My Shelter Evolution

A Change in Mindset

In many ways going light is as much about a journey of your psyche as it is about losing pounds from the pack.

For me the biggest change is how I view shelter and 'camping' in the first place. Like many people I used to always use and carry a tent because somehow being inside a tent made me feel 'safe' and protected me from 'nature'.

Over the last year or more this is something that I have been examining and over that time my shelter systems have moved over to systems which are much more 'open' and do not offer that same false sense of security as a tent can do.

If you are in a bivy bag in a storm you can feel snug and warm but at the same time you will feel the rain and so your relationship with the rain is somewhat different to in a tent.

If you are under a tarp then you will also be able to see the rain. If your tarp has been poorly pitched you will also feel the rain.

So, in part there has been a shift by me in how I see nature. Moving myself away from 'I must be protected from everything' and 'my body is very fragile' to a much more relaxed 'this is my native soil' and 'my body does not need to be protected from lots of things'.

This change means that a shelter that works well for 99% of conditions and mostly for the other 1% is probably going to be just fine.

Moving away from 'protect me against everything' towards 'protect me from too much discomfort' really does open up what can be done with weight.

A Change in Kit

The single biggest change I have made this year is to replace my cheap synthetic sleeping bags with high-end down sleeping bags.

To date I have always been annoyed by the fact that my sleeping bags have been heavy, bulky and severely under-performed when compared with the manufacturer's [biased, optimistic] guidelines.

As a consequence of this my shelter systems have always been chosen to try and get the best out of the cheap sleeping bag. This means that I have favoured tents over tarps because the airflow in the tent is so much more helpful to the performance of the sleeping bag.

Clearly, this was flawed logic on my part. The issue was the bag not the shelter.

In February, after a profitable few days of work I was up in Ambleside browsing through the sale items and came accross a Mountain Equipment Snowline 750 in a sale for 'only' £180. To my mind that was a stupidly high amount of money to pay for 'just' a sleeping bag. However I thought that given it weighed less than my synthetic bag and promised much much better performance I would give it a go.

I have to say that I was blown away by how well it performed. I was using the bag in the open air at +8°C and was still far too warm. This was completely unexpected. The bag is rated down to -17°C but I had treated that as a fantasy number and figured, based on my experience with cheap synthetic bags that it would probably be only comfortable down to maybe 0°C.

That positive experience has forced me to re-evaluate what I want out of my shelter, and annoyingly also forced me to buy another more suitable bag for the other 3 seasons of the year.

If a good quality down bag with a water-resistant shell such as Pertex or Dri-Lite will keep me warm in the open air then unless it is going to rain why do I need shelter at all?

I have now had several trips where I have had a good night's sleep whilst without any shelter at all - or only a windbreak tarp. This has convinced me both of the benefits of a suitable down bag and of the over-use of shelter when it is not needed.

DIY and Cost

If you have to pay £250 to get a tent that will do what you want then clearly you are not going to be buying too many of those and that tent will be used in situations where it is not necessary.

If however you can make / buy a Tarp for £15-30 then you can seriously consider having different types of shelter for different conditions and experimenting a little.

Just playing with making my own kit and thinking about the fundamental requirements of shelter has radically shifted my outlook and with that the weight has plummetted.

Since I am just paying material costs I can afford to try a Tarp concept and if it doesn't work use the fabric for scraps.

In practice what has happenned is that I have two basic design concepts that I work with - a short wedge for use in the mountains and a longer A-frame tarp for lowland use. I am also looking at more radical ideas - very much in the area pioneered by Grandma Gatewood.

Trip Planning

When you begin to think seriously about each trip in its own right and what conditions you will expect to see on that trip as opposed to any other trip then you again start to think about whether or not that 3-layer Gore-Tex jacket is an essential or whether instead something much lighter will do.

I am currently planning to do a 90 or so mile lowland trip. This will be unusal for me since I usually like to stay in the mountains.

Since it is in the lowlands and it is in early summer I can expect conditions that are much milder than I usually deal with and also weather variations that are much less severe.

On this trip I am planning to walk in the morning, have a longish break midday and then walk until sunset (which will be around 9-30pm) I will not be planning to spend any time 'camping'.

In addition to this the path I am doing is relatively well trodden and passes through lots of villages and past several woods.

For this trip I am planning to carry as little weight as possible (no surprise) and I am also planning to camp which requires discretion and good site choice given how 'crowded' the countryside along the route is.

I am therefore looking at several options including just a bivy bag, or a groundsheet or a small tarp.

I have made a small tarp, enlarged it slightly and now am thinking of shrinking it dramatically to the size of a Poncho-tarp or less. I am also considering whether or not a poncho-tarp would work as my main rainwear.

The key thing is that for a lowland trip the conditions will be both mild compared with what I am used to and will be much more predictable. Mountain weather is rarely predictable and so planning for the worse is the norm.

Summary

As my outlook has changed and the quality of some of my kit has improved I am moving much more towards working with nature rather than fighting it. My kit is moving much more towards being suitable for purpose rather than suitable for Everest.