Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting one man tents - canvas

I camp at the trail head and ride in with friends, however there's definite advantages to staying the night up where the elk are so what I'm thinking about is getting a couple small canvas tents that I could set up for an overnight stay and leave there all week.

I'd set it up the day before, and then on any subseqent day I could pack food and horse chow up there and choose to stay the night.

Anyone use canvas pop tents like that, or some other system. I'm thinking that canvas is the only way to go with leaving something there for the better part of a week.

Spot

I suppose you could use some sort of canvas but another idea is check out some of the backpacking tents. You can get them from a one man size on up and they're made light and packable. I have a North Face one but others by MSR and Marmot I think are worth taking a look at.

If you want to leave a tent unguarded for a week I'd think disposable. Buy a second hand garage sale nylon tent something like an old Timberline. With little $ invested if it gets vandalized you aren't out much.

No canvas tent is going to be cheap, but should last a lifetime with appropriate care. As long as you don't have any food or other scents in the tent it should be left alone by most critters. Humans are another story.

A small range tent would do what you want.
An 8'x8' weighs less than 25 lbs.
http://www.buckstitchcanvas.com/det...ee&NavSubCat=5&Submit3=More+Info
http://www.davistent.com/davisTent/html/SinglePoleTentrangeTipi.html
https://www.reliabletent.com/index.cfm?page=detail&Product_ID=153&CATID=9

The 8'x7' solo Snowtrekker tent weighs less than 14 lbs. complete and will accommodate a stove.
http://www.snowtrekkertents.com/expedition.html

Another possibility is a wedge tent.
http://www.tentsmiths.com/period-tents-wedge-tents.html
A Sutler Wedge is nice in that you can open it up and use it with a campfire.

Panther Primitives has both range tents and wedge tents.

I"ve lived in my tipi for 2+ weeks with no issues. As to canvas being better, I am not sure how, when unattended. It may not collapse under snow weight would be it, depending on the structure, where I have to retension my tipi at times via the pole...

Tipi is much lighter and very roomy depending on what size you buy.

I'd do a base camp wall tent, IE at the truck, but won't pack one further.

I do totally agree on the camping out issue, Getting up at 2-3 am and back after dark each day sucks, its why the wife and I load our backpacks up and wander away from the truck, covering lots of ground till we find sign, we then camp right there and may or may not move depending on if the sign leads to real elk or not... We can basically circle our truck a few miles out mostly in the wilderness, and keep going. Pretty much beats nighttime walking too.

Jeff

Jeff

Just buy a one man backpacking tent fer' crying out loud!

They ain't expensive, and even a moderately priced one may weigh all of 3-4 lbs.........

Of course, there are limits to how long one can camp or pitch a tent in the same spot in designated Wilderness Areas (also on any public lands).

And yeah, unattended tents are bear magnets--I know this for a fact..........


Casey

Bears, rodents etc... I don't see the difference there, they'll go through sylnylon or canvas just as easy... no need for the weight.
For 4 pounds one can get a lot of tent.

Spotshooter:

The other respondents have all expressed concerns that are valid. Canvas tents are expensive and heavy and "old school" technology. They are great for a long term base camp, but since they are expensive, they are attractive to potential thieves.

A heavy snowfall will damage a canvas tent just as quickly as it would a cheap nylon dome tent. The only way to ensure that a tent will survive a heavy snowfall is to use an expensive 4-season nylon dome tent and if you're going to leave it unattended for a few days, you don't want to invest $$$ in an expensive tent.

Why not get a cheap nylon dome tent from Wal Mart or some other discount store? Those tents are durable enough to last a couple of weeks assuming that you don't get a big snowfall and since they are cheap they are unattractive to potential thieves. I wouldn't even think about bothering one of those tents.

I have used that strategy and it worked. Before the season started, I setup a cheap tent in the backcountry and cached food by hanging it from a tree in a bear bag at least ten feet in the air. I also hung a couple of one gallon water jugs in a tree high enough to avoid critters that might bother them. This allowed me to backpack in light on the evening before opening day. I also had so little money invested in my cache and tent that if everything was destroyed, it wouldn't be that great of a loss.

KC

http://www.backcountrygear.com/catalog/tentdetail.cfm/BD150

That will do for a spike tent and it's cheap.

