Do You Need a Bug Net or a Tent Floor

If you have been following this blog and particularly my DIY Tents etc you will realise I don’t think you do. I have slept under the stars collectively for several years of my life – more than enough for a dozens of ‘through-hikes’ which are things I would probably never do, as I dislike tracks and crowds.

My whole purpose in getting away into the outdoors is the wilderness. It’s not that I am particularly anti-social. Those who know me well possibly find me too social – or at least too talkative! I/we have lived on farms most of our lives, most of it out of sight of another house even. That is how I/we like it, even though Della was a city girl whom I ‘rescued’ during the one brief period of my life when I lived in one. My greatest achievement really.

My Facebook ‘memories’ for today tell me that I posted this in a previous year: ‘The surface area of a sphere is 4pir2 which makes the surface area of the earth about 510 million square kilometres. Divided by 6 billion people gives about 8.5 hectares or 21 acres per person – but 70% of the earth is water, so we can use only 30% of that or 6.3 acres, but only about one-third of the land is no good for anything so less than 2 acres per person of reasonable land . An acre is about 60 metres by 60 metres. 2 acres is about 90 metres by 90 metres. We feel very fortunate indeed to own 25 lovely acres here at Jeeralang Junction!‘ And it backs on to pretty wild country all along the back!

Pretty soon I will be doing a post about our creek here on the farm where we have developed a walk which would rival many public ones in beauty and variety – but we haven’t to share it with anyone we don’t chose. It starts at our front gate, winds through the bottom of the property and stretches about 3 kilometres through the forest up the valley behind out property. If we are locked up here much longer we will camp out for a couple of nights up the creek behind us for a bit of variety! But we are hoping to be able to get away in the next fortnight.

But, to get back to the theme of this post: Mostly I just want a scrap of something waterproof for a dry roof. Used to be a piece of canvas once, but a hollow log or a sheet of bark will do! This may save your life some time: https://www.theultralighthiker.com/2017/08/18/raincoat-shelter/These days it is more likely to be a piece of silnylon or the like. A comfy mattress adds a pleasant touch, as does a warm bed, but I see no need to impose the restrictions of a fully enclosed tent on myself. If I wanted a prison I would become a criminal!

I like an open shelter where you can feel the air moving past (but with something to shelter a cold wind from my back). On colder nights I always like a small fire out front for warmth and comfort and to provide the occasional hot cuppa. I appreciate a wide field of view so I can watch what comes and goes, and to be able to gaze up at the everlasting stars.

It is a great joy to be able to sit in your dry shelter in front of a warm fire on cold, even wet nights. A sewn in floor restricts the options of your shelter. It makes it impossible to raise the walls to let in a cooling breeze when the weather is very warm, for example. It unnecessarily increases weight. In the case of my dual-purpose shelter/hammock tarps it would make one use impossible.

And 90% of the time it is just unnecessary. When there is water running freely across the ground it is a simple matter to lay a couple of length of timber on the ground and toss the edge of the groundsheet over that to keep the water out. A piece of polycro or a mylar space blanket will do though it won’t last forever. Neither will a sewn-in floor but it is a lot harder to replace!

So too a bug-proof enclosure so many folks seem to insist on. Mostly it is just a weight and an intrusion. When there are very few unpleasant insects about (most of the time if you have any sense where you go) it is not needed at all and only interferes with the sense of freedom and openness which a shelter should convey. At other times when there are insects about you will usually have had to contend with them all day when you weren’t in your shelter – and most bugs go away at night anyway!

How you are to keep them out when you are going in and out I don’t know – but it is possible if you can fence them out that you can slowly clap them all away under a suspended light over a period of time – but they invade again the first time a call of nature has to be answered. If the repellent kept them to a tolerable level of a day it will still of a night, but as I said most of them go away of a night anyway.

If they don’t (mosquitoes for example) a head net when you are clothed or in your sleeping bag is all you need to stop them annoying or biting you – and this weighs only about 10 grams! The only exception is hot summer nights when you might carry a separate mosquito net for the purpose of preventing being eaten alive. This is something which is easily anticipated and still no reason to buy a tent with sewn-in netting. It is also easier to get under a mosquito net without the insects than it is to enter a tent without them!

I hope I have persuaded you of the benefits of an open shelter such as I have talked about in my last couple of posts.

If you really need an insect proof area, here are some nice cheap ones:

Lixada Mosquito Net looks big enough for two. $US11.19 (April 2020). Appears to have a waterproof ground sheet. Weighs 153 grams. Can be hung from the clothesline in one of my shelters. You should be able to fashion some similar suspension system in your shelter for it.