So I'm screwing around with my new Kelty 12, strapping the sides up to my hiking poles like you do, and suddenly this happened.
It's just a pair of poles from an old ground blister that's been hiding in the back of the shed. The ends are loosely nested in the tieouts on the edge, and the tension from the interior tieouts keeps them mostly in place. Long enough for proof of concept and to snap a couple pics anyway, though a stiff breeze will probably pop them. Set up like this I get more interior room than tied to my hiking poles - the biggest increase is in headroom, because the poles aren't interfering with the ridgeline. But I'm fairly certain the sides are a little farther out too. And I feel like if I fine tuned the tent pole length and added some proper ends and pole clips at the ridgeline and the tieouts, I could get even more room. And I bet I could inverse the ends and pitch the thing straight to the dirt if I wanted to hang that low or ran out of trees (not too uncommon in Utah, alack and alas).
There being nothing new under the sun, I'm sure somebody else has been down this road, but all I see are shortened poles being used exactly like trekking poles. Somebody tell me this is a terrible idea and all the reasons it won't work before I order more materials and start hacking up my brand new tarp.
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