I can make a short story long, so bear with me because it may useful to others.

I was planning on trekking in Langtang National park in Nepal, a trek that climbs up a narrow valley from 1500 m to 4000 meters. About a 3 day trek, depending on your fitness, 4 days for me.

I wanted to go beyond the nominal end of the trek to the head of the valley and camp over night so that I could get both morning and evening light.

While my Sierra Designs tengbu tent is good, it is a bit heavy for backpacking at 6-7 lbs., so I bought a go-light shangri la 1 tent for the one evening I needed shelter.

I set it up in my yard, but didn't get it pitched properly, although I have found postings on the web which show the tent pitched quite tautly. It has no floor, and I wound up with it staked out on too large a footprint. I did have trouble getting my trekking poles to stay in the pole pockets. Go-lite told me where to stake the tent, but it was windy when I tried to pitch it. I couldn't get the tent pitched, largely because I couldn't keep the trekking poles in the socket. I didn't have time to solve the problem, and wound up using my sierra designs tent with a fast pitch ground cloth which allows me to use just the fly.

That actually worked out reasonably well. I quickly found that, as per usual, I was grossly over-estimating my fitness and under-estimating the difficulty of the trek. I had to use a porter; I've seen porters used by catered tours carrying four or five duffel bags and the mess tent. My load was small potatoes for him. The tent provided roomy and sufficient shelter overnight for both of us while we had some snow.

The roominess was an issue. The employer needs to make sure that his porter / guide has sufficient equipment for colder temperatures. nepal is very poor country and guides don't have the sophisticated equipment their clients do. The shangi la tent would have been inadequate, although there were several empty huts used by yak herders. We actually pitched the tent inside a small walled corral and cooked inside the (smoky) hut.

Any way, I was pitching my tent with the handles of the trekking poles upwards. The pouch actually looks like it is supposed to fit, but doesn't want to stay centered. Putting the tips of the poles upward would likely solve the problem, but I am afraid of putting a hole in the tent, although the pouch is reenforced.

Since I find that I often get only one answer when I ask more than one question and this has rambled a bit, my questions are:
1. Are poles on tarp tents or this tent in particular, generally used with the handle up or down.
2. Can I do something like putting a rubber cork or perhaps a pvc cap over the tip?