How Tent Footprints Save or Sink Your Floor

A footprint is either cheap insurance or dead weight, depending on how you treat it. The tent floor is the most abused fabric you own, and a good footprint decides whether it lasts one season or five.

Think it through before you spend.

• A footprint protects the floor from sharp rocks and grit
• It adds ounces, which ultralight hikers hate
• Polycro sheets weigh a third of a branded footprint
• Tyvek is cheap, tough, and loud until it breaks in

If your campsite is sand and pine needles, skip it. If it is granite and gravel, that thin sheet is the cheapest repair you will never need.

A sheet of polycro from the hardware store costs a few dollars and does the same job. Save the branded footprint money for your next pair of socks.