Dining Fly

[Hal_Crawford]

Apologies for the triple post. I was having connectivity problems last night.

[Cito]

Hal, the forum was slow to process my posts last night as well.

 

But I did enjoy having three posts that started with "I'm with Cito" in the meantime.

[Stosh]

Random thoughts...

 

Don't use dining flies except for summer camp. Patrols do sometimes.

 

For those who feel that having a dining fly for safety reasons, may want to consider why the BSA is adamant about no flames in tent, yet the average troop out there thinks nothing about flames and cooking under dining flies.

 

All outing need to consider leaving the fly at home and planning on rainy day meals with no cooking.

 

On an average, it's about 50/50 as to whether or not I even use a tent let alone a fly. If I need to travel light, the tent is usually the first thing that gets left at home. A standard military poncho works just fine for fly/tent most of the time.

 

My one trip to Philmont required us to take a tent on the trek. We hauled the stupid thing around for the whole week and never put it up. Did it rain? Yep, but the rain poncho kept us and our packs dry on the hike and nice and dry at night. The contingent used the rain fly once because of a hail storm. Otherwise it, too, was never used.

 

BWCA is about the only time a tent was required because of the mosquitoes. A dining fly did nothing for those pesky little critters.

 

A prepared scout does not need a fly to keep his gear dry while he sets up his tent, it should be packed correctly and it can sit out in the rain with no problems. Once he has his tent set up the gear shouldn't go inside anyway.

 

Heavy storm? A scout should be looking for more protection than what's offered by a dining fly.

 

Stosh