're camping come up with a different one there are many of them I think I've practiced at least 30 different ones up to now and I've barely scratched the surface I pretty much I got to this one I decided I liked it that it worked for me pretty much all year round and this is the one that I use whenever I'm forced to ground well but obviously I much prefer my hammock thank you very much for watching and I'll see you next time

Channel: Packed To Live

Views: 229,426

Keywords: Tarpaulin, Tarp Tent (Product Category), Camping (Literature Subject), Bushcraft, Survival, Camping, SHTF, Prepper, Hiking, Hiking Poles, Shelter, Tent, Tarp, DD Hammocks, DD 3x3, 3x3, 4x4, Tutorial, Guide, Lesson, Educational

Id: sZd6ct8HOFE

Length: 22min 14sec (1334 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 20 2015