PSA: My tent flooded during a rainstorm at Yellow Creek last weekend

I set up my 3-season tent near the lake at Yellow Creek last Saturday, thinking it was a great spot. Then it poured for 4 hours straight, and I woke up at 2am with water seeping through the floor. Turns out I didn't stake the rain fly low enough on the sides. Has anyone else had a tent floor get soaked because of poor fly setup?

3 comments

3 Comments

ross.felix15d agoMost Upvoted

Three Augusts ago I pitched my tent right on the shore of Lake Almanor, feeling pretty clever about the view. Woke up to find the entire windward side of my fly was basically touching the tent wall because I'd staked it too tight (rookie mistake, honestly). The condensation alone could've filled a kiddie pool, but then the actual rain came and just poured through every seam. What got me was that I had a footprint underneath, like @parker_thomas mentioned, and it still didn't matter because the fly was basically funneling water straight down onto the tent floor. My thermal pad actually floated up about an inch, which is a wild thing to feel at 2:30 in the morning when you're half asleep.

miamitchell15d ago

Laughing but also crying because I totally did this last year at Red Mountain. Forgot to stake the fly out wide enough. Woke up floating at 3am. My sleeping bag was basically a sponge. You basically made a swimming pool for your tent. Hope you had a change of dry clothes in the car. That was a long cold night for me.

parker_thomas15d ago

...and that's exactly why I always tell people to check the angle of their rain fly before it gets dark. But here's my question - did you pitch it on any kind of ground cloth or footprint underneath? Cause I've had setups where the fly was perfect but water still wicked up from the ground through the fabric because I didn't have anything between the tent floor and the wet grass. A lot of people skip that step and it makes a huge difference when you're dealing with serious rain.

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