I don't worry about theft or vandalism or Forest Service rules away from the trailhead. Most thieves and government employees are too lazy to hike way back in the woods to look for you and your stuff. If you set up more than a couple hundred yards from a trail the odds of your camp EVER being found are between slim and none.

I set my tent up for two to three weeks at a time. I'm over a mile up a valley from any mapped trail. Hunters know it's there but nobody messes with it and I have left it for as long as 5 days in the past. Other times I've gone in and set up stuff a week in advance including packing in food and come back to find it pristine and untouched. That camp was in a hell hole about a mile from the USFS trail too.

If it's just you and one horse or two you can poke back into some spots and make yourself pretty hard to find, which is the best way to avoid trouble....and to be closer to the game.

I agree with Steeley Eyes. You might also consider a Coleman Crestline or a ARA tent. Either can be purchased at Wal Mart for $70.

They are heavier than the Black Diamond Megamid but they will provide better weather resistence since they have a floor. Also since they are double wall tents, they will not condense on the inside like the Megamig does.

KC

P.S. I just checked the Campmoor web site and you can get a Wenzel Pinion 7'x7' dome tent for $30.

There is that drawback to single wall tents without a heat source...condensation. The Betamid does come in a version with a floor but it's still single walled. I didn't check to see what kind of venting it has.

KC and Steely Eyes, I think you guys are also thinking along my lines. There's some good packable tents out there, both lightweight and quality (and pricier) and lower cost tents that will work well. You can spend as much as you want for some lightweight stuff like the MSR Hubba series, North Face, or even the Cabelas XPG series all offer packable tents in the 3-6 lb range. Or some of the cheaper alternatives mentioned will work but will add some weight. Either should work.

Or if you're set on canvas, you can get the army pup tent at a surplus for $20-30, though they have no floor:



http://www.armysurpluswarehouse.com/department/outdoorcamp-gear-10004.cfm?killnav=1

http://www.galleria-e.com/cgi-bin/Colemans.storefront/en/product/314101

M1:

Now you're really bringing back some memories. That pup tent made with two shelter halves is what we started with when I was a kid. I didn't know that shelter halves were still available but I suppose that there must have been a lot of them made.

My first backpack was a canvas Boy Scout pack on a wood pack frame. We used a lot of military surplus stuff that was still readily available from WW2 & Korea. My first backpack stove was a Coleman aluminum cylinder stove and my first sleeping bag was a military surplus duck/goose down bag. Our packs weighed about fifty pounds and we thought that was lightweight.

What I use today is a lot different and my pack for a summer weekend bacpack trip weighs less than 20#.

KC

SteelyEyes,

When you say single wall do you mean, no break in the angle of the wall?

Spot

I mean one layer of fabric. To be waterproof a single wall tent can't be breathable, so you have condensation issues, even with some pretty big vents.

A double wall tent like most nylon backpacking tents has an inner breathable envelope, an air space, and then a rain fly which is waterproof over that. It allows moist air you breathe to move away and condense somewhere else (usually the inside of the fly where it drips down outside) instead of inside the tent on your bag. They do weigh more because there is more fabric and poles but if you don't have a heat source to prevent condensation they might be the way to go.

Ok I'm learning now... and you have my attention.

So two questions...

What's a good backpacker tent for a no heat source condition.
2) what would be a safe and reliable heat source for this kind of application.

Either way I'm horse / muleback so I'm put this stuff on my critter to get it in.

Thanks!

Spot

Spotshooter:

Since you have mules/horses to carry some heavier loads that opens a wide variety of options that you wouldn't have if you are carrying everything on your back.

Traditional canvas wall tents are impregnated with a mixture of oil and parafine that allows moisture to get out and keeps rain/snow from getting in. The traditional canvas wall tents are pretty heavy. I own a 15'x20' wall tent and it weighs about 180# without the poles. It's too big/heavy to pack in so we set it up at the end of the road, use it as a base and backpack in from there. That kind of tent can be heated with a wood burning stove and it's a very comfortable arrangement if you know what you are doing but it's a lot of work to setup and maintain.

