Wall Tent lodgepoles

[2rocky]

For those of you who pack into a wall tent camp in the west, I'm curious about your poles.

Do you cut new poles each year or keep a stash of sized-right poles ?

If you are going to a new area, how much time do you allocate to get a wall tent camp set up?

Any novel ways of setting up a lodgepole frame for a wall tent?

 

[El Jason]

If I am going back to the same site, I stash the poles. We would lean them upright so that they didn't lay on the ground and rot. At one point in time (not so much anymore), it could be difficult to find good standing dead lodgepoles that were the right size. Green lodgepoles are a royal pain in the arse to use because they are heavy and they flex.

Your question about setup time has a lot of variables. What kind of forest is it? If it's lodgepole, then I think an afternoon is plenty of time to set up the tent, cut firewood and hang food. If you are camping in a forest of fir trees or spruce, then you're going to have to work a little harder.

It helps tremendously if your stock will tolerate dragging trees for you. It's much easier to skid tent poles and firewood via horse than to pack it by hand.

As far as how to do it, we would run the ridgepole through and attach to the A-frame. Tie a rope to each end of the A-fram and raise it up. Tie off each end to keep it from falling. Add your eave poles. Dig in the ends of your A-frame and adjust your guy ropes if necessary. Tie off the eaves/stake to the ground.