The week my tent flooded taught me about waterproofing ratings

I ignored my buddy's warning about the HH rating on my old tent during a rainstorm near Asheville last June. Woke up floating in 2 inches of water at 4 AM and had to pack up everything soaking wet at dawn. Has anyone else learned this lesson the hard way?

3 comments

3 Comments

phoenix2461mo ago

Floating in 2 inches of water sounds more like a site drainage problem than a tent HH issue.

wood.eric1mo ago

Nah I feel like this connects to something bigger. People always try to blame one thing for a problem when it's usually a whole chain of bad decisions. In life and gear, it's rarely one thing screwing you over.

tarabell1mo ago

...and that's basically what happened to my buddy Dave last year. He set up in what looked like a dry grassy spot but after an inch of rain the whole thing turned into a little pond. His tent had a decent HH rating too, like 2000mm I think. The water just found its way in through the floor seams because the ground was so saturated.