Pitching a Tent in the Rain Without Soaking Everything You Own

The job

Get a tent up and dry inside, with you in it, before the rain wins. You've got one car, one tent and about forty minutes of daylight.

How the rookie does it

This is a true story. I was the rookie.

• 4:10 p.m. Check the forecast at the gas station. Forty percent chance of rain. Decide that means a sixty percent chance of not.
• 5:40 p.m. Arrive at the site. There's a perfectly flat, soft spot right in the middle. Wonder why nobody else grabbed it. (It's a shallow bowl. You'll find out why at 2 a.m.)
• 5:42 p.m. First drop.
• 5:43 p.m. Open the tent bag. The tent's still in its factory folds. My wife had suggested setting it up in the backyard on Tuesday. I told her, "It's a tent. It's two poles."
• 5:46 p.m. It's three poles. They're color-coded. All three are gray.
• 5:51 p.m. Inner tent spread out on the ground, mesh side up, collecting rain like a pie dish.
• 5:58 p.m. Footprint sticking out six inches on every side. I've built a gutter that drains straight under the floor.
• 6:05 p.m. Stakes bending in the gravel. I'm hammering one in with my shoe. The shoe is now wet. So is the foot that goes in it.
• 6:12 p.m. Rainfly on. The fly's door lines up perfectly with the tent's solid back wall.
• 6:14 p.m. Fly off. Fly on again.
• 6:20 p.m. Everything goes inside: dripping rain jacket, muddy boots, sleeping bag in its thin nylon stuff sack.
• 6:30 p.m. My nine-year-old announces the tent has a "lake mode."
• 2:00 a.m. The bowl does what bowls do.
• 2:04 a.m. The fly has sagged onto the inner wall and is wicking water through. Every time I bump the wall, it rains on my face. Indoors.
• 2:20 a.m. I sleep in the car.
• 7:00 a.m. My daughter, who spent the night curled on her pad in the one dry corner, tells me it was the best night ever. She's right about most things. She was right about this too.

How the veteran does it

Same campground, same storm. Meet Walt at site 14, who's been camping in this park since before it had flush toilets.

Walt doesn't open his trunk right away. He walks the site first. He looks up, spots a dead limb hanging over the flat spot, and skips it. He picks a slight rise near the edge, where the ground's a little firmer and the water clearly runs away instead of toward.

Then he pulls out a 10-by-12 tarp and fifty feet of paracord and strings a ridgeline between two trees. Six minutes. Now he's working under a roof.

His tent comes out of the bag with the fly packed on top, because that's how he put it away last time. He folds the footprint so it hides completely under the floor, clips the poles, throws the fly on with the door facing away from the wind and stakes everything at a 45-degree angle, leaning away from the tent. He runs the guylines out and snugs them until the fly sits tight and doesn't touch the inner wall anywhere.

His rain jacket hangs under the tarp. His boots sit in the vestibule. His sleeping bag comes out of a trash compactor bag, bone dry.

Twenty minutes, start to finish. He's making coffee on his stove at the open edge of the tarp, well away from the tent, while I'm still holding a gray pole and squinting at a diagram.

At 10 p.m. he steps out with his headlamp and tightens every guyline, because wet nylon stretches. Then he goes to bed and sleeps until the birds wake him up.

What the veteran knows

1. Pitch it at home first. Count the poles, figure out which clip goes where, time yourself. Then do it again after dark with a headlamp. A tent you've never set up is a puzzle, and the rain doesn't care that you're learning.

1. Pick the ground before you unpack anything. You want a slight rise, never a dip, a dry wash or the bottom of a slope. Look up for dead branches. If you're near a creek and heavy rain is coming, camp well above it. Water rises fast, and it can rise at night while you're asleep.

1. Build the roof first. A tarp strung overhead keeps everything dry while you pitch underneath it. Some tents can also be pitched fly-first with just the footprint, so check whether yours can. Either way, pack the tent so the fly comes out first.

1. The footprint has to be smaller than the tent floor. If it sticks out, it catches rain and channels it straight underneath you. Fold the edges under. And don't dig a trench around the tent. It's an old habit, it scars the site, and a good spot doesn't need one.

1. Tight fly, open vents. Wherever the fly touches the inner tent, water comes through. Guy it out, then retighten before bed and again if you wake up. Keep the vents open even in a downpour, because condensation inside a sealed tent can soak you about as well as a leak.

1. The vestibule is your mudroom. Wet jackets and boots stay out there. Your sleeping bag lives in a trash compactor bag inside its stuff sack, and one set of dry sleep clothes never leaves your pack until bedtime.

1. The dangerous stuff, stated plainly. Never run a stove, heater or fuel lantern inside a tent, even with the door open. Carbon monoxide can kill you in your sleep, and tent fabric burns fast. A tent gives you zero protection from lightning, so don't pitch on open ridges or under the one tall tree in a field. When thunder's close, get into a hard-topped vehicle if you've got one. Cold rain causes hypothermia well above freezing. Watch for hard shivering, clumsy hands and confusion, in yourself and your kids. If you see it, get the person dry, insulated off the ground and fed, and head for the car. The ground steals your heat before the air ever does, so a good pad matters as much as the bag.

1. Dry it at home. Hang the tent and fly in the garage within a day or two, or it'll mildew and smell like a basement forever. Before you leave the site, walk it once and pick up every stake, twist tie and wrapper, including the ones somebody else left. Leave it better than you found it.

Your first time, done like a veteran

• Backyard pitch done twice, once in the dark
• Forecast checked the night before and again that morning (learn to read the weather that actually matters)
• 10-by-10 or larger tarp, plus fifty feet of paracord
• Two trash compactor bags, one for each sleeping bag
• Fly packed on top of the tent
• A few spare stakes, including some sturdier ones for hard ground
• A headlamp for every person
• A small towel for wiping the floor
• Dry sleep clothes that stay sealed until bedtime
• A plan B: the car, a closer campground or simply going home. If it's your family's first trip, keep it to one night

Bring the tarp. Your kid's going to call it the best night ever either way, and this time you'll be awake to agree.