[pct-l] Prepared for weather

[Eric Lee]

Len wrote:
>
Could you share your adjustments?
>

Mostly it's reminding me that I need to be prepared at all times not just
for rain or snow falling straight down, but rain or snow accompanied by
strong swirling winds.  That's a much more difficult situation to handle but
it's clearly foreseeable.

As I mentioned in a previous email, for several years I've carried a
homemade tarptent based on Henry Shire's original design that he published
on his web site.  It does fine to keep the bugs out and handles a
straight-down rain ok, but it wouldn't do well in seriously windy
conditions.  This has always bothered me a little bit but not enough to do
anything about it.

Well, I have a Mountain Laurel Designs Duomid on order right now.  To be
honest I placed the order a month ago so I guess it's not a direct result of
the weather the thrus have been facing the past couple of weeks but it
definitely confirms to me that the Duomid is going to be my standard
long-trip shelter from now on, not just my bad-weather-likely shelter.
That's assuming I like it and that it handles bad conditions as well as
people say it does.  If not, then I'll look for something else.  If I'm
going to be out on the trail long enough that I'm at the mercy of whatever
weather happens to blow in then I need to be able to handle whatever might
reasonably blow in.

I think the Duomid will turn out to be a good solution for me.  Other
solutions may be better for other people.  In my case, the Duomid itself is
about the same weight as my old tarptent.  It affords less ventilation and
no views when it's tightened down but then I prefer to cowboy camp whenever
possible anyway so I don't think that matters much.  In bad weather it's
much more protected, much more stable, and has much more headroom and living
space inside.  The one downside is that the Duomid isn't bugproof so after
debating back and forth for awhile I decided to also order the solo-sized
Innernet bug shelter to go along with it.  That means my new shelter system
is 8 ounces heavier than my old one but having two separate pieces gives me
more choices.

Eric