How to rig Tarp for Shelter Part 1/2

I think the tarp is one of the most misunderstood pieces of outdoor gear. Most people think of tarps is things that only the most extreme ultra light backpacker that would taken to the woods. And then when they do so they sacrifice comfort for weight. For those of us who use tarps on a regular basis know that they're actually much more versatile and more comfortable than any tent systems especially in wet weather. So today what I'd like to do is show you how I set up my tarp to get the most out of it.

Okay, so let's get started by tying the rig line. I'm going to tie which called the Siberian Hitch. You could use the round turn with two half hitches if you prefer but this hitch is great and it’s quick release. For the other side of your reach line I'm going to tie which called the Powercinch because its really important to have a super tight rich line, if you don’t what happen is every time you adjust one of your guidelines the tarp starts to sink down and then it never really gets tight, so what I want to do is first form a loop like this, okay. And then I reach through the loop on the side of the tree and what I've done essentially is form of pulling so I put the working end through this pulley and now what I do—

So now when I pull as you can see you can get really, really tight on this rich line like so. And now what you want to do is hold right here where it joints the pulley that you’ve created and put in the slippery half hitch right there. Okay, and that holds it all together.

Now, the ridge line is up and secure we’re going to work on the tarp. This is 13.9 ounce silk nylon tarp, it’s made by a company called Equinox and what we’re going to do is we're going to take the center and we're going to take these attached lines and go over and around like this in opposite directions. What this does is it puts a nice bite down on the ridge line to keeps it from sliding, so we’re going to do that to the other two attached lines.

Now the last two ends of this particular tarp just have a grommet, so what I do I tie a Prusik hitch to my ridge line with the separate piece of paracord and then I just tie this on just like so just again with the bow. But what a Prusik hitch does is it really keeps your tarp from sliding down. You could see how if I pull on this tarp I don’t lose any length so that way if the storm comes along your head or feet don’t get wet.

I came up with this system for guiding out the tarp because what I wanted was something that would be permanently attached to the tarp so I could put it together quickly. But also something that if I get to a place and the weather is definitely turning bad I can stake right to the ground so I would take a Shepherd hook stake going to the corners of the ground that’s and go right to the ground with the lower ridge line. That’s going to give me the most stability in bad weather.

So what I have now that it’s all in rebel is basically one line that is my corner guy outline and then my other two cords here this is one is going to the middle grommet and this one is going to the one next to it.

And what this does is through tensioning knots which I'll show you in a little bit. It spreads the way across the entire length of the tarp instead of just pulling on the corners. So I'm just going to guide this out and we’ll set it up. Okay, that’s looking pretty good but the corners as you can see are bearing most of the string and the middle in a high wind would really bow in, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to use tensioning knots that are attached to those other guidelines and I'm just going to go around first working towards the middle and then doing the sides.

So here’s a nice shot of the side at the tarp you can see that the tension is spread across the entire link of the tarp without having guy lines all over the place that you're going to trip on and the tape forever to set up. So I try to give you a detailed shot of how this is guide out, so there is the corner stake as you can see it goes up here, this is where they all connect and then you can see there's my tensioning knot and then it goes to the middle grommet. Another thing I do to get the most out of my tarp is I hang a line on the inside of the tarp from one side to the other, okay and I use this line to hang headlamps or wet clothes or anything like that.

So now that our tarp set up you can see the advantage of when it’s raining, I have a place to cook, I have all this dry area to do whatever I wanted to do, I can hang my clothes up, I can look around and I'm not trap inside of the little tent. Okay, the first thing I'm going to do when it’s time to pack up is I'm going to loosen all the tensioning knots all the way around the tarp.

So when you wrap up these guy lines you want to make sure everything is nice and neat. Okay, so I'm just going to hunk that cuff cord around my hand until I get to where they all join and then I let this corner one drop out and I'm just going to wrap up the middle two until I get to that center grommet. I want to make this nice and tight so I'm just going to wrap it up with the rubber band right there. Take it off on your fingers, wrap it up. Okay, there it is nice and clean.

I'm glad we’re able to continue the tradition of passing knowledge to each other and I hope that you found something in this video interesting enough to try on your own set up. All of these by the way is available on my website BushcraftNorthwest.com. Go to the articles link and you'll see a tent set up and also a knots link which will describe in better detail how to do what I did on this video. So thanks very much for watching. I hope to see you again.