Tourist tents can be classified in different ways. But when choosing a tent, you should pay attention to its shape - stability, comfort and spaciousness directly depend on this.
Types of tents
In the form of tents for tourists are:
- Dome(hemisphere) - they are popular among hunters and tourists. Tents of this type are stable, they protect from bad weather and strong winds. Dome tents are quick and easy to fold and unfold. But they have a significant drawback - a rather solid weight (4-6 kg) due to frame arcs;
- Tunnel(semi-barrel) or hangar tents are half a cylinder in shape. Such temporary housing is more spacious than dome tents. True, tunnel tents are less stable;
- Tent- This is the oldest type of tents. The tent is easy to install, it weighs little (about 3-4 kg), but loses to dome and tunnel tents in many ways. A tent tent can have a spatial frame, be placed on a central stake, stretched out with braces or suspended from trees.
Tourist(trekking) tents should be made of high-quality and durable fabric with moisture-repellent impregnation, their weight (for convenience) should not exceed 2.8 kg.
Storm(extreme) tents are designed for serious hikes, they have a more stable design, they are able to protect tourists from wind and showers.
Ultralight tents (light) are perfect for hiking in the summer. Each person will have 600-800 grams of weight. In tents, everything is minimized, they are a hammock with an awning or made of a single layer of material.
How to assemble a tent / How to fold a tent
Since gable-type tents (house) are outdated and most often many people take a frame tent with them on a hike, we will consider the principle of its assembly. A hemispherical tent can be assembled even alone. For this you need:
- Choose a suitable place - flat, without tubercles, away from anthills, water and a fire.
- We spread the inside of the tent on the ground (with a black bottom and a net).
- We collect the arcs, insert them one into the other, put them crosswise.
- Depending on the type of tent:
- we insert the arcs into the holes located at the corners of the inner tent, then we attach them to the tent with the help of hooks;
- we pass the arcs through the fabric grooves, then attach them to the bottom of the tent.
- Thus, you will be able to put up a white inner tent. Now it is necessary to fix the arcs on it from above with the help of ropes (for structural rigidity).
- We put an awning on the tent, matching the exits.
- We fasten the awning to the arcs, we begin to fasten it with pegs to the ground.
- We stretch the vestibule and awning with the help of pegs.
- If the tent is in an open area, you can stretch storm lines (bright ribbons around the edges). They are not needed in the forest.
When the rest is over, you need to disassemble the tent as follows:
Untie the awning;
Check shelves and pockets in the tent;
Take out the arcs from the tent, fold them;
Fold the awning, tent exactly at the seams;
Roll it into a tight tube.
The choice of a place for a tent should be taken seriously. At best, a mistake will cost you a headache from lack of sleep or body aches. At worst, you can pay with your life.
There is no place where it would be impossible to put it. Well, except for sheer cliffs. But after all, we don’t go on a hike in order to change sides somehow for a night or two, and then sleep off at home. In nature, in the forest, in the mountains, in the tundra, you can always find cubby to spend the night in comfort and gain strength for the next day. It is better to worry about the upcoming overnight stay in advance, before sunset. Hiding under the tree
Find in the forest a good place for an overnight stay is the easiest. The main thing is that there are no old, rotten trees nearby that can fall on your head. It is also important to make sure that there are no anthills nearby, otherwise the orderlies of the forest will come to visit you with an “inspection”. You should also not put up a tent on the paths of forest animals - why disturb their peace? Yes, and you will not be greeted if a seasoned bear or a wild boar does not want to bypass an obstacle that suddenly appeared on its legal path.
A carpet of small shrubs - lingonberries, blueberries, shiksha - an excellent spring mattress for a tired traveler. Even on a grassy lawn, sleeping is harder. White moss lichen covers dry places. True, in rainy weather it becomes limp, but it is still dry under it. But on green mosses, so soft, tempting to look at, it is usually damp. In general, before setting up a tent in a chosen place, pass the interlacing of stems through your fingers, feel the soil. If moisture appears after pressing, look for a drier place. Lie down on the chosen place (it is possible on the spread rug), roll from side to side. So you better determine how to position the tent, where is the top, where is the bottom. And in advance, remove the stone or bough found at your side, cut off the bump from the turf of grass or ferns.
