Camping Without a Tent

Beginner's Guide to Backpacking

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Today very few backpackers venture into the wilderness without a sleeping bag. A few still insist, however, that a full-fledged tent is an unnecessary burden, at least in some situations. In my young and impoverished days, I sometimes used a tube tent, a 10-foot-long, five-foot-diameter tube of polyethylene. A string running through the tube and tied between two trees at chest height held the tube erect in the form of a poor man's pup tent. The disadvantages of a tube tent soon became apparent: rain water flowing along the ground quickly entered the high end of the wide-open tube, then obstinately pooled inside, while mosquitoes circulated in and out freely, each obtaining their pint of blood en route.

The other alternatives to a full-on tent are scarcely an improvement over the tube tent. Some backpackers still use a simple tarp, measuring about nine by 12 feet in size, erected with the aid of guy lines and tree trunks. The same objections apply, however. In desert regions where rain is a rarity, a few hardy campers advocate the "Visqueen burrito." Spread your sleeping bag out on a plastic ground sheet (Visqueen is one trade name) and hope you won't be rudely awakened by fat rain drops exploding on your face. If you're unlucky, pretend you've just become a gooey mass of beans and cheese and roll yourself up in the ground sheet as if it were a tortilla. If the rainstorm is brief, the Visqueen burrito trick can work well and save you considerable weight. If you remain wrapped in your plastic tortilla all night, however, you'll be a very soggy burrito come morning. Condensation inside the impermeable plastic will have soaked your sleeping bag. The high-tech version of the Visqueen burrito is the bivouac sack, a waterproof bag a little bigger than a sleeping bag that is usually made of Gore-Tex. Bivy sacks are the favored overnight shelter of alpinists intent on difficult multi-day ascents of routes in moderate climates, but they're too small to do anything in them but sleep. The only backpackers who use them are extremely weight-conscious types on solo trips in regions where they’re not faced with the possibility of waiting out a three-day blow. If you’re traveling with a companion, it makes more sense to bring one small tent than two bivy sacks. The weight is about the same, and the comfort is much greater.

Enlightened by my early experiences with tube tents, I became forever skeptical of any wilderness shelter short of a full-fledged tent. The addition of a few extra pounds to the pack in the form of a tent makes the whole trip more enjoyable. The southwestern deserts, I grant you, can be an exception, as they are bug- and rain-free in most seasons. Camping under the stars there can be a delight. But for all mountain trips, in any season, I bring a tent.

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