Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting 2013 BC sheep/goat hunt

Great write up and photo's of your hunt! I really enjoyed it.

Quick ?- which siltarp is in your pics. and what size??

I have many days like that here in the late season and sometimes take my Integral Designs sil tipi; but I have been thinking that a tarp would be much easier and have been thinking of adding one. I have a small sil poncho, and a small 5x8 sil tarp- but think one about the size shown in your pic would be much better.

Thanks,

Stephen

Just noticed you mentioned Forty Creek, my favorite.
Cool hunt!

llama2- it's the siltarp 2. 8X10' I don't leave without it! lol Tough piece of kit!

RC

Small point, here.

Integral Designs, even the once-superb "tactical" section is no longer a Canadian company owned/operated by Evan Jones, was sold by him a few years back. It is now owned by some comglomerate and is NOT what it was, sad to say.

The gear and I have and have had a LOT of original ID gear for some 20+ years, is also NOT nearly the same in quality and is now made in, surprise, surprise, CHINA......

So, I will no longer buy this brand and I suggest for an alternative tarp of this type,SO useful in mountain camping for any purpose, buying from the Oregon company, "Warbonnet".

Google, them and see what you think, I MUCH prefer to deal with these small and independent companies for the gear I need.

Agreed. I only have now a couple pieces of Integral Design pieces - a 5x8 Sil 1 tarp and a tipi/ 'mid tarp ( George tarp) and both are Canadian made originals. Knowing how things have gone, I both wished I had bought more, and wish that I would have hung on to a few items that I let go.

No surprise that the original quality is not there. ID was a well thought out and produced well designed products by folks who knew what they were doing. That is apparently no longer the case.

Warbonnet's hammock gear is highly regarded but IMO, Outdoor Equipment Supply makes the finest tarps in existence. The guy who founded the company was a hammocker and an engineering student and he's done actual destructive testing on his tarps. The Hennessy hammock is great but it always came with a junky little tarp so the cottage guys started making replacement tarps for them. OES tarps will take a blow, and the grosgain his people sew on the edges of the tarps are a big part of their tarps strength.

I have a three year old ID Sil Tarp 2 just like in the pictures. It has worked great on stone sheep and alpine backpack deer hunts the past three seasons. Don't know where it was made but it sure withstands the winds and pitches quick with a hiking pole. Great to cook under when the rain and winds are up. Wouldn't go sheep hunting without it. With 9 tent stakes I made from a couple of broken carbon arrow shafts I cut up (and added 2" aluminum roofing nails cut in two and epoxied in top and bottom), plus about 30' of very light weight cord, the whole Siltarp II kit weights in at 16 ounces.

Wow that is AMAZING! What an adventure! I love it!

Good stuff! I bought my first, of several I have owned/used, light nylon tarp about 1968, it was the then "cutting edge" "ripstop nylon", coated with "poly" and while this is an actually rather poor and heavy material for the purpose, it was light years better than the light cotton canvas tarps which were all we had when I began backpack camping and then hunting in early 1964.

A good quality, light tarp is among THE single MOST useful and versatile item of bush gear one can have and I have several, in different sizes for different uses. My favourites are my original ID Silwing, PERFECT at 12 oz. for a single, careful user and this makes a great "awning" over the front of my lightest tent, an original ID MKI-Lite, as well as a functional shelter over one of my ID bivies at the least possible weight.

For "all around" use, I prefer the 10x12 ID Siltarp III and feel that the 4 oz. of weight over the STII is worth packing, but, each to his own. I can rig a VERY comfortable one person camp with this and my Hilleberg Soulo and this is workable in typical BC situations, steep, very brushy and hard to find "footprint" space to erect a tent, etc, on a reasonably level spot.

I won't go out without one of my Siltarps and may actually buy one more for rigging a light "base camp" when I can get out for longer trips as seems possible within the coming year.

TAK, I just Googled the company you posted about and from what I see, they do not make any gear, but, simply sell much the same sort of "military" gear that many other such firms also offer.

The one tarp they DO offer is made by the British firm, "Snugpak" and their gear, based on my experience with it here in BC is of average quality, NOT, equal to the original ID we are discussing. This comes from some years of owning and using it, not, from any particular bias.

The tarp in question is the same size as my preferred ID STIII and weighs 2.5 lbs, where the ID tarp weighs, in the same configuration, 1.3 lbs. The OES/Snugpak tarp, while it MAY be a bit stronger than the ID and I actually doubt that it is, given the number and position of seams and the materials used, is TOO HEAVY for use in these kinds of hunts.

I have spent my entire life, other than about one year, living and working/recreating in "sheep country" and I was born here. I have found that cutting EVERY gram of weight from your gear WILL/DOES make a BIG difference in IF you can travel in these mountains and packing a 2.5 lb. tarp is NOT going to assist you in any aspect of mountain hunting.

So, I will buy from a specialty firm, such as "War Bonnet" as their tarps ARE within the weight limits that are appropriate for hunts of this type. YMMV, NO offence intended.