Shelter from the rain can be found in the old mixed spruce forest. As a rule, there are always powerful sprawling spruces here, under which nothing grows, they shade the ground so much. Under the trunks here accumulates a large number of old dry needles. Under such trees, wild boars, deer, and elks often lay down. If the tent fits in between the gnarled tree-like roots that often come to the surface, why not use this forest hotel for a person? This is the perfect place for an overnight stay. Warm, soft and dry!
And the huge, free-standing cedars of the Siberian taiga? Yes, these are just ready-made houses for forest tramps! In the heaviest downpours, islands of dry land remain under them. In the mountain-taiga area of the Sayan, Altai, a tent is often not required - there are no mosquitoes, the rain does not wet. And to fence off from the purest fragrant air, saturated with phytoncides of resinous giants, is simply unreasonable.
In the forest or in the meadow?
It is always warmer to sleep under the canopy of trees than on open meadow. This is especially felt on spring and autumn nights, when in the morning the blades of grass on open space covered with frost, and there is no frost under the trees. In the summer the dew falls heavily on the meadow and the tent gets wet. Nylon ropes stretch, weaken from moisture, the awning sags, begins to touch the fabric of the tent, and if the impregnation of the tent is old, moisture will penetrate inside the tent.
In the forest you can always find shelter from the wind. Only in hurricane winds is there a danger that trees will begin to fall. You should not stand in such a strong wind blower in a mature tall forest, especially among thick aspens - they are the most fragile and break first easily, like matches. In such weather it is better to stop among young trees.
What Not to Do
The most common mistake made by novice tourists is to put polyethylene under the tent, supposedly in order not to get dirty, not to wet the bottom. What you fear will happen even faster. If the edge of the polyethylene even slightly protrudes from under the tent, water from the awning will inevitably flow onto it during oblique rain. This is a classic situation: a would-be tourist wakes up in a puddle, artificially created by him. Don't be afraid to pitch your tent on wet grass. Let the bottom get wet, but the mat will still remain dry. If you're really afraid of wet grass, lay some polyethylene inside the tent. The main thing is not to put up a tent in the depression of the relief!
Shouldn't camp on low pebble beaches mountain rivers. Although it is tempting: in the ventilated space, mosquitoes and midges do not annoy. However, the rain that has passed in the mountains and has not even touched you can dramatically increase the water level in the river, and the tent will simply be flooded.
In the mountains in winter, it is life-threatening to put up a tent in avalanche-prone places - on slopes covered with a thick layer of snow, in narrow valleys, couloirs, gutters. Do not stand on peaks, snow ledges hanging over cliffs. They can just break off under your weight. It is dangerous to stand under steep slopes from which stones can crumble.
Individual areas may have their own dangers inherent in these specific places. For example, in Kamchatka, in an area of active volcanism, in some places there are outcrops of carbon dioxide, a colorless and odorless gas. And in places where it accumulates near the surface of the earth in a hollow, you can simply suffocate. And in the deserts in the holes of rodents, fleas and ticks can be found.
What if it's in a swamp?
Even if the night caught you in the middle of a swamp, or placers of cranberries and blueberries do not let you go, you should not despair. Well, let the water glisten with every step in the recess from the trace! You can chop stunted pines, build a flooring out of them, and put up a tent from above.
If you find yourself on the slope of a mountain or a river valley and don’t have time to find a flat area before dark, it doesn’t matter. The slope can be "profiled". Set up your tent so that you can sleep with your feet down the slope. Place a log or large stones at the exit of the tent so that your feet rest against them and prevent you from sliding down. Roll up a roller of clothes and put yourself under the “fifth point” - this also prevents rolling. Inside the tent, under the rug in places of dips, put shoes, a backpack, and food. By the way, sleeping on the croup is very soft! A bag of oatmeal will serve as an excellent pillow for its lucky owner. If you have already eaten the cereal - use any “pasture” means - collect grass, rotten, easily breaking wood, moss, lichen into the cover of the sleeping bag. And use all this for "profiling". The main thing is fantasy! Then you will sleep softly and evenly ...
winter lodging
Before setting up a tent in the snow, pack the site with skis. Break fir branches. It is better not to throw the spruce branches in disorder, but to stick them into the compacted snow at a slight angle to create a springy “mattress”. Try to crawl into the tent carefully, without creating extra pits and potholes with your hands and knees - it will be more comfortable to sleep.
