Pitching and site selection: the routine that makes a shelter work

Most bad nights are decided in the ninety seconds before the pack comes off, not by the gear inside it. Cold air sinks into hollows, water collects on the flattest ground, and dead branches come down in wind. A site scored properly and pitched in a fixed order will outperform better equipment on a site chosen for the view.

The six things a site has to do#

Everything worth checking falls into six categories, unequally weighted. Drainage and overhead hazards can end a night on their own. The rest only degrade it.

1. Drainage: where does water go if 20 mm falls in two hours?
2. Cold air: are you in the layer that pools, or above it?
3. Wind: what is the exposure, and what shelters you if the direction shifts?
4. Overhead: what is above the tent, and is any of it dead?
5. Ground surface: flat enough, soft enough, free of stones and roots, and durable enough to camp on without damage.
6. Distance: roughly 60 m (200 feet) from water, and far enough from other parties.

Cold air pools, and the degrees it costs you#

Cold air is denser than warm air, so it flows downhill and collects in hollows, basins and valley floors. On a clear, calm night with no cloud to trap outgoing radiation, the ground cools fast, chills the air touching it, and that air drains to the lowest available point. Mountain meteorology describes the result as a valley inversion, and reported differences between a valley floor and a slope a short distance above it commonly run to several degrees C, occasionally more in enclosed basins.

For camping that means the pretty flat meadow beside the stream is often the coldest place available, and moving 10 to 20 vertical metres onto a slope or a shoulder frequently gets you out of the coldest layer. It also means forecast lows, usually issued for a representative station rather than your hollow, can be optimistic by several degrees for exactly the site you have chosen.

Two practical consequences. First, if your sleeping bag has no margin, site choice can be worth more than a warmer bag: see why you sleep cold for the rest of that ranking. Second, cold sites are damp sites. Air chilled to its dew point deposits water on everything, which is why hollows produce the worst tent condensation and the wettest fly in the morning.

Reading drainage before you read the view#

Water runs downhill and stops where the ground is flat and compacted. That is the same description as the site that looks most inviting, which is why experienced campers are suspicious of a perfectly smooth patch in an otherwise uneven area.

Read it in this order:

• Look uphill. Anything above you drains through you. A shallow gully, a bare channel through grass, a line of different vegetation: these are watercourses that are not currently carrying water.
• Look at the surface. Moss, rushes, bright green grass and fine silt all indicate ground that is wet regularly. Coarse dry litter, needles and pine duff indicate ground that drains.
• Look for the crown. A very slight convex rise sheds water in every direction. A dished patch collects it. The difference is often only a few centimetres and it decides whether you sleep in a puddle.
• Test it. Press a heel in hard. If water rises into the print, the ground is already saturated and your floor will be under standing water by morning.

Do not solve a drainage problem by digging. Trenching around a tent scars the site, concentrates runoff and accelerates erosion, and it is not acceptable practice on public land. Leave No Trace guidance is explicit about not modifying sites, and the correct response to bad drainage is a different site rather than a spade. If the whole area is saturated, camping in the rain has more on managing water you cannot avoid.

Wind, overhead hazards and the ground itself#

Wind exposure is the variable you control most cheaply. Dropping below a ridgeline or pitching behind a rise, a wall or dense scrub cuts the load enormously, and load rises with the square of wind speed, so a modest reduction in exposure is a large reduction in force. That arithmetic is worked through in tents in wind. Leave a gap between the shelter and any windbreak, because wind rolls over an obstacle and comes down behind it.

Overhead is the one criterion with no partial credit. Standing dead trees, hanging broken limbs and dead branches still attached in a live canopy are all genuine hazards in wind, and they fall silently and without warning. Look up before you decide, then look up again from where the tent will actually stand. Do not accept the risk on the basis that the forecast is calm, because it is a forecast.

The ground itself is quickly assessed. Clear stones, cones and sticks by hand and put them back when you leave. Avoid roots that run under the sleeping area, since a root is not compressible and no pad thickness fixes it. Check the slope: 2 to 3 degrees with your head uphill is comfortable, and that is 7 to 10 cm of rise over a 2 m body length. At around 5 degrees, 17 cm over the same length, you will slide down the pad all night. A sloping site is one reason people consider a hammock, which does not care about ground shape at all.

The ninety second site score card#

Score each criterion 0, 1 or 2. Two hard rules override the total: a zero on drainage or a zero on overhead hazards disqualifies the site outright, whatever else it scores.

Read the total like this. 10 to 12: pitch. 8 to 9: pitch, and fix the weak criterion with orientation or guying. 6 to 7: keep looking if you have thirty minutes of daylight left. Under 6, or any disqualifying zero: move, even in the dark, because the alternative is a night spent regretting it.

The rubric is deliberately blunt. Its value is that it forces you to look up and look uphill, which are the two checks people skip when they are tired, and tiredness is exactly when a bad site gets chosen.

The eight step pitching routine#

Order matters, because each step depends on the last and because half of these are hard to fix once the tent is up.

