A Beginners Outfit (Low Budget)

[Erbswurst]

By the way:
Currently there is a fault at the British side!

That oliv Decathlon bag is called "0" and not "10" !!!!!

Inside you see, that they mean "0".

 

[La Cucaracha]

I usually recommend a military poncho and bivvy bag set up for young men who go for hiking and traveling alone.

You can hide a poncho easier in the area than a larger tarp. You can use it as rain coat and as tarp as well. In the summer it easily can replace the rain suit and is more comfortable than it in hot conditions.

Letting the rain suit at home makes your hiking ruck sack light, and hiking is only nice with a light ruck sack!

You can use it as a fast rain protection in a short shower, it keeps your ruck sack dry too, you can use it as a ground sheet and it can even replace a bivvy bag.

The military poncho I recommended is the ultimate multifunctional piece of equipment for solo hikers.

Even if you take a light rain suit with you, it doubles it as a back up and you can use a lighter, perhaps not 300% waterproof rain suit if you have the poncho.

If it is whet in the morning, you don't have to put a whet tarp in your ruck sack.
The poncho you can put over you and dry it on the hiking man, and put it in the ruck sack when it became dry.

And if you come along a bakers shop in the morning, you hang the poncho on a hook there, order a coffee and wait there untill it is dry, even if you want to continue the hike in the rain in your rain suit.
That is far better than carrying a whet tarp around!

Two lean to poncho shelters with a fire in between, the spare fire wood at the end of the corridor in between the lean to shelters pointing in the direction, where the wind comes from, the feed of the sleepers pointing in the direction where the smoke goes to, is one of the most comfortable set ups for two hiking friends, which exists.

Against the wind should protect a bush or rock or a third mans poncho. Than you would have a protected space, that heats up nearly like a fire heated original historic tippee or Sami lavvu, especially if you close the corners a bit with some wood or standing bushes or additional triangular sheets, where you could protect fire wood under it.

The military poncho usually is the best equipment for one to three young men on the hike!

But in some situations a larger tarp is a good option:

If you want to stay in one wind protected place for longer times and expect a lot of rain, for example.

Or if you want to hike with your girl friend and wish to kiss her from time to time.

Or if you want to go out with a child, that you prefere to keep next to you.

Or If you use a boat, and weight doesn't really matter.

Than a tarp is a good Idea.

You need it too, if you want to use a hammock.

The DD tarps are the market leader.
That is real quality equipment!

They exist in a very good nearly invisible camouflage pattern.
DD offers an ultra light version too.
And for a hammock a tarp which is larger than 3x3 meters is the better choice.
DD offers that!

They have a lot of attachment points and that offers you to construct in windy conditions a nearly 360 degrees closed tent!

That is nice too if you visit from time to time a crowded touristic camping ground, because you want to visit a town, or use there showers and washing mashine.

But unfortunately they aren't cheap and the fantastic light "Hilleberg Tarp 5" is as tough as expensive.

A beginner doesn't know about wood fires what an experienced bushcrafter knows.

It is as good as sure that the beginner will get some spark holes in his tarp very soon!

So it isn't a fault to start with the cheap but long lasting Decathlon Tarp, even if it has only a few attachment points and offers less options to construct a shelter.

You can set up with it a 360 degrees protected triangular based pyramid tent.
You usually will get heavy condensation problems in it, but better this, than to fly away with the tarp in a storm!

It has a relatively large white logo at one side. If you stay exactly on this paint and work fast and concentrated, you can cover this white paint with a black Edding without destroying the fabric. So you can get that idiotic logo away.
OK, it stays, but than it is black, not white!

The lines which come with it aren't so good to attach it at trees. The bark pulls threads out of it.
But doesn't matter, you can replace it later.

The tarp alone weights only 600g.
And that is very light!

The steel poles which come with it stay in the attic for car supported adventures. The heavy pegs too. Take the recommended aluminium pegs or carve yourself the pegs in the forest! (The poles too, if needed.)

Often you will find some trees in the forest.
And a wall is a good option too.
I have the impression, that you have a lot of walls in the landscape in Britain. Every farmer has his own little Hadrian's wall!.....;0)

Don't carry the steel poles around!

TOURING CAMP TENTS, TARPS - Tarp Camping Shelter - Dark Green

£24.99 - TOURING CAMP TENTS, TARPS - Tarp Camping Shelter - Dark Green - QUECHUA

www.decathlon.co.uk

I see decathlon now do a ultralight tarp

 

[38thfoot]

British army tarps can be had for around a tenner and are pretty bombproof.

I fundamentally disagree over the utility of a pocho shelters vs waterproofs and a tarp, certainly for a British environment.

A poncho isn’t as good as an actual tarp as a shelter and isn’t as effective or flexible as a waterproof layer as a jacket which will protect from windchill (a killer) as well as rain and can be part of a layered system.

A poncho is the perfect example of not even jack of all trades and definitely master if none.

The jacket can also be worn to the pub!

38

 

[Harry Palmer]

An army basha is a very useful bit of kit, bivvy bag and goretex jacket and trews and your good to go.

 

[Madriverrob]

In Whitby you could wear a tarp to the pub and no one would bat an eye

 

[Erbswurst]

Yes.
I am a German and I live in Germany.

