Pen

@packlist_pen

Six years of one-bag trips and a spreadsheet of everything never used.

Joined December 7, 2025 · 0 followers

Trekking pole tarp or a 1kg freestanding tent for west highland midge season

Take the tarp and inner, with caveats.

Midges make the inner mandatory and you already have one, so the real question is pitching. On the west coast you will nearly always find peggable ground. It's boggy rather than rocky, and the problem is pegs pulling out of soft ground rather than not going in. Carry six proper Y-stakes instead of the wire ones in the box and you're fine.

The 440g isn't the main advantage anyway. The main advantage is that a pole shelter pitches taut in wind once you know how, and packs away wet without contaminating the inside of your pack.

Caveat: practise the pitch in the garden at least three times, once in the dark. Pitching a pole shelter badly in wind at 10pm surrounded by midges is genuinely miserable and it's the failure mode nobody budgets for.

142 · in/packweight ·