I have been backpacking since 1960 and have never used a tarp under a tent for the reason you describe. A footprint is just extra weight. Find a spot for your tent and clear the debris off it. Do not set up your tent in a low spot. Problem solved.
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Iām from the hammock camp. 
Best leave no trace / avoidance of gear getting wet and dirty / not sleeping w/ the bugs and snakes / small light weight setup around.
Doesnāt need flat ground only a couple of uprights and most of you have that w/ your tree lined shores. Here in the desert itās a bit harder and still I manage to float above the ground.
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You canāt really clear the debris off your tent site when camping on gravel and cobble bars.
Hmmm I have the Tetragon 8, and three other tents, none are immune to water under the tentā¦ A proper floor saver, water proof , single layer edges smaller than the tent sides that works well but, There is no substitute for site selection. You must not camp in a water course, no mater how small. The solution is a very careful visual appraisal of where to place the tent. Find the slightly bulging bit of real estate, it might be a micro high spot. Pitch your tent over the high ground, with low ground around it to lead water away. Boy Scout leader and canoe traveler, Over the past 20 years, I have slept in a tent more than 1,000 times.
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Gravel is not a reasonable place to camp. A footprint wonāt help much. That is how you wreck tents.
I do a lot of boat trips overnight, Then plenty of the beaches have gravel. I use a lightweight cot for those.
There are tons of people who camp in tents on gravel bars on Ozark Rivers.
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As mentioned several times above, much is regarding location, location, location. Proper site selection (and long term care of the landscape) is one of the first important decisions to be made. I definitely agree with the anti-trenchers. Just as much as I disagree with the old outdated practice of cutting spruce boughs to make a bed (unless in an extreme survival situation), that was taught as acceptable when I did it as a scout more than 50 years ago.
Twenty years ago I left the ground and became a Hennessey hammock hanger. With the exception of when in treeless conditions such as on the Yukon River, I have not slept in a tent since discovering the pleasures of setting up. a hammock without regard to what the ground looks like under me.
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You have not camped where pblanc has so I suggest you do not argue with himā¦ Gravel is the ONLY place you can camp safely in the Ozarks. A cot is laughableā¦ It rains in Missouri and Arkansas A tent is still needed. Cots put pressure on the feet of the cot.
Tents these days have floors with a lower hydrostatic rating so groundcloths do help on wet soils or soils underlaid by the Canadian Shield. Beachy sites no you you donāt need them
I never became a hammock fan though in less used parks like Opasquia and Wabakimi they would be handyā¦ Often you have to bush out a site. The trouble is the trees are spindly and saggy. Black spruce isnāt a good hanging hook and they are often densely packed. Or none at all as on caribou ridges. ( learned to peg down tents with rocks!)
Keep laughing. Thermarest makes a cot that weighs under 2 pounds that fits in any tent. It is about 5 inches high. I use it n the back of my truck in bad weather like snow and wind.
Sleeping on a cot inside of your tent does not protect the bottom of your tent from sharp and abrasive objects.
Yes, I agree inasmuch as the times that I have had a lot of water accumulate between my tent and footprint was when water was actually channeled under the tent. Sometimes when camping at a designated campground, however, the only campsites still left are in low-lying, wet areas.
Whenever I camp, I have a small folding shovel with me. I dig a small trench a couple inches deep around the tent, just under the edge of the rain fly, with the outflow on the downhill side. Any time I have done this, I have kept a dry tent floor, no matter how much rain there was. When packing up camp, just push the dirt back into the ditch and tamp it down with my foot.
I sleep on an air mattress which spreads out the weight. Seems like cot legs would concentrate the weight and put holes in the floor.
My tarp has a space blanket layer to reflect heat. I put it inside the tent so it is quick to roll up on a dawn departure. The tent floor is going to be damp and dirty regardless, so why deal with that on a ground cloth too?
Baring flowing water under the tent, I find that a ground cloth keeps my tent bottom quite clean and pretty dry. There might be some dampness for a 2 inch or so margin around the edges of the tent bottom that the ground cloth did not extend to, but if you have a freestanding tent and it is not raining, you can turn it upside down and that quickly dries.
For river tripping I have increasingly gone to using Tyvek ground sheets. Tyvek is not the most pleasant material to fold and pack as it is basically high density polyethylene and it is a bit noisy at times. But it can be cut and shaped to fit. It is quite lightweight and does not absorb any water so it dries very quickly.
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Sometimes water passing through like that just canāt be avoided, even if your ground cloth or footprint in well inside the footprint of the tent. Even the most level looking tent site can fool you. Credit the bathtub floor in the Tetragon for keeping the water UNDER the floor instead leaking in through a ground level seam on lesser quality tent. I used to have an old Camel cabin tent that featured inside running water when it rained. Today on my Timberline 4 and my Apex 2XT, I use a ground cloth outside and a Floor Saver inside to protect the floor and even though I sometimes get water under the tent, it never gets in. You just flip them over in the morning and let it dry and wipe off any dirt as you roll it up. Both are over 10 years old and have been in torrential rain and wind events and have never let me down.
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Yep, but there is always a sandy spot somewhere on any gravel bar. Donāt be tempted to use it if it looks like rain though. That usually where the water runs.
Actually, no. On the rivers I canoe camp on there are sometimes sandy areas on gravel bars, but not always. The sandy areas are often in lower lying areas. Even when they are not, I tend to avoid them because once you track sand into your tent, which is hard to avoid, it tends to get into and stay in your gear for some time. And the sandy areas typically will not secure tent pegs so you need to bury dead men if you need to stake out your tent or fly.
I agree. I have camped along Lake Mead and all the river stretches and reservoirs of the Colorado and Green Rivers. There are times that you camp on cobbles, or worse. There is no option at times. You just try mightily to find the position that leaves a void for your hip and nothing sharp in your back. And trust me, tired enough, you can sleep anywhere.
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