everybody Navster here today I'm going to talk to you about that never-ending
quest to go ultralight and just shed a few more ounces and the mistake that I
made
you
all that's come with the price I'll admit every time I see him a piece of
gear that weighs less than what I currently have
I get all googly-eyed research it do all types of analysis and think I've got to
have that piece of gear so when I decided to hike the Pacific Crest Trail
in 2019 I figured you know what there's not as much rain on the PCT as to
compared to the 80 there's lots of starter than this guy and why not change
my tent to a tarp and a bivy so that's what I did
I purchased a tarp I purchased a bivy and I went out did a little one little
training overnight camp just one and I knew immediately that it was not for me
it was not worth the seven and a half ounces that I saved from carrying my
tent so I'll cover the four things that led me to buy the tarp and the Bibby and
then I'll cover the four things that took me back to my tent
z-pak Plex amid no one told my wife so the first of the four things that maybe
want to buy the tarp weight of course that was the primary characteristic that
I looked at so I previously had the z-pak to duplex tent now when I bought
it I think Z packs I'm pretty sure showed that it weighed 21 ounces right
now on the website it shows 19 ounces but for my comparison purposes I used 21
because that's what it was when I purchased so I ultimately settled on one
brand for both the mountain laurel designs I've got ton of respected good
quality products in the industry the tarp lab bought was the MLD patrol tarp
and it weighs in at a whopping six and a half ounces the bivi was the bug bivy -
it has a little bit of protection on the sidewalls still has a big pretty large
bug netting component all along the top it comes in at 7 ounces so overall I was
saving seven and a half ounces almost half a pound for my tent setup the other
factor that I looked at was packability I previously packed mozzie
duplex on top of my backpack that way it was always there when I needed it right
when I got to camp it was the first thing I did which I like that but it's
pretty sizable you know it doesn't roll down as compact as the tarp and the bivi
combination the tarp and the bivi they're so small they just you know you
could hold them in your hand basically kind of squeeze them up in your hand and
you know you could put them inside your pack just like your jacket or your
sleeping clothes anything like that they just kind of crumpled up and you shove
them down in there and they work very well for packability the third item that
I looked at was something that would give me kind of options for cowboy
camping so with the Z packs duplex when you're in the tent you're in the tent
you know there's no lay and they're looking at the Stars
like I'm like I've been dreaming to do on the PCT you can kind of see through
the tent and if there's a bright Sun or bright moon above you then you're
definitely going to see that but you won't see stars
so with the tarpon Bibby setup on nice nights without the tarp I could just use
the bivi and look straight up at the stars
so that was intriguing with the tarpon bivy setup the fourth item was just the
idea of having you know this adventure spirit you know you see folks out there
on the trail that are under tarps or just as a divvy
you know they look like they know what they're doing they look like they're you
know the mountain man or mountain woman out there having a good time loving the
outdoors so you know that added to me wanting to get the tarp and the Bibby so
I took the tarp out as I mentioned for one night set it up and there's four
reasons why I ultimately sold both of them and now I'm going to use my Z pack
to duplex for the PCT the first of those was the time to set up now when I
regionally bought my duplex I actually bought their pull kit you know I was
familiar with tents that were freestanding I was a little afraid of
only having stakes for a tent so I bought the their pole kit I used that
for the first 30 miles of the Appalachian Trail by the time I got to
mountain crossings I sent those poles back home I've never used him again and
you know once you put up the tent with the stakes you get pretty good at it and
it goes about very quickly and that one thing about the duplex once it's up its
up I mean I've had it in rainstorms and wind storms you know in the White
Mountains and you just kind of laugh at the storm it holds up very well of
course it keeps the water off of you and so on but it's quick to go up and
protect you very well there's no question about it
each of these four items that I like about having a tent and in particular
the duplex you know the opposite of these is really why I don't like the
tarp so the tarp and the divvy set up for me took a lot longer
yes howling I've only done it once but I just did not like the setup process
after using the stakes to set up a sitar in essence I was only halfway through
you know I still had the bidding set up assuming you're gonna use it's for
stakes to set it up so I didn't feel that it that it went up as quickly if
you want to if you don't want the baby hanging down in your face of course then
you got a hook the mmm hook the strings to the underside of the tarp you know it
