Caring for Your Tent
Good tents are expensive, but they'll give you many years of service if you take the time to care for them properly. Before using your tent for the first time, seal the seams with one of the products available in backpacking shops, then reapply sealant as needed. Seam sealing is like paying taxes: it's surprising how quickly the time passes before duty calls again. Let the sealant dry thoroughly before packing away the tent. Uncured sealant is an effective glue. A few of the more expensive tents now are sold with factory-sealed seams, which is a great convenience.

Do your best to keep your tent clean. Don't wear dirty, muddy boots inside; the grit will grind away at the coating. After each night's camp, shake all the loose sand and dirt out of the tent before stuffing it back into its stuff sack. Pay particular attention to keeping the zippers clean. Zippers are fragile under the best of circumstances, and dirty zippers wear out faster. The first item to fail on your tent is likely to be a zipper. Tent floors are more easily punctured than you might think. During the expedition to McKinley that I guided in 1983, my assistant kicked her heel on the tent floor, trying to force her feet into her stiff, heavy mountaineering boots. She put her heel right through the floor. Sharp rocks and sticks can also cause tears if you pitch your tent atop them. A little ripstop repair tape, available at most backpacking shops, can patch small tears until you can get home and repair the tent permanently.

Avoid scraping the protective coating off of aluminum poles. The coating is important to prevent corrosion, which can lead to the sudden failure of the poles through a phenomenon called stress-corrosion cracking. Keep the pole joints clean, so they don't jam together. When assembling a folded bundle of pole segments, don't hold on to the last segment and flip the bundle of segments forward, letting the pole assemble itself through the action of the elastic shock cord. This tactic is guaranteed to get dirt in the joints and allow the pole-segment ends to nick each other, causing the shock cord to fray. Instead, assemble the pole segments by hand, one by one, making sure each joint is clean. When you get home, pitch the tent in your backyard, if the weather's dry, or in a spare bedroom or garage, if it's raining. Gently sponge off any mud or dirt, and let the tent dry thoroughly. Storing a tent wet will cause the coating to mildew and peel like sunburned skin. Maintaining a tent is like nailing down the loose shingles on your roof: it reduces the chance that you'll wake up one night to the ominous drip, drip, drip that spells trouble.

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