If the weather calls for rain, avoid building your tent in a steep valley that will collect water. Avoid building your tent directly beneath dead or weak branches that look like they could fall in a storm.
If your rope is tied to high, then your tarp walls won’t be able to reach the ground. Err on the cautious side and tie your rope a good amount lower than half of the length of your tarps.
Don’t hammer the stakes in too deeply yet, as you will redo them when you construct the walls of your tent. If you don’t have stakes, or your tarp doesn’t have holes for stakes, use heavy rocks instead to secure it to the ground.
Alternatively, if your tent is on a slope, you can dig trenches around both sides of your tent using a small shovel or a sharp rock, which will help rain flow around your tent instead of into it.
You’ll need to find branches that are thin enough to fit through the stake holes in the tarps but thick enough to not break. If you can snap it easily with your hands it’s probably not strong enough.
If you have another tarp you can stake it to the ground beneath the roof tarp. Use the same stakes and drive them through both tarps, with the corners lined up. Then take one more stake to secure the corner of the floor tarp that is closest to the tree.