1. Walk the area for two minutes before the pack comes off. Most people commit to the first flat patch they see and pay for it at 3am.
2. Score the site against the six criteria above. Ninety seconds.
3. Clear the footprint by hand. Stones, cones, sticks, and check for ant nests. Replace what you moved when you leave.
4. Set orientation. Head end slightly uphill, the strongest end or lowest profile into the forecast wind, door away from that wind and away from the drainage line.
5. Lay the groundsheet and tuck any overhang under the floor. A footprint sticking out past the floor edge is a rain collector that feeds water directly under you.
6. Anchor two windward corners first, then the opposite two, keeping the floor square and taut before any pole goes in. A square floor is what makes the fly sit right.
7. Poles, then fly, then every guy line at roughly 45 degrees, with stakes driven fully at about 45 degrees leaning away from the pull.
8. Re-tension after 30 to 60 minutes, and again after about an hour of rain. Then set up for the dark: headlamp, boots, repair kit and door zip clear.

If it is already raining, the pitching sequence matters more than anything else. Designs that pitch fly first, or fly and inner together, keep the inner dry throughout. Inner first designs expose the inner for however long it takes to get the fly over it, which is a real design difference to check before buying rather than discover in a downpour: how to choose a tent covers it. With an inner first tent in rain, the workable technique is to have every stake and both poles laid out first, then pitch continuously without pausing.

Stakes, tension and what silnylon does when it rains#

A stake driven vertically levers out under load. Driven at about 45 degrees leaning away from the direction of pull, the load presses it into undisturbed soil instead, and holding power improves substantially for no extra weight. Drive it fully: an exposed 5 cm of stake is a lever arm working against you and a trip hazard.

Fabric behaviour is the other half. Silnylon is silicone impregnated nylon, and nylon fibre takes up moisture, with a commercial regain of roughly 4.5 percent against about 0.4 percent for polyester. Wet nylon fibres swell and relax, so a silnylon fly that was drum tight at pitching sags noticeably after about an hour of steady rain. Polyester and laminated fabrics hold tension far better when wet.

The consequence is a habit rather than a purchase. After an hour of rain, get out and re-tension the guys and the fly. A sagging fly touches the inner, and contact wetting transfers water straight through to the inside, which people then report as a leaking tent. It also flogs in wind, and flogging fabric tears at the tie-outs.

One more check while you are out there: no part of the fly touching the inner, and vents open. That is the difference between a damp morning and a wet one.

Common mistakes#

Pitching on the flattest, smoothest ground available. It is flat and smooth because water has been standing on it.

Camping in the valley bottom because it is sheltered. It is also the coldest, dampest air in the area on the nights when that matters most.

Digging a trench. It damages the site, is prohibited or discouraged almost everywhere, and does not work as well as moving 20 metres.

Letting the footprint stick out. Every centimetre of exposed groundsheet feeds rain under the floor, where body weight then pushes it through.

Skipping the re-tension. Ten minutes after the rain starts is when the pitch needs attention, and it is exactly when nobody wants to get up.

Staking vertically and only halfway in. Half the holding power, and the first thing to fail in a gust.

Camping too close to water. Colder, damper, buggier, hard on fragile ground and against guidance nearly everywhere. Collect what you need and carry it back: see water treatment.

Frequently asked questions#

How do you choose a tent site in the dark?#

Slow down and use the same six criteria with a headlamp. Feel the ground with a boot for slope and softness, look uphill for channels, and shine the light straight up to check the canopy before committing. If the site scores badly, moving 50 metres in the dark is far cheaper than moving at 3am in rain with everything already unpacked.

Why is it colder camping in a valley?#

Cold air is denser than warm air, so on clear, calm nights it drains downhill and pools on valley floors and in hollows. The ground radiates heat to a clear sky, chills the air above it, and that air flows to the lowest point. Camping 10 to 20 vertical metres higher on a slope or bench often puts you above the coldest layer entirely.

Which way should my head point in a tent?#

Slightly uphill, on a slope of about 2 to 3 degrees. That is 7 to 10 cm of rise over the length of your body, enough to keep blood from pooling in your head without making you slide. On steeper ground you slide toward the foot of the pad all night. Also point your head away from the door in cold weather, since draughts arrive there.

Should I use a tent footprint?#

It protects the floor from abrasion and adds a little puncture resistance, which extends the life of a floor that is doing a hard job. The one rule is that it must not extend beyond the floor edge, or it collects rain and channels it under the tent. Trim it slightly smaller than the floor, or fold the edges under.

How far should you camp from water?#

About 60 m, which is 200 feet, is standard guidance in most places. The reasons are cumulative: riparian ground is fragile and damages easily, waterside sites are colder and damper because cold air and moisture collect there, insects are worse, and camping back from water leaves access for wildlife and other people.

Why does my tent sag in the rain?#

Because most flysheets are nylon based, and nylon takes up moisture and relaxes when it is wet, with a commercial regain of roughly 4.5 percent against 0.4 percent for polyester. A fly pitched drum tight will sag after about an hour of rain. Re-tension the guy lines then, before the fly contacts the inner and starts transferring water through by contact.

Can I pitch the fly first to keep the inner dry?#

Only if the design allows it. Fly first and all in one pitching keep the inner dry from start to finish, which is a strong argument for those designs in wet climates. Inner first tents expose the inner while you fit the fly. If that is what you own, lay out stakes and poles first and pitch in one continuous movement without stopping.