Iight so after 5 nights on the trail and a 1 night at the MAHHA I finally ready to post my initial gear report from Z-Packs.
First I'll address the wonderful customer zervice that Joe from Z-Packs offers. His communication was excellent, he was more then willing to make any tarp in any dimensions I wished and got me the tarp within the time span that he promised. I even added to my order after ordering the tarp and Joe was more then happy to accommodate. Ovearl he was a great guy to work with and gets an A++ on customer service.
Now on to the tarp. Well this thing is huge
It has a 13 ft RL and the sides go down apx. 8.5 (minus an inch for the seam). It is a rectangle tarp and I have not encountered any flapping issues thus far due to the amount of tie outs it has (a total of ten). The packed weight with out guy lines came to be apx. 8 oz and with guy lines its 11. I can lighten it up by useing lighter guy lines but im still messing around with that. Currently I have 2.2 lash it with pursick knots on them for easy adjustment but I may switch to 1.25 mm line. The 1.25 is super lighter but a bit more difficult with work with IMHO due to it being so thin. I got a big tarp simply cause I love big tarps. I like a lot of real estate under my tarp. It is long enough to fold in the sides to close the ends. It has 5 tie outs on each side as well as side pull outs. This allows the tarp to be pitched in so many different ways its unbelievable. He uses a fabric material for the tie outs which helps keep the tarp light instead of using plastic D rings. I did seam seal the RL but that was about it. I know Kayak Karl has not and has had not problems at all. The stitching is impeccable and very impressive. I haven't sent up the tarp in foul weather yet but am by no means concerned about the amount of coverage this tarp will offer. I keep it in snake skins making deployment easy and fast and if I wanted to I could pack this monster of a tarp down to the size of a soft ball easily. I really like the green drab color in comparison to the green he used to use. It by no means IMHO in invasive to the environment and blends in pretty nicely. It is however a very thin .51 cuben material and yes light does shine through in the morning. But I figure by the time the sun comes up I should be getting up any ways so it does not bother me. Overall this tarp is excellently made and I am very happy with it. I do not feel I need to baby the tarp in the the woods and am not worried about the durability of the tarp. I have heard of two so far rips through the cuben by a spreader bar so IMHO I would not personally use a bridge with a cuben tarp but HYOH. This tarp cut apx. 12 ounces from my pack and boy am I happy with it. I know that I will certainly be a return customer of Joe and not any time soon but one day in the future would like a bit of a smaller tarp for true summer camping when I know the weather is going to be great.
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