Advice and Information for Tent Nomad

[Brlux]

I used to have a big Coleman cabin tent which had 4 metal pipe hoop type poles that held it up. It was nice had 2 rooms and I think claimed to sleep 16 people. It was a pain to set up and died at Lees Ferry on a fishing trip. A wind storm came ripping down the canyon and snapped all the steel poles. We wound up sleeping on top of it's carcas along with a lot of sand.

I now have a 10' x 14' Kodiac spring bar canvas tent. While expensive, large, and heavy for a consumer tent it has been amazing. Very easy to setup, staking it down is the longest part of the process. I have yet to experience extreme wind in it but hearing from others that have I think I will be fine.

 

[geogentry]

Briux, They are good tents. I don't think you'll have any trouble. With it just being me I really didn't need anything that big. And having a stove Jack was important to me.

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[Brlux]

Ya it would probably be a bit large for one person. I have family of 4 and we only use it for camping at this point, fits us good all sleeping on cots.

The make them in smaller sizes as well.

I saw a video where a guy used some fiberglass welding blankets to add a stove jack to one.

 

[geogentry]

I don't have the skills to do that kind of thing. And if I hired someone to do it the cost would end up about the same as what I paid for my tent.

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[bullfrog]

For us a very important part of being in a tent, a 10'x14' Kodiac, was having someplace we could shelter and sleep in really bad windy weather that suddenly caught us off guard. Even though the tent could survive if we were careful where and how we placed things no one would get any rest and could be possibly injured trying to keep from being hit by things moving around. Watching the weather closely while important will never guarantee some freak storm won't get you. Take a look at the video of the rain bomb that hit Tucson Az in 2015 basically a miniburst of 150 MPH wind coming straight down carrying a couple inches of water over a two and one half mile area. Once you get a large expensive tent that takes time to put up and take down knowing we could shelter and keep important items dry and not let them damage the tent in the small home built 5'x6'x6' cargo trailer which we used to haul all the camping gear in sudden bad weather made tent life much easier. With a spring bar tent you can basically leave it staked down, empty it then remove the poles which are usually the first items to be damaged in high winds.

 

[LadyJo]

bullfrog, what you saw we call a micro-burst. It is indeed just like a hurricane. We had elec poles snap in half for 1/4 mile and 60 yr old trees blown right out of the ground. Tons of rain in a very short period then heavy rain the rest of the night. Some places in the city had no power for over a week.


If you need to get out of the tent, leave heavy stuff in it and drop it. Weighted down it will have less of a chance of blowing away. The lower you are the better, being in the truck would be best. The wind will swirl around but come from one direction most of the time. Face the truck into the wind.


These things are very, very rare.