We have rain too, sometimes just a bit but several days, sometimes short and realy heavy, it becomes here incredibly hot in the summer and horribly cold in some winters, down to -25*C, but of course the weather is different to British conditions.

If experienced British Bushcrafters and former soldiers recommend you for your area different shelter than I do it universally for Europe, you should better follow them.

In some areas a good tent is the best recommendation, like in Finland for Example, in other areas a larger Tarp. In some areas the ground is so stony or muddy, that a hammock setup is the best Idea, in others a hammock is bullshit.

My equipment works well everywhere in Europe. But often another setup would work better and more comfortable in special conditions. If you mainly stay in such special conditions, like a moskito area, you should use a setup, that is specialised for this conditions.


Decathlon doesn't really offer an ultra light tarp. Ultra light Tarps are far lighter per square metre, made from siliconised nylon or cuben fibre, they are very expensive and relatively fragile.

An experienced old bushcrafter could use them with a fire next to it. But a beginner would immediatly destroy the expensive stuff, because he doesnt know enough about wood fires. That can be learned mainly by doing. Different wood and wind gives different sparks!

The olive green Decathlon Tarp I recommended is really light, and really cheap. It isn't a problem if the beginner destroys it in a couple of years.
Later he could by an expensive ultra light tarp!

If you look at this "ultra light" Decathlon Tarp, which isn't really lighter than the green one, perhaps 100g less, you can see a very good example for very good looking design but technical very bad design!

This here is the tarp I do NOT recommend:

TENTS, TENTS ACCESSORIES TREK - Trek900 UL Tarp - Grey

£39.99 - TENTS, TENTS ACCESSORIES TREK - Trek900 UL Tarp - Grey - FORCLAZ

www.decathlon.co.uk

As you see, it has a dark corner. They cut the fabric to sew that dark corner at the main fabric. They weaken the fabric, they get problems to keep the sewing waterproof. And that is absolutely not necessary!

To get a more fashionable look, they weaken the product!

And things like this does the Decathlon design office for trekking and camping stuff.

But the independent Decathlon design offices for mountaineering (Simond) and especially hunting (Solognac) don't do such an idiotic bullshit.

That's the reason why I mainly recommend Solognac equipment. That is long lasting conservative design. Form follows function!

 

[Erbswurst]

For mountain walking and expeditions in countries, where you don't meet anybody like parts of Russia, northern Scandinavia, or Canada red, orange and in summer times bright blue tents and clothing might be a good idea, because a helicopter or other rescue team would have a chance to find you.

In southern France I mainly wear bright grey, coyote brown and sand coloured clothing and use such equipment, because it doesn't become so hot in hot summer sun, blends better in southern European nature and the dust is grey or beige there too.
My shorts are grey, my warm layers olive green or brown there.

For wild camping in Britain and everywhere in Europe northern from the northern Italian border it is the best to wear clothing in brown, olive green and dark grey and to use an olive green or woodland camouflage Tarp or tent.

If possible we usually ask for landowners permission for our camp. But if we are hiking, sometimes we cannot ask the landowner.
And than, we have to hide us for a night in an unused corner of a farmers property somewhere.

We start to look for the place to stay over night two hours before sunset. We decide to stay somewhere one hour before sunset and collect fire wood and prepare the place.
And with sunset we build the shelter. Most people are back at home. We can see, but we don't need electric light other people could see.

We awake early in the morning, put everything in the rucksack and immediately leave the place how we found it.
I keep everything in my rucksack during the night what I don't need for sleeping.
So I am faster in the morning!

For such stealth camping overnighters we need oliv green tarps and tents which blend perfectly into nature!
The complete equipment should have outside but also inside exclusively nature colours.

The grey Decathlon tarp is made for southern France, where the nature is mainly bright grey, because you see everywhere bright grey earth and rocks.

In northern Europe the whole nature is green or brown. And if you mix this colours, you get olive green. That's the reason, why it blends perfectly in.

I don't wear or recommend military camouflage clothing for hiking. But I make an exception with the Tarp or Poncho!

The recommended Defcon 5 Poncho has the Italian army woodland camouflage pattern.
If I use the poncho as a rain coat I usually don't meet people in forest and field. And as a tarp it blends perfectly in.

And if it isn't to heavy to carry it, the british army tarp is surely a long lasting option, that blends very well in british nature.

A carpenter can carry it.
Someone who works in an office and is - compared to a carpenter or professional gardener - relatively weak, shouldn't play the hero. He should buy the Decathlon tarp for the beginning in my opinion, because he should keep his rucksack as light as possible.

When he burned enough of spark holes in it, he can replace it and look for a DD ultralight tarp or if he should be rich a Hilleberg Tarp or equal high end stuff, if he want's it.
But not for the beginning!!!

 

[Erbswurst]

I opened a thread about
BRITISH ARMY SURPLUS
equipment here:

https://www.thebushcraftforum.com/threads/british-army-surplus-stuff.174847/

That's surely not the lightest equipment for hiking, but surely very long lasting, relatively cheap, idiot proof and easy to buy in Britain.

So I think, it's worth an own thread.
And the thread will become surely interesting to beginners .