Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Tent or no tent

A question for you backpackers who are out in the Sierra's on a regular basis. I'm looking for some input on the best method for sleeping during the months of say July --Sept. Is a tent the way to go here or should I just lay down a ground cover, crawl in my bag and sack out when it's time to sleep? I would like to leave the tent at home (weight). Most of the time I would be above treeline. What are your preferences? Or If I'm throughhiking the JMT, I'm not bringing a tent, right? Thanks

It's a personal preference, of course. Just keep in mind that sudden & sometimes heavy thunderstorms are common in the Sierras...especially mid-July thru August. Three weeks ago, we were pounded by strong winds & sideways sleet during the night @ Trail Camp. While the storms may be brief, they can still be very very wet! It's best to be prepared in some way to keep dry. A wet sleeping bag is not a good thing. If you want to leave the tent behind, you might want to consider a good bivy sack as an alternative.

I was thinking any rain was pretty much a daytime event. Thanks for letting me know about the storm at night.

This was @ 3 a.m. Same thing happened summer before last. We got blasted about 1 a.m. & then again around 4 a.m. Had 2-3 inches of hail piled up around the tent.

As the other two have said....you can get slammed at any time, and you may be getting into the thunderstorm season by then.

Some of the emergency bivy's may be an option.
Another is a tube tent.

I use both at different times of the year.

but you would be foolish to go with NO shelter possibility.

Thunderstorms always a possibility...
More salient is the insect problem.
While the mosquitoes are mostly long gone, now replaced by hoards of those little yellow meat wasps...tenacious little buggers.

Would rather sleep inside a 2-pound bug-proof shelter/tarptent than have one of those fockers crawl up under my sleeping bag and wind up getting multiple stings in the middle of the night.

I would have brought a tarp for an emergency situation but I would still be limited on the site selection. I will just stick with my tent. I've spent my fair share of time in the Sierras but somehow have never had a storm at night during those couple of months. So again thanks for informing me that it does happen.

I just did a 16 day solo loop out of Onion Valley. Carried a tent but Plan A was to sleep under the stars most nights.

Plan A lasted a couple nights before resorting to Plan B: Sleep in the tent!

2 AM thunderstorm, mosquitoes, other bugs with unknown names, one really cold night. Still ditched the tent a couple nights, but for most I was really glad I had it.

Wet down sleeping bag and real cold temps don't make for pleasent camping.

Yea that would really suck, especially if I was two days or more from the trailhead. Sounds like a great trip, what was your pack wt. when you started? I'm trying to cut some lbs. but its not going to be the tent. That makes 3 night storms now.

Around 50 lbs. - 1991 Dana Terraplane - felt comfortable on the back but still hard on the knees - especially going up and down the rock steps that seem to be the in thing now for trail maintenance. Hate 'em almost as much as I hate mosquitos.

Food was mainly Mountain House Pro Packs, hot chocolate, soup and some kind of desert, most of which was saved to be used as breakfast.

Bearicade Expedition - initially fit everything except noodles/pasta in it.

Lunch was Slim Jims, Cheese, dried fruit, peanut butter, crackers, and an energy bar.

Basic Kindle loaded and lasted 16 nights of reading. Solo survival/first aid kit, bear spray and SPOT; the light Thermorest pad - and chair; Crocs; minimal extra clothes.

25th year of doing extended solo loops.

Joe H - I've done 2 backpacking trips in the Sierra this summer.
Each a week long. I was ready for the rain with my extra long rain poncho - You know if its long enough if while wearing your backpack the back side hangs down to just below your knees just like the front and you can tie the corners together so the wind
can't whip it and expose you to rain while hiking.

I set it up as a lean-2 with my trekking poles at night. If needed I enclose the lean-2 to make an A-frame tent with some painters drop cloth -clear plastic sheeting- I cut to size w/ scissors: a tough job but I managed it in 10 minutes crawling around on the floor making 2 triangles for the tent ends and a rectangle for the wall!

Used the light stuff -2mil thick - and taped some strings to the corners to make set up and take down easy.

- it packs into a sandwich zip lock and weighs
nothing, costs next to nothing, but will turn rain away just fine. Plus it lets light in!

I like lacrosse's constuction.

In adverse weather, it seems that many natural stuctures (caves, rocks, trees, bushes,etc) are often underutilized when it comes to finding protection. Sometimes Nature seems to want to offer us help.

On this topic I found a 20 page chapter titled Tarp and Tent in Beyond Backpacking (AdventureLore Press) by Ray Jardine to be useful.

Jim

PS: Looking forward to soon enyoying some great Fall weather in the High Sierras.

Thanks for the input, guys. That's inovative Lacrosse. I would have to try something like that here locally first to work out the bugs. That is a good way to counter the Bearikade wt.
It is amazing what you can find for shelter when the clouds let loose,cavelike formations appear out of nowhere sometimes and I've done the tree thing(one of the shorter ones of course)several times.