Many (maybe most) people who pack in on horses use some kind of small canvas wall tents, say maybe 10'x12' or so with a small wood burning stove. They can leave things unattended for awhile since a canvas wall tent is too heavy for most people to carry off and the point that Steelyeyes made about things being left undisturbed in the wilderness is valid. I've never had anything disturbed except once where there was a lot of people in a popular camping area. What I have seen is that people using horses pack things in early, setup remote spike camp and use that as a base for hunting.

The setup that we have been discussing is not that kind of setup. We (myself, Steeleyes and M1Garand) have been talking about something that you would carry in with a backpack.

If you have not done much camping and are unfamiliar with mountain wilderness camping techniques then I suggest that setting up a remote spike camp using horses and a canvas wall tent with wood burning stove is pretty advanced and maybe you ought to start out with a simpler arrangement so you don't have to learn so much all at once and therefore you might reduce the potential for costly maybe injurious mistakes.

There are lots of good backpacking tents for no-heat situations. North Face makes the VE-25 that is the tent of choice for extreme mountaineering epxeditions. The Cabelas XPG series is also good. I've used both of those tents. But since you are using horses you can use a dome tent like maybe the Eureka Apollo 4. It weighs 13# and that is fairly light for biggger tents. It has a floor area of 9'x8' and is 5'-10" high so you can stand up in it. It costs $90 from Campmoor. You could buy a couple of those tents and use one for sleeping and one for cooking and have a really comfortable camp without much work.

KC

P.S. with a setup like that (using dome tents) you can setup a rainfly using a big tarp and some aspen poles and make a campfire if you have to have heat.

My thoughts are essentially two things.

Very little work for a one or two night camp close to the critters I'm hunting (so I may want to move it).

2nd comfort - if I'm going to sleep there overnight I want to be comfortable.

I don't want to do a pack in hunt per say, just have a small 2 guy spike setup with a couple smaller tents.

I am starting to think that If I get a couple of guys to go with me down the road some time I'll want to do a spike camp but at the moment I don't have enough experience (I'm kind of conservative)

Spot

If you have horses that changes a lot, I was assuming you were packing it yourself. We also use a 14 x 16 wall tent and to be honest, unless you're staying several days and with what you describe, I don't think those will be worth the time and effort to set one up for one or two days. If you're going for a week, sure, a small one on your horse may work well. I think your best bet will be some sort of dome tent, easy to set up and relocate if you need. I've only had two tents not condensate, our wall tent and my backpacking tent (a North Face Tadpole) so I can't help in that department with the domes. But check out the tents on Cabelas site as you should see something that peaks your interest. I will also add several years ago I picked up a cheap style tent like KC mentioned for around $30 or $40 and I've used it a fair amount and it's done what I've needed, but one thing I will add, these price range tents typically have an inadequate rain fly. They don't cover the whole tent where you will see the better ones will come all the way to the ground, all around it and that is what I would suggest. Or with a cheap one, at least get one of those cheap blue tarps to waterproof it. Nothing worse than getting soaked in the middle of the night.

I do a lot of basecamps where backpacking is a necessary aspect of setting up my camp and here is what I have evolved.

This rig cost a LOT of money, so, this might influence your decision, but, it works in the WORST B.C. weather and is comfortable beyond anything I have yet experienced. I have spent months living in canvas wall tents and I hate them with a passion as a result.

I use a Kifaru 8-man tipi with large stove and liner as my cooking/living space. I have two rollup Cabela's aluminum tables in it and a camp chair plus a Primus Easylite lantern and a Brunton Nova stove plus two hanging LED lanterns, those little grey Glorbs,the new style. All of this can be carried into base camp easily, even the tables in two trips, my camps are a half-mile from my vehicle to avoid theft.

I sometimes will take my Coleman propane lantern, old Coleman propane "grasshopper" stove and have an ID double groundcloth to sleep on or bring my Luxurylite cot plus thin foamy.

I can and will, if a buddy comes along,set up a Hilleberg Saivo tent and matching H-20 tarp and use this to sleep in while my buddy sleeps in the tipi. I have problems sleeping and prefer not to disturb him as he slumbers, so, this really works and a spare tent in remote fly-in locations is a good idea.

You can add to, change, subtract from and vary this rig to suit your needs, budget or desires. It is as light as possible, will keep you comfy for extended periods and is of the best quality you can buy. To me, the cost is worth it, but, that's a subjective thing.