Little tricks
In the spring, when the snow has already melted, but the ground has not yet completely thawed, you can first make a fire in the place of the tent. In an hour the earth will warm up, the fire can be extinguished, trampled and covered with fresh spruce paws. And set up a tent on top. Sleep will be much warmer at night. The main thing is not to leave large coals, so as not to burn the bottom of the tent!
If you're camping for a few days and the weather is rainy, it's a good idea to dig a shallow trench into your tent. So you will avoid possible flooding of the tent. If you have a choice, try not to put up a tent on the sand - it will inevitably get inside your house. Try to set up your tent away from dense bushes or tall grass, a haven for mosquitoes and small midges.
To make the tent a comfortable shelter for the night, you need to choose the right place to set it up.
Location selection
- The pitch for the tent must be level. Inspect the site and remove all stones and roots, if any.
- Make sure you're not going to pitch your tent on an anthill.
- If there is a slight slope, use it to arrange a bed when the headroom is located on highest point slope, and the legs, respectively, to the bottom of the slope.
- The floor in the tent should be perfectly flat, so that in case of bad weather, water does not flow into any hole.
- It is necessary to set up a tent at a distance of 3 meters from the fire, so that sparks from it do not reach the tent
- Choosing a place for a tent should be away from bushes and tall grass that are teeming with mosquitoes.
There are several types of tents available. The most popular are gable and frame.
After the advent of frame tents, gable tents lost their popularity due to the complexity of their installation. Another disadvantage of pitched tents is their poor wind resistance. In terms of size, these tents are a rather bulky structure. If, nevertheless, you have to install a house (gable tent), then first they put the roof on two vertical posts, which are placed from the inside of the tent.
Advice
Having pulled the roof, inside the tent spread its floor. Outside the tent, along its perimeter, pegs are driven into the ground, on which ropes are tied that hold the walls of the tent and the vertical roof racks.
A hemispherical frame tent is the most convenient tent model, which is easy to assemble, resistant to gusts of wind and well protected from atmospheric precipitation. The frame tent consists of two parts; outdoor stretch awning and inner tent. The entire structure of the tent is supported by arcs. After choosing a place for a tent, spread the inner tent on the ground. Install the arcs by crossing them and securing them at the crossing points with special ropes that are sold with the tent. An awning is thrown over the assembled structure so that the entrance to it coincides with the entrance to the tent.
How to fix an awning?
The awning is fixed with the help of pegs driven into the ground and tension ropes. The awning completely covers the tent, and forms a vestibule in front of the entrance. The storm wires included in the kit are used only if the tent is set up in an open area.
Conclusion:
Having purchased any model of tent, carefully study the instructions for its installation, so it will be more convenient for you to install it on the spot. Let the tent dry thoroughly before putting it together. By folding a damp or wet tent, you run the risk of your tent becoming wet for rain.
How to set up your own tent
Having bought a tent and set it up safely, many people completely forget about one detail. Sooner or later, a terrible hour will come when the tent will have to be folded :)
Surprisingly, this often becomes an insoluble dilemma. We have analyzed all requests and provide several options for how to properly fold a tent.
How to fold an automatic tent?
Automatic tents (or automatic tents) consist of flexible spring steel covered with polyester. Such tents have a great advantage - they are very quick and easy to set up. But there are problems with the reverse process, although folding such a tent is also easy.
So, how to fold a tent?
Stage 1: fold all sides of the tent into one, i.e. roll the tent to a flat state. You should get one flat triangle, square or something similar.
Stage 2: put the tent on the floor and pull one of the sides towards you, pressing it to the opposite edge of the plane. The steel arcs of the tent will begin to twist into a figure eight. Then it remains to tighten the figure eight, turning it into 0 or a circle. Voila! :) This is a general principle, but there are subtleties. For example, large automatic Chinese tents (such as Quechua) need to be rolled up several times.
Here's some good advice for you - put the automatic tent at home several times before taking it out into the countryside.
And for clarity, here's a video for you on how to fold the automatic tent into a ring:
How to fold a children's tent?
