Camping outside is fun, it’s exciting and adventurous it certainly can be enjoyable so long as you shelter well. Aswell as having a good tent for your camping trip, you can have that extra shelter by putting up a tarp over your tent.
The main reason to have a tarp over your tent would be for obvious reasons, to keep out the rain so your tent and your gear do not get wet as the last thing you want is for the equipment to be soaked as you will end up being miserable for your entire trip. The other reason is to keep out leaves dropping and even some dirt if possible. Knowing how to set up a tarp to help prevent the heavy rains and even at times to keep the sun away from your tent is something you would need to know. What if you forget the tarp poles and you have nothing else this is where your imagination would need to come into play and you will need to use your environment around you such as trees or rocks, logs etc.
After carrying out some research I have explained in this article how to set up a tarp and there are a few alternatives to the tarp.
What Is A Tarp
A tarp is a low-cost sheet of plastic that you can use for many reasons. You can use them to cover up a hole in the window, you can use them to even be used as a cover for your car if your an outdoor mechanic and don’t have your own garage. Alot of people use a tarp for many reasons but it acts in two ways when it comes to camping.
- A Shelter
- An extra layer of flooring
The tarp can be used as an extra shelter over your existing tent it would cover your tent and prevent any rain or water coming into your tent, or sand and wind to be kept out.
The other reason for using a tarp is when it does rain it can help prevent any mud or watery muddy soil come on to your tent so it acts as an extra flooring so it would protect your tent.
Should You Put a Tarp Over Your Tent
Most campers that you do see at campsites usually tend to use a tarp that acts as a shelter or a tent and some don’t use one at all but uses their own camping tent. It is a personal preference on whether you wish to use a tarp or not while your out camping but there are some reasons on why you should put a tarp over your tent I cover some of them below
- Protection From UV Rays
- Protection From Bird Droppings
- Reduction Of Condensation
- Protects From Dew
- Act As A Roof For Your Kitchen
Protection From UV Rays
Uv Rays can have some serious damage on your tent, so if you do camp in a country where the sun shines brightly and it’s predominantly hot you can do some serious damage to your tent that you have spent a good investment on. This is where a tarp would do well to protect your tent from the UV Rays.
Protection From Bird Droppings
As stupid as it sounds, bird droppings can be quite harmful to your tents material, it’s only because of the level of acidity in the droppings can do some damage. If you think that a simple cleaning process will get rid of them won’t work, you will need to use some tent cleaner and it will take off that layer of waterproofing when you clean it up which will need to be reapplied.
Reduction Of Condensation
Using a tarp over your tent can help reduce the risk of alot of condensation build up the reason for this is because rather your tent building up condensation the tarp will have it built up underneath the tarp itself. You won’t need to worry as the condensation won’t drip but instead follow the path to drip on the edge of the tarp but it’s nothing to be bothered too much about.
Protects From Dew
If your camping in an area where humidity is high you will more then likely see alot of dew in the mornings on the tarp, so if you plan on packing up in the early hours of the morning to head off, you might not have enough time for the dew to dry off your tarp.
Act As A Roof For Your Kitchen
If you have set up an area for your food and cooking and a place to relax, where your tent is somewhere to rest for the night, the tarp would ever so well as a roof to cover your area so that you can enjoy some bbq time or even a simple kitchen to cook your food and even to relax and chill and enjoy your time amongst nature.
How To Put Up A Tarp Without Poles
When you do reach your campsite you will need to make sure that you pitch your tent in an area where there are plenty of trees to use as a source of pillar posts, to help create a post to keep the tarp in place.
Make sure that you do bring along enough rope to use to tie the tarp to the tree because the trees will be in different places you will need to make sure that you have ropes that are long enough to reach those trees.
Simply just tie the rope to the corners of the tarp hoop it through the ring hole of the tarp corner and the other end of the rope to the trees. You can also use branches to lift the height of the tarp so it sits above your tent.
If you want to get those ropes alot higher to lift the tarp up, simply attach some biners and weights to the end of the rope and throw it over the branch that you intend to use. It may take a few tries before you eventually get the rope to the exact spot you want.
To prevent the grommet from tearing out of the tarp itself you can use a cow hitch. Take the rope and thread it through the grommet itself and wrap the rope around the fabric and grommet passing through the grommet itself. Just make sure that the rope is passing through the grommet so the rope is going in the same direction when you first placed the rope through the grommet.
When you finish the loop make sure that you tie a bowline knot to keep it intact. Once the tension is put on the rope it will tighten around the grommet and the fabric which will pull on both at the same time.
Once your tarp is suspending you can easily adjust the location of your tarp, you can do this by lengthening one of the ropes and make the other rope shorter. Use a center pole if you wish but if you put the ropes one end of one of the ropes of the tarp high enough amongst the trees you can lift the tarp up further until you are happy with the height of your tarp, this will help with drainage of water or any time it will rain.