Gossamer Gear polycro ground cloth

[hikerduane]

I ordered the medium, seems after I order it, I found out they come in different thicknesses, with the large being the thickest. Not sure if the medium and small are the same thickness. Anyway, I received the medium, 40" x 96", packed 2 to the package, dirt cheap. $5.00, shipping was included I believe. http://www.gossamergear.com/cgi-bin/gos ... cloth.html Sit down now, they weight 1.6 ozs. each. Even the now used one still weighs that. They come folded up and are about the size of three folded up ladies rain bonnets. I had a little difficulty though Friday night deploying it. I spread out the thing and thought, this is too narrow. My Thermarest LE was a tiny bit wider than the ground cloth. Anyway, it worked. I tried to separate it earlier or that night but had no luck, it looked like it had been cut too narrow. Gossamer Gear is great. I emailed them this afternoon and received a reply already. It seems the stuff comes doubled up on a roll and you have to separate it to get the desired width. Use two pieces of tape on the open side and pull. That makes it easy to separate the two sides. It is slick, so your bag and pad may slide some. I found myself inching downhill a little the first night and did ok the second night out. The stuff is like sitting on your thick bp mattress which causes the pad to slide some, so you need to take precautions to get everthing lined up. Remember, I was trying to stay on something only 20" wide As it seems with most ultralight stuff I have tried, you have to think of the main goal, light weight gear has some trade offs and a lighter pack. This stuff isn't supposed to last long though. I hope it makes it on a week long trip. Just my experience so far. By the way, have you weighed your piece of Tyvek? That stuff isn't as light as I thought. I found out the custom piece for my Tarptent Squall weighs .47 lbs.

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July.

[hikerduane]

I got to use the ground cloths on my week long trip this last week and have a few observations. If it is a little windy, like Tyvek, you have to put small rocks around the edges to hold it down until you can put your shelter or bag and pad down. If it is even windier it would be a pain trying to get the two pieces like I was using to stay in place. As I have a floorless Tarptent Squall I find it keeps the inside of the Tarptent clean if you put your ground cloth down first and the sleeping bag and pad before putting up the shelter then you are done. I was wondering why even after waiting until my campsite was in the shade that the polycro seemed to gather more condensation than other stuff or since it is clear you can see it better. I think it is like gardening, enough light still gets thru the clear material and causes evaporation. I just had to shake the stuff good in the mornings before folding it up which helped only a little. Only one morning out of 7 did the polycro not have condensation on it and I had set up on dry needles not on bare ground like the other nights, like I had a choice. If I buy another I will buy the large so I don't have to mess with two pieces, getting them to overlap where I will be sleeping. One thing I don't like about the stuff being clear is you can't see how much dirt is on the floor, all you see is dirt and needles.

I just weighted the polycro ground cloths I used for my trip and they picked up .3 oz. (less than an ounce) of dirt, moisture. They are the last of my gear to be dried yet and put away. Remember the goal was to be as light as I could.