Ok so that leaves me with long story short: Beef up rain gear, ditch common area tarp. Ditch rain fly and hopefully find a way to configure a tarp to be a super rainfly!
If you want something lighter in your system, and don't wanna spend a ton of dough, You could always try a silnylon poncho tarp like This one from campmor - I carry something similar a lot. works as rainger, or a small tarp.
just watch out with nice light silnylon near fires - embers burn holes in it quick
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