Tarptent - Squall

Bivy sacks were a really great innovation in the 1980s / 1990s that introduced the idea that people wanted to focus hard on carrying a lighter pack. So many advancements have happened since then! I want you to consider what happens in a downpour. At what point do you get inside your bivy sack? Do you do some combination of cooking and eating dinner while the bottom half of your body is in your bivy sack but the top half is just wearing a rain jacket ? While you eat, how would you keep the inside of the bivy sack dry? My guess is it would make sense to have some kind of Ultralight Tarp so you could do basic camp functions... but at that point, you're basically carrying more weight than if you just looked at single wall tents. Some people just carry the tarp and their sleeping bag And a ground cloth to put their sleeping bag on But you'd be a lot more comfortable if you had bug netting that connected like a bathtub floor to a single wall tarp roof (and havinga place to go away from ticks is just safer in places like the Shenandoahs). I carried a Henry shires tarp tent and it was designed for two people! One of my friends called it "L-Train's mansion" at one point. I went with the two person size because it would allow for accessing all my belongings under protection in the event of a rain storm. The whole thing was less than a pound and used my trekking poles to pitch. I hiked in 2009 so there's a lot more new Innovations in terms of fabric choices. I would caution against making an impulsive choice because people truly have their own unique way of doing things. Some of the fabrics can be very expensive and very fragile for instance. If you do consider cuben fiber (insanely light, expensive, fragile) just know how to repair it in the field.