So for those of you who are using shelter without a bathtub floor, do you find that you get water in during a heavy rain?
Do you ever run into trouble with trekking poles falling during heavy rain/wind?
Also, ignore my above comment about seam sealing. Apparently, that's a thing with ultralight shelters.
Why though?
Thanks again!
Seam sealing - i honestly think it's just it's an ancestral part of the DIY ultralight ethos. Save fifteen bucks and do it yourself. Most places will do it for you for an additional fee.
Heavy rains: I rocked a Six Moons Designs Wild Oasis for years (now updated/rebranded as the Deschutes Plus) with a piece of Tyvek. Did the same thing with the Gatewood Cape (essentially the same shelter, minus the skirt of bug netting). Never had an issue with inundation. The only way you could have an issue with it would be if you set up your shelter in an exceptionally terrible spot for drainage. But that can be solved by a modicum of common sense when finding a campsite.
Heavy winds: this is a bit more of a legitimate concern. Heavy winds can do one of three things -
1) Blow your shelter over/cause it to collapse. I've had this happen to me once, camped way above treeline in the Uintas. It's not an issue of the shelter per se - it was due to having tent stakes that were just stupid-light. I upgraded from the slippery titanium skewers after that and it's never happened again.
2) Condensation. This isn't strictly speaking a wind-related problem, but condensation isn't really a
problem unless the wind is blowing. Wind & rain will cause you to batten down the hatches, increasing condensation. Then your shelter can "flap" if it's not taut enough, spraying water all over your bag.
For pyramid-style shelters, I find the best way to reduce this is to 1) stake things out really tight, tightening things up after an hour or two (cold and wet silnylon does tend to stretch) and 2) use your second trekking pole to brace the long wall of the shelter, thus cutting in half the size of the panels held tight by tension alone.
3) Rain blowing in from underneath. I never have this issue with my SMD Wild Oasis, as the perimeter of bug neetting effectively stopped any blown rain from leaking in underneath. However with my Gatewood Cape, I've occasionally had that. Nothing that can't be prevented by pitching it lower, of course, but that increases your condensation issues.
In general, when things get really nasty, campsite selection becomes more important. That's true, though, for whatever shelter you take, not just UL shelters.A good sheltered campsite will effectively mitigate all three concerns.
