Question: Do you use a tent footprint or just skip that to save weight?
Submitted by: Rick

Answer: When it comes to a footprint for our tent, we do usually justify the extra 8oz. and bring the footprint with us. The choice to carry a footprint will greatly depend on your individual goals. We have complete confidence in the durability of the Cordura Brand fabric that makes up the floor of our tent and therefore use the footprint primarily as an additional protective barrier between our tent floor and the ground, adding a significant amount of longevity to the life of our tent, a wise move in our opinion, considering the cost of the investment in a tent. Utilizing a footprint can also offer you a great deal of variety in your shelter options. The tent we are currently using, the Big Agnes String Ridge 2, has an incorporated Fast Fly design that allows us to take a very lightweight 3lb. 11oz. shelter (that comfortably sleeps the two of us) on trail with us by eliminating the tent body and using the footprint, poles and fly to make a very effective shelter. We have also utilized our footprint as a tarp to create a shady spot to rest on hot, high sun exposure days, as a protective cover when caught in a fast moving rain storm, and as a wind shield to close off the opening of three sided lean-to shelters on cold nights.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 15th, 2008 at 4:02 pm and is filed under Advice From the Experts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.