I love the idea of being able to deploy the tarp first when it is raining so that you have an area out of the rain to place/deploy the rest of your gear. I tried my hand at setting up my tarp in the snow Sunday night to see how well I could setup camp and keep my gear out of the elements. I have a packa so I was unsure of how I could pull the tarp out of my pack without either the pack or me getting wet (since the packa is both the pack cover and rain jacket).

So my question to the forum is twofold:

1)What techniques do you use to deploy your tarp while it is raining in an attempt to keep the rest of your gear and you dry (including techniques such as ground sheets for gear or ridge lines to hang gear keeping them off the wet ground, etc)?

2)If you have a packa, how do you pull the tarp from your pack while keeping you and the pack as dry as possible (e.g. do you keep the tarp attached to your pack where you can still reach it while wearing the packa, do you have a method of removing the pack while still wearing the packa and then covering the pack with something else to keep it dry while you're setting up the tarp, etc)?

Thank you in advance!