A children's tent is usually the same automatic tent, only reduced and simplified. Accordingly, it is assembled in a similar way (for details, see above). We fold the tent until a single plane is formed, and then we twist the metal arcs, as if squeezing the tent and forming a figure eight. Sometimes you just need to pull one of the edges of the tent towards you and only then twist it. Sometimes there are non-standard and hybrid forms of tents. For example, in cylindrical tents there are often plastic arcs that must first be removed. Below is one of the "difficult cases" (the process of folding a children's tent - at the end of the video):
And here is another video on how to fold a children's tent:
How to fold a camping tent?
This question comes up less often, but still people sometimes don't know how to properly fold a camping tent. We are talking about a conventional two-layer tent with a fiberglass frame, with struts made of pegs. They assembled it, but it’s impossible to disassemble it so that everything fits into the case :) Here’s a standard scheme for you:
A) If the frame interior(frame arcs are hidden under the awning):
- Remove the awning (outer layer). It is desirable to dry the awning.
- Check if everything is taken out of the inside of the tent. Pull out the frame arcs, disassemble and fold into a special case (if any).
B) If the frame external(frame arcs are visible and stretch the awning from the outside):
- Go around the tent in a circle and remove all the pegs. The pegs must be removed by hand, do not pull on the spacers.
- Check if everything is taken out of the inside of the tent. Remove the inside of the tent.
- Remove the frame arches from the awning, disassemble and fold them into a special case (if any).
- Shake and dry the awning if possible.
- Lay out both layers of the tent separately on the ground and fold each one at the seams, evenly. Put the inner part on the awning and roll into a tube. Another option is also possible: initially put the inner layer on top of the outer one and roll them together.
- Put the rolled-up tent into the case first, then the arcs and pegs. Pull off the cover. If the tent does not fit into the bag, then it is not properly folded.
At first glance, it seems that there is nothing complicated in setting up a tent. Stretch the rope twine, set the pegs - and you're done. In fact, there are many tricks to make an overnight stay as comfortable as possible. And the most important thing in the correct installation of a tent is the choice of a place.
An ideal place for setting up a tent is a dry hillock. The higher it is, the better. This provides several benefits. First, if it rains, all the water will drain down and not flood the tent. Secondly, a light breeze often blows on the hillock, which carries away mosquitoes and other insects. Thirdly, and most pleasantly, from a hill, it usually opens up very beautiful view.
It is worth paying attention to whether there are rotten trees near the tent - they can fall with a gust of wind. Check the soil - step harder. If moisture appears - choose more dry place. See if there are anthills, animal trails nearby.
Having found a suitable place, you will have to deal with its arrangement - to clear the ground from stones and debris. If it's cool outside, you can insulate the bottom of the tent with spruce branches. To do this, you need to cut several large branches with fluffy needles and put them where the tent will be set up. The needles will create an additional layer between the bottom and the ground; with such a feather bed, tourists will not freeze even in winter.
How to set up a tent
The tent must be taken out of the bag and laid out on the ground or spruce branches with a dark dense bottom down. Collect the arcs by inserting the tubes one into the other. Next, proceed depending on the design of the tent. If this is a modern tent with an awning, then the arcs are superimposed on each other crosswise, the lower ones are inserted into special holes at the bottom of the tent. And then a layer of tent is attached to the arcs with the help of plastic hooks. An awning is thrown from above, into the pockets of which arcs are threaded. The awning is attached to the arcs from the inside with plastic holders. Then the arcs are firmly inserted into the ground. After that, the twine is stretched in the corners, and the tent is fixed with pegs. The pegs must be driven into the ground as firmly as possible so that a gust of wind does not knock down the tent.
Triangular tents of old designs are rarely equipped with awnings. In addition, they do not have special arcs, the racks have to be made from improvised materials - thick knots. You need to select two dry branches and install them inside the tent, resting on the canopy. After that, stretch the twines and secure them with pegs. It is better to cover such a tent with polyethylene on top, as the tarpaulin allows moisture to pass through, and you can get wet during rain. Polyethylene is attached to the tent using ordinary clothespins. And so that it is as stretched as possible and wrinkles are not created, you can tie ropes around the edges and fix the polyethylene with tent pegs.
