​Hmm.. two Ponchos Joined Together 🤔

I’d been meaning to try this for ages now, since I tried the single poncho setup last year. I wanted to think this is really cool but I just can’t get my head around the fact that you still need to bring a raincoat, in addition to your ponchos, because you have to take the ponchos off to erect them as a shelter.. seems a bit pointless really

But with that inconvenient issue aside, the two ponchos joined together really easily via zips and velcro. It was a bit faffy getting the shelter up and getting the mesh inner installed but I got there in the end, and got to enjoy a nice lil nook out of the rain with a mesh-enclosed bedroom area

Another issue is that it looks like you can only install one mesh inner under the 2 ponchos, so one of you would be out with the bugs in the vestibule area.. although I think I preferred the space inside without the mesh inner installed – a head bug net would suffice to keep the bugs off the important parts

I whipped up a delicious pork chow mein for my tea and spent a lovely rainy night in the woods

Thank you to Frank for being the second poncho wearer and keeping me company

Ps. For the gear lovers - this is One Tigris Tentsformer – as always I have no affiliation.

A night out under my poncho.. except this one turns into a tent! Well, sort of. The poncho becomes the fly, and the arm holes become the vents. You can use it like this, just as it is, like a lil tarp-type open shelter. Or, you can stick the matching mesh tent underneath it to create a bug-proof tent thing.

It all seems pretty damn cool, and it’s a fun concept. But I still can’t get my head around these poncho shelters.

First off, you still need to wear a rain coat, for two reasons. The sleeves are far too short to keep your arms dry. And then there’s that familiar poncho-shelter-problem.. if it’s raining, you’re going to get wet when you have to take off the poncho to erect it as a shelter. So, you end up just wearing it over your raincoat, which in my opinion defeats the object of it being a multi-purpose piece of gear.

Pitching this inner first would be a bad idea in rain, as it would just fill up with water. So, I tried to pitch it fly-first, which I found a bit faffy. But it was my first time and I guess I’d be better at it now that I know how it all works

I felt so cosy in this with my lil lantern glowing, enjoying a tasty home cooked chicken tikka masala and listening to the owls and the crows. I tried a mini hot water bottle for this camp, which I found to be a less effective method for warming myself than my electronic hand warmers. The lil hot water bottle only stayed warm 2-3 hours, compared to my handwarmer which chucks out heat all night long. The handwarmer, although I consider it heavy, is considerably lighter than a hot water bottle plus the extra water I had to carry in to fill it with
I settled down for the night, and slept so soundly that I didn’t wake up at all as the rain started coming through the front mesh. By morning the floor was soggy, and my pillow was damp. Not really an issue as I always use a bivi bag, but could become a bit of an annoyance, particularly if you are to be out for more than one night. There's also no vestibule, so everything has to be in the 1-person sleeping space with you, or else shoved under the fly

All that being said, I loved camping with this. I loved the colour and how discrete it was. I loved the ‘feel’ of it.. it felt woodlandly and lovely. Not the most technical terms, but you know what I mean, it felt nice and I felt at home in it. I’ve come to realise that I am such a lover of going unnoticed, that I prefer to camp in a stealthy shelter that lets a bit of water in, than a noticeable shelter that stays totally dry inside
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This seems to be well made too, with taped seams, to stop the rain from leaking through the roof (while it comes straight in through the front mesh instead haha!) I do think the poncho fly would make an excellent emergency or lunch shelter for summer hiking though. And, apparently you can join two of these ponchos together, to create a tipi tent! Walking into the woods wearing two ponchos just sounds too wonderfully ridiculous, so I’ll definitely be trying that at some point

So I had a go camping under a poncho. This poncho is really light and compact, just 214g, and has the benefit of being both a poncho and a tarp.. who doesn’t love a multipurpose piece of gear! Also, it’s such a great look. Kind of like a pregnant tortoise crossed with an escaped lunatic

However, although it didn’t rain in the end for this camp, it quickly became apparent that if it was raining, I’d get drenched as soon as I took the thing off to pitch it as a tarp. So does it make much sense? Probably not as I’d need to take waterproofs with me anyway

But as it was, on what turned out to be a lovely dry evening that I didn’t even need a poncho for, this was a fab lil shelter. I erected it in a ditch in order to be hidden from view from the dog walkers, although I didn’t entirely escape the keen senses of the dogs.. peering over the edge of my ditch I saw a lovely doggo staring right at me, haha

It was fairly difficult to put up in an A-Frame config using my trekking poles, but I got there in the end. Of all the tarp configs that I’ve tried so far, I found this to be one of the most tricky. Everything just slides around and falls down all the time. But once it was up, it stayed put and a lovely night was had in the woods