Hanging with or without a tarp in dry weather = Dew issues?

[AmberG]

From a fellow Arkansan, this is something I’ve recently discovered, myself. With our humidity and dew points, the colder it gets outside, the more dew I wake up with in the morning. If I’m only out for a couple of days in good weather (well, it’s arkansas, right?) then I don’t feel it’s a big deal. If it’s going to be very cool each night, with plenty of rain forecasted, and I know that drying out my gear is unlikely, then I’ll probably pitch my tarp to keep the dew on it instead of me.

[AmberG]

And yes, on a clear night where I’d expect to hit the dew point, the tarp usually keeps me dry.

[BillyBob58]

My first ever camping trip, I didn't hang a tarp, and loved it. My most recent trip was also tarpless, but I slept much worse for multiple reasons. It would have been nice, but I was getting a lot of wind and my hammock was flapping quite a bit, which kept me up.............

I know the OP is concerning dew problems, but this can be another major problem if trying to do without a tarp. I mean major. You say your UQ keeps you warm at 20F and it is only going to be 40F? Add winds of 5 or 10 mph or even higher gusts to that, and you might be a cold camper even at only 40F. And if your quilt only keeps you warm at 40F, most are going to freeze. Unless the wind is well blocked by a tarp, or partial tarp folded back so that it still blocks the wind while leaving some of the top uncovered, or an UQP. Most of my hangs over the years have been with no tarp, but often with some form of UQP.

A lot of times I hang on my back porch, no tarp, with a roof over my hammock. I usually am almost not under the roof, with the edge of the roof maybe 1 or 2 feet beyond my shoulder and side. Unless it is raining, then I move in a few feet closer to the house. I don't think I have ever experienced any dew or obvious condensation problems. Other than my breath condensing on my TQ if I don't use a frost bib. And yes, I live in an extremely humid area.

OTOH, I have hung my setup under a tarp(but no tree cover) in the grassy back yard near sunset, planning on cold weather testing at bed time. Then I go back out to hop in at 10 or 11PM to find everything, hammock, quilts and tarp, covered with frost or dew. In fact, I had this exact thing happen on my first test of the JRB MW4 on a JRB BM bridge hammock. Starting out the night just covered in frost. I was afraid it would cause a fail at such cold temps, but luckily I was just fine anyway. I have never had this happen yet camping in the forest, with tree cover and ground without the thick grass of my yard.

[cmoulder]

A handy RH (relative humidity) hygrometer is your own breath... if the water vapor from your breath dissipates quickly then it is low, and if it lingers then it is high. And then there's in-between.

There's even a rough calculator for it.

As we know, RH can (does!) frequently increase as it cools during the night, hence the 'surprise' dew in the morning.

[joe_guilbeau]

Calm, clear and 51° overnight so I decided to sleep outside. I figured I'd chance it without the tarp. Went to sleep at 10:45...up and SOAKED by midnight! A for effort.

Research and totally grasp the concept of "Dew Point"

[Jonwright]

I’ve gotten to where I do not pitch a tarp unless I know it’s going to rain. In the winter I have a solid cover for my hammock and I don’t have any issues with dew when it is cold. I have had the screen on and while it helps with the dew the top of my quilt still was damp but not terrible. If it is spring or summer and I know we’re going to get to dewpoint or i’m close to a field tarp comes out for sure but otherwise I don’t worry too much.

[cougarmeat]

There’s a lot of things that drop from the sky besides rain. And a Full Moon can be brighter than a streetlight beaming directly in your eyes. As a minimum, I’d at least string up the ridgelines. The challenge for me is to have the stakes pre-set if I have to take the tarp out of the skins, but not trip over them. I could put a little flagging tape on the stakes if I found I was going tarpless (still in the snakeskin) often.

[drtolo]

My personal preference is to ALWAYS hang my tarp. If I'm setup in a dry location, am at little to no risk of rain or anything falling from above, I'll simply unhook the guylines from one side of my tarp (but leave it staked out), fold it over the ridgeline, & connect those guys to the other side.

This give me that open air night sky feel, but the confidence that if a storm blows through or wind picks up, I won't be fiddling in the dark trying to get my tarp up, it's 20 seconds of just pulling the guys back to the other side.