Welcome to episode 182 of the first 40 miles.

If you're new to backpacking, or if you're hopelessly in love with someone who wants you to love

backpacking, then this podcast is for you.

We'll talk about the essentials,

how to lighten your load,

and how to make the most of your time on the trail.

I'm your host Heather Legler.

And I'm Josh Legler.

And this is the first 40 miles.

Today on the first 40 miles, what do you get when you mix the ancient Japanese art of paper folding with a huge sheet of sill nylon.

Tarpagami! We'll talk tarps today and learn about some of the risks and

rewards of changing up your shelter.

Then an ultralight shoe that fits in on the trail, in the creek, or just

bumming around camp.

For today's hack, an idiot-proof tarp shelter that you, yes you, can put up in seconds,

plus a lovely little poem to go with it.

All this, and that's about it.

Today on the first 40 miles.

So I think we've talked off and on about using tarps. We've used a tarp before over our tent as kind of an extended living room so we could prepare our food outside of our tent. You know, you never want to light a stove inside of a tent. There are lots of reasons for that, one of them being carbon monoxide poisoning, but we wanted to kind of have a larger living area and a

tarp does that great. We've also used a tarp as a general food preparation area away from the tents and that was really helpful on our

trip that we shared with another family and it was pouring and it was snowing and

then it was pouring again.

...