mountainwalker
New member
Hi everyone, first post. My wife and I are outdoors people, enjoying backpacking, hiking, skiing, snowshoeing, kayaking, cycling and car camping whenever we can get away (which is never often enough). We just relocated to N California, and are looking forward to exploring the coast by car camping. While we have two tents, they are smaller tents for mountaineering and backpacking, and we'd prefer something roomier for car camping.
1) We're looking for a tarp kit, or separate tarp and pole components for sun and rain protection for a table and chairs that we can use with our Subaru Outback - in other words, attach one side of the tarp to our roof rack (we can go over our Thule roof box for extra height) and the other two corners to poles. We'd like the tarp to be large enough to go down the poles opposite the car, so that we have 2 walls covered.
Any recommendations for any car camping tarp kits (with tarp and collapsible poles included) or separate tarps and collapsible poles?
2) We're looking for a larger roomy tent, that is weather worthy enough to withstand several days wind and rain. I can pick up a monster 8-10 person Kelty from a friend, but it's one of those long rectangular tents where the fly doesn't fully cover the doors - only the tops of the doors. I wonder how sturdy it would be in windy weather and how much water would get in from the mesh doors.
We have two excellent high quality tents - a Hilleberg Allak lightweight mountaineering tent (36 sq ft) which we use mostly for winter backpacking, and a slightly larger Sierra Designs tent (40 sq ft). Both are excellent, but we're replacing the Sierra Designs tent with an ultra lightweight backpacking tarp from tarptents.com, and we'd prefer a much roomier tent for car camping - at least 80-100 sq ft.
Someone on my backpacking forum recommended a Springbar, which, though made of canvas and heavy, looks quality made. I've used plenty of heavy duty canvas tents in the military, and these were fairly weather resistant.
1) We're looking for a tarp kit, or separate tarp and pole components for sun and rain protection for a table and chairs that we can use with our Subaru Outback - in other words, attach one side of the tarp to our roof rack (we can go over our Thule roof box for extra height) and the other two corners to poles. We'd like the tarp to be large enough to go down the poles opposite the car, so that we have 2 walls covered.
Any recommendations for any car camping tarp kits (with tarp and collapsible poles included) or separate tarps and collapsible poles?
2) We're looking for a larger roomy tent, that is weather worthy enough to withstand several days wind and rain. I can pick up a monster 8-10 person Kelty from a friend, but it's one of those long rectangular tents where the fly doesn't fully cover the doors - only the tops of the doors. I wonder how sturdy it would be in windy weather and how much water would get in from the mesh doors.
We have two excellent high quality tents - a Hilleberg Allak lightweight mountaineering tent (36 sq ft) which we use mostly for winter backpacking, and a slightly larger Sierra Designs tent (40 sq ft). Both are excellent, but we're replacing the Sierra Designs tent with an ultra lightweight backpacking tarp from tarptents.com, and we'd prefer a much roomier tent for car camping - at least 80-100 sq ft.
Someone on my backpacking forum recommended a Springbar, which, though made of canvas and heavy, looks quality made. I've used plenty of heavy duty canvas tents in the military, and these were fairly weather resistant.