To each his own. But, I'm with Eric, no way I'd want that setup over my tent.
That said, I'd much rather tear down the tent in the dark in the morning than set one up in the dark.
Practice makes perfect
.
I've spent six nights in my Springbar in the last three weeks. Of those six nights, we setup the tent in total darkness five times and took it down in total darkness five times. Pretty much, every night I was setting it up after full dark and taking it down again well before the sun came up. The last couple nights (last weekend), from the time we parked the truck until Tim and I had the tent setup, complete with cots, bags and heater, the rest of camp - table, chairs, stove, steaks cooking, whiskey poured and cigar lit was about 20 minutes. Not too bad. In the morning, we had it all taken down and put back in the truck even faster - every morning, we had camp completely broken down and stowed and were just sitting there waiting for my coffee water to finish boiling - only about 15 minutes.
Takes me only slightly longer to do it by myself.
Granted, 35 minutes a day is 35 minutes - that's why it gets done in the dark, don't want to waste 35 minutes of daylight with the days so short this time of year. But, we maintain full utility of the truck bed for truck stuff (like piling up dead coyotes...), and, the tent is way more comfortable - to me - than a setup like the above would be.
But, like I said, to each his own!
And, we don't get any style points for a camp like this...
That was the one morning we slept in and it was daylight before the tent came down. As you can see, we put it up the night before right in the middle of the road. Like I said, no style points
. But, it was full dark, it was the best flat spot we could see in the headlights, we had not seen another vehicle in two days, the road didn't look like anyone else had used it for months, so we figured nobody was going to have to drive around us in the middle of the night
.
- DAA