doesn't sound like a big deal but all in all when you set up to the duplex it's
ready to go there's no you know tweak this move this set up a bivy etc so
setup time for me was a huge win for the tent also when setting up the tarp and
the bivi one thing that I did not like is that the poles that hold up the two
ends of the tarp are in the center of the tarp now when I set up my tent let's
say on a slightly slanted ground I do it in such a way that if I slide I'm gonna
do it so that I slide to my feet right I don't want to slide sideways I didn't
want to slide you know in my direction of my head so I'm gonna slide in my foot
direction so with the tarp and the bid beef I did the same thing that's the way
I want to slide if I'm gonna have to slide but in this case you slide right
into your pole that's holding up the tarp and twice though one time I used it
that pole fell over and therefore the tarp laid down on top of my legs so just
not something I wanted to have to deal with the second item was having room to
move in the tent and a duplex yes it's a two-person tent but it has so much room
you can go in there you know have gear on one side you know sleep on the other
side however you want to do that you know tons of room to move around lay
there read your phone read a book whatever it is you want to do in your
tent do personal hygiene etc change clothes although that's very easy inside
of a tent in the bivvy tarp setup
you know your your bippy is basically the size you know a little bigger than
your sleeping bag or your quilt and so everything's very tight and compact you
don't have a lot of room to move if you wanted to do you know hygiene or you
know wash your calves off stretch your feet change clothes before you go you
know go to sleep change clothes in the morning before you hike all that is very
difficult in my opinion when you're in the bivvy and to be honest with you I
don't really know where I would do it maybe it would get easier to do in the
bivvy but I just didn't see it happen the third item that I really like for
the duplex is the ease of getting in and out and has two doors one on either side
the poles even though they are in the middle of each of the openings they
really don't get in your way there's plenty of room to move in and out there
and you don't have to climb over someone else if you're there you know in the
tent with them it's really like you've got a front door to your house right I
usually set my knee pad you know my my Therma reza sit pat down in front of the
door and use that for my knees if I'm crawling out or if I'm just gonna put my
butt out and then stand up it works great a lot easier to get in and out
than a bivy going under the tent you know like if you have that excuse me
going under the tarp if you have that set fairly low to protect against wind
or rain I don't know how to get out of that easily you're crawling on your
hands and knees because of the patrol tarp the way it's set up it has a beak
on one on the head end and then when you're crawling out and your back is up
against the beak and in my experience that pulled up the stakes more than once
so it was just not easy to get in and out and not a fan you know getting in
and out of the tarp is one thing and then you still have it yet gotten inside
or out of the bivi so you have like two processes that you have to do there and
the fourth item related to the tent that I think is great is what I call you know
the gear explosion there's no concern about pulling out all
of my gear letting it air out inside the tent
especially the duplex there's tons of room in there I can just pull it all out
throw it all around if I wanted to I usually stay fairly organized but it
just gives me that option whereas with the bivi and the tarp you know I'm not a
fan of throwing my gear out all over the ground outside of my tent so when I'm in
the bivvy I don't really know where to put it you know my gear my pack for sure
can't fit in the Biddy with me some of my gear pieces can so I have to decide I
think which things do I want in my Bibby with me throughout the night versus in
my pack and then the pack if you want to keep it out of the weather you know it's
gonna need to be under the tarp but you know it falls over legs completely on
the you know the dirty wet around whatever maybe it falls over onto the
bivi so it's just not the perfect setup for me
maybe the bivi and the tarp are best for you know two or three day events where
you may not have a lot of gear or you know the weather is gonna be nice
I don't know if I could spare an extra six hundred bucks I maybe I would keep
them but ultimately for those four reasons I decided that the tent was
right for me and I sold the bivi and the tarp don't get me wrong they were great
products high quality extremely light the service from mountain laurel designs
was awesome and you know if if you're into tarps and Bibby's in my opinion
those are the ones to go for so I hope this helps if you're making decisions
around tent versus tarp and bivy or if you're looking for ways to cut weight
from my experience going to the tarp and Vivier just not the right answer for
cutting that weight you really have to like the lifestyle of a tarp and busy
setup to go with it so thanks for watching subscribe if you like this clip
the notifications bell and I'll see you out there on the trail later