9x9 square tarp?

[slbear]

Curious about anyone's experience with a 9x9 square tarp for hammock camping or unplanned going to ground (yes I realize GtG is always unplanned).

This size would seem to provide more coverage than my 11' asym tarp and would be better pitching above treeline is space was tight, with more tie outs and such.

My concerns are the tautness of the pitch corner to corner with the seam at a diagonal, and that the coverage is not enough for storms.

Thanks in advance for you feedback.

Slbear


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[leiavoia]

It should work fine in a diamond pitch for all sorts of situations except sideways rain. Many are successfully using the Kelty Noah tarp like that.

[fugalster]

That's nearly a 13' ridgeline. Not undoable, but be aware that it may exclude some hang spots due to the tarp not fitting between the trees.

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[Passinthru]

I tried a 9' Noahs tarp but the cat cut sides reduced the coverage too much. If your tarp has straight sides (no cat cuts) it should work fine in most conditions.

[P-Dub]

Derek has an illustration showing a myriad of ways to pitch a square tarp:

https://theultimatehang.com/2015/08/...a-square-tarp/

[PastTheDirtRoad]

I've used the Kelty 9 and 12 ft several times in sun, wind, rain, snow, even a hail storm and never had any issues.

[slbear]

That's nearly a 13' ridgeline. Not undoable, but be aware that it may exclude some hang spots due to the tarp not fitting between the trees.

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Definitely a consideration, although with the many tie-outs you could go from one corner to one-point-in from the opposite corner. That should give me a 11'3" ridgeline, very close to all my other hammock tarps.

It's really those extra tie-outs that provide the pitching options for non-hammock use. This is similar to what Dutch is selling with this Asym wide tarp, but he only adds a couple extra points to choose 11.5, 12 or 12.5' ridgelines, and his tarp has no ridgeline seam since it uses a wide fabric sized at 11' x 5'10". The 9'x9' tarp does have a seam, and it's pitching with the seam offset that has me a little worried (a little). Unless someone has bad experiences with this, I'm thinking it should be not perfect, but more than adequate.

I appreciate the feedback on the Noah tarp, and the reminder to Derek's illustration. I emailed Derek when I first got started with Hammock question, and he encouraged me to consider an asym or square tarp because of the simplicity of setup (and only 2 stakes!).

[leiavoia]

It's a bit funky, but if you are using a continuous ridge line, you can also do a semi-rotated pitch so it isn't so wide and has better coverage of the ends. It's something in between a diamond and a square pitch if you can imagine that.