Re: Tentless camping (was: Thermarest bags)

In the For What It's Worth Dept, my favorite set up for tentless (tarp) camping is with a bivy sack. Keeps me from rolling off my ground insulation (it's inside the bivy sack) and zips up to keep insects at bay.

The only downside I have noticed is that it takes a little longer to get in and out of it if (for instance) a bear wanders through my camping site, or there's some other disturbance. :^)
 Best, Don L.


--- Mike Tamada <mktmkt42@...> wrote:
>> 
> It was decades ago in northern Arizona that I was starting to fall asleep
> in the desert, no tarp, just a ground cloth and a sleeping bag.  I
> reflected on how close to nature I was, I could even hear the scrabbling of
> an insect's legs as it crawled across my sleeping bag.  But then I said to
> myself, wait a minute, that sound isn't coming from on top of the sleeping
> bag, it's coming from INSIDE the sleeping bag.  And at that exact moment I
> felt the crawl of insect feet across my lower back.
> 
> I was out of that sleeping bag in a flash, grabbed the flashlight that I
> always kept handy (this was before I discovered headlamps), and saw that
> the trespasser was a millipede.  I believe that millipedes don't bite and I
> normally don't go out of my way to destroy insects but I wasn't about to
> share my sleeping bag with an intruder so I squashed that millipede with a
> rock.  And resolved never to sleep in the open again.
> 
> I actually have slept outside on a couple of beaches in Hawaii but the wind
> and sand made setting up the tent a hassle -- and also kept the mosquitos
> away.  Also by that point I already had over 100 mosquito bites so I may've
> suffered a couple more on the beach but wouldn't have noticed.
> 
> 
> --MKT
>