Guys -- I was just reading this in the Philmont Advisor's Guide:

| The tent issued by Philmont is the BSA Philmont Backpacker
| tent. With poles, it weighs at least 5 ½ pounds. Several popular
| 2-person backpacking tents (such as the Sierra Designs Clip
| Flashlight) weigh less than 4 pounds. So, our advice is to use
| your own tent unless it weighs more than Philmont’s.  
| 
| Tents need to be waterproof. Test this by setting up the tent under
| a lawn sprinkler. If they leak, reseal and retape all seams. On
| the trail is the wrong time to find out that things leak.
| 
| • Ground sheet: Tents need a ground sheet. Coated nylon and
|   heavy-duty plastic work fine. For Philmont tents, the footprint
|   should be 5’-6” by 7’-6.” Dupont Tyvek, if available,
|   makes an excellent footprint and is lighter than plastic.

Do we know how much are troop tents weigh? I'd like to know how
big these Philmont tents are...I hope we don't have to squeeze
into the two-man tents like we did at Northern Tier! That was
torture for full-grown men.

Also, that Tyvek sounds like a good idea -- I'll bet it's much
lighter than the tarps we use for ground cloths. Anyone know where
to buy it?

  - Tom A.
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Thomas R. Arneberg - tom@arneberg.com - http://arneberg.com
ASIC CAD Engineer, Cray, Inc., Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin
Leaving for backpacking in the Rockies in 14 days! 8-D
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