Ground Dwelling at the Gathering

I have to say that I felt a little more comfortable dwelling on the ground during the four days of the Wilderness Gathering. It wasn't perfect and, in my opinion, still not as good as tree-dwelling, but as you can see from the pitch, I didn't really have many other options.

The Exped Synmat helped. I'll do a review of this later, but being thicker than the Thermarest it helped my hips from digging into the ground. Fussy? Yes I am. Uncomfortable hero, I am not. I'll blame it on my age!

What I didn't get on with was the condensation. The TI Goat Vertex tipi is only single skin. Even though I slept with the door zipped open (but not fully held open) the tipi walls were still getting soaked inside. You can see the dark patches in the picture above.

Apparently, the subject of condensation is quite complex and not just a matter of respiratory condensation and lack of ventilation. It depends a lot on environment, dew points, water in the soil, surrounding landscape, wind patterns, time of year, day and night temperatures, height above/below sea level and dew fall. (Thanks Rohan for this info).

Of course more ventilation would have helped as would a second skin. I expect a ground sheet would also have assisted. But I must say, it's not covered me in confidence to get out there and ground-dwell on a regular basis. Not in a single skin tipi anyway.

You have to be careful of the sleeping bag you use as well. I have a synthetic summer bag which can deal with damp, but in the winter, my down bag would probably get drenched (unless the condensation turns to ice like it did in January - pic above)

I must say though when all is said and done, you can't beat a view like this when you wake up in the morning.

Thanks for the visit.

Pablo.