almostthere
Trail Wise!
putting on my hiking shoes....
Posts: 696
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Post by almostthere on Jul 19, 2020 13:15:39 GMT -8
My bf and I have a 3 person tent - legit wide enough and long enough for 3 pads, a Tarptent. He still manages to elbow me once in a while. Set up on a slight hill, and I mean slight enough that you can't detect it, and it's a game of waking up and moving the pad away from him again so I don't get squashed when he rolls over in his sleep (he's big, and I doubt my inflatable pad would survive 350 lbs of both of us). No mass manufactured tent is big enough for the purported capacity, unless you really really really really really really like the person a whole lot and can sleep while cuddling. Some of the cottage gear tents are as advertised, or larger. The Blackbird is a wonder. When I'm not out with the bf I take either the Blackbird or the netless Traveler. I do very much enjoy the ability to sleep on my back, a feat I cannot manage in a bed or tent. Hammocks have a steeper learning curve tho - it's easier to sleep in a poorly-set-up tent than a hammock that's strung between trees too close together, hung at the wrong angle, the underquilt is too tight and loosing loft...
Someone I know tried to hike the JMT with a friend, and ended up bailing off early after the two of them suffered "irreconcilable differences." Friend took off and left him, he soldiered onward for a bit and lost interest because it was so disenheartening to have that happen. I do not know their shelter scheme, but I do know that a long trip can be stressful in unexpected ways.
As beginners, the OP and friend don't yet know what will be stressful to them. I do know that new to backpacking is a stressful thing, and two newbies with no experience + shared too-close quarters + long trip may be ... too hard to manage enjoying the trip. And that's an important piece of it all. If at all possible going out with an experienced backpacker can jump start that learning curve and help quiet the anxieties. One of my recent trips was with a friend who had lots of experience, who brought along a newbie who wanted to join her for a week-long trip -- she knew there is no substitute for experience, and the friend/newbie was not listening to her at all about some things. It was easier for the newbie to look at my "weird setup" and ask questions, and learn that she needed to work on her pack list. Clothing and food are the most commonly overpacked items - and boy, did she overpack. I had a Bare Boxer bear can, 275 cu in, and it wasn't even full when I started. She had the 700 cu in Bear Vault, so full she couldn't fit trash in and it had to go in my tiny can - for two nights. It was obvious that she'd overdid it, everyone had smaller cans.
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Post by cweston on Jul 19, 2020 13:41:20 GMT -8
Slightly different perspective: I’ve shared a 2p tent with my wife, with various “kids” (they are adults now, and I routinely share a tent with my adult son), and a few times with friends. No complaints. I personally don’t mind sharing, and I’m not a small guy (5-11, 200). So it’s not like sharing is awful or impossible. (Full disclosure: my 2P tent is a touch roomier than most lightweight 2p tents.) I’d definitely want to use a solo tent on any trip with anyone I didn’t know well, but then again, I already have a light solo tent, so that's easy for me to say. I also probably wouldn't want to go on a BP trip in the first place with someone I didn't know well--as almostthere and others have said, not seeing eye-to-eye with a BPing partner can really put the damper on a trip. My advice: go separate if you can, but don’t hesitate to share a 2P if that’s how it works out. Just get out there and do it. Sharing a tent can be a bit awkward, but it can also be a good bonding experience. If you know you are not splitting up, rather than divide up the tent, you can just have the non-tent-carrier carry some other “group gear”: stove and fuel and cookware, water filter, etc. (just make sure the other guy has some water purification tabs for emergency backup.)
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texasbb
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Hates chicken
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Post by texasbb on Jul 19, 2020 14:52:02 GMT -8
Unless I'm married to the hiking partner, I'll be in a solo tent. Sleeping 4 inches from someone who hasn't bathed for 5 days and has been eating unfamiliar trail food all that time is an olfactory biochem experiment I've done for the last time.
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driftwoody
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Take the path closer to the edge, especially if less traveled
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Post by driftwoody on Jul 19, 2020 15:00:26 GMT -8
Unless I'm married to the hiking partner, I'll be in a solo tent. Sleeping 4 inches from someone who hasn't bathed for 5 days and has been eating unfamiliar trail food all that time is an olfactory biochem experiment I've done for the last time. Freeze dried meals can give me gas. On one occasion when I was sharing a 2P tent with a buddy it gave me very loud gas several times during the night. At dawn when we were both waking up but hadn't spoken yet, my buddy started singing like Bob Seger: "Woke last night to the sound of thunder ... how far off I didn't have to wonder."
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almostthere
Trail Wise!
putting on my hiking shoes....
Posts: 696
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Post by almostthere on Jul 19, 2020 15:13:56 GMT -8
Unless I'm married to the hiking partner, I'll be in a solo tent. Sleeping 4 inches from someone who hasn't bathed for 5 days and has been eating unfamiliar trail food all that time is an olfactory biochem experiment I've done for the last time. Freeze dried meals can give me gas. On one occasion when I was sharing a 2P tent with a buddy it gave me very loud gas several times during the night. At dawn when we were both waking up but hadn't spoken yet, my buddy started singing like Bob Seger: "Woke last night to the sound of thunder ... how far off I didn't have to wonder."
The boyfriend is very lucky I know the dangers of lighting fart flares in a tent...
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Post by johntpenca on Jul 30, 2020 17:17:13 GMT -8
Freeze dried meals can give me gas. Yup; even BITD freeze dried food gave us the wind. It actually got to be funny. Four people in one tent. Ventilation matters.
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Post by Lamebeaver on Jul 31, 2020 4:38:28 GMT -8
It is better if each of you get your own two-person tents.
my $0.02.
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schlanky
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Post by schlanky on Aug 3, 2020 12:47:01 GMT -8
Chiming in to cast another vote for each person getting a 2P tent. The small weight penalty is usually worth the extra space of going up to 2P. And you'll each have your own space in separate tents.
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toejam
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Hiking to raise awareness
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Post by toejam on Aug 4, 2020 20:21:05 GMT -8
I don't spend enough time in a tent to carry a 2-person on a backpacking trip. But yes, carry your own tents.
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ErnieW
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I want to backpack
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Post by ErnieW on Aug 5, 2020 5:22:39 GMT -8
Just to throw a wild card in here, I'll always choose my backpacking hammock (Warbonnet Blackbird) over a tent. Some destinations don't have suitable trees, so I also have a 1P tent. I bought a Six Moon Designs Lunar Solo when it was on sale for $184. To expand on this a little where and when you are hiking makes a difference here. There are places where it is hard to find a good spot for a larger two person tent without someone having to sleep on a rock or root but two solo tents can find two decent spots. If you are going out in hot and humid the body order issue matters a lot more than wintertime camping.
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Post by skeeter on Sept 1, 2020 16:50:01 GMT -8
There's some really good advice in this thread. I'm interested to hear what the OP ended up doing?
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zeke
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Peekaboo slot 2023
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Post by zeke on Sept 1, 2020 17:01:25 GMT -8
skeeter There is a long history of posters dropping in, asking a question, and never dropping back by to see the answers. In this case, the OP hung around for a grand total of 4 minutes after asking his question, never to return.
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