Waterproof a Tent

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

There are few things worse in life, and more importantly, in camping than waking up to a wet sleeping bag and wet camping gear. To take it a step further, it's ever worse if the rain isn't planning on stopping for a while, or long enough for you to dry out your gear. Having a waterproof tent in rainy climates is crucial. However, it is rarely as simple as getting a tent that is made out of 100% canvas and lets no water in our out. Do that, and you will wake up wet anyways. What should you look for, and what should you do to completely waterproof a tent?

1. Know that there is no true waterproof tent: A good waterproof tent needs to keep the rain out of the inside and let moisture vent out from the inside. Maintaining this balance is hard and will be different for different climates.

2. More fly is better than less: Many newer tents are designed with the intent to cut weight and increase ventilation. These are both good things, but can be not so good when the tent does not keep the camper dry. When in doubt, get a tent that has a fly that covers more of the tent than not. Obviously, like I said before, you don't want to live in a plastic box, but you do want to make sure that you are covered. Just make sure to stay ventilated.

3. Just make sure to stay ventilated: It's a hard balance, but keeping water in while letting water out is very difficult. Camping in areas that are dryer won't be as difficult to keep dry naturally, but you always need to keep ventilated. If you have a tent that has a nice big fly, open up some of the vent windows to let moisture out. This is critical in areas where the rain is pushed by wind and can enter the tent sideways.

4. Waterseal the seams: It only takes a couple tubes of paste, but waterproofing those seams is very important and only takes a few minutes to do and a few hours to let dry.

5. Dam up water flow around the tent at the campsite: Many will tell you that the best way to keep water from streaming inside the tent is to dig a trench around the tent to make a small canal. First of all, it's almost always to buy a tent that has a bathtub bottom. Second, there is a more effective way to keep the stream away from the bottom to waterproof a tent. Instead of digging a trench, which is much easier I must add, it is better to build an embankment of dirt as a dam instead of building a small trench as a canal.

The problem with digging a trench is that the trench has a much higher chance of wearing away than the embankment. Naturally if you dig a huge trench, it probably won't wash away, but if water keeps working on the inner side of the trench closest to the tent, it can wear it away and get to the tent anyway, whereas water has only one thing to wear away at with an embankment, and since it wasn't there before anyways, you don't' have to fix something that was naturally there. It sounds weird, but it has been proven over and over.

Staying dry while camping is one of the ultimate challenges as a camper and will always be. Make sure that you don't wake up soaked because you didn't take the necessary steps to keep dry. Taking those steps to waterproof a tent that you are planning on using will make a world of difference in your camping experience.

Lance Dobson, a Backpack Tents Pro himself, would love to hear from his readers. Feel free to contact him at http://www.backpacktentspros.com/.