Lightweight Backpacking Tents
Lightweight Backpacking Tents - Additional Information
There are of course all manner of camping tents to suit all manner of camping and all manner of individual requirements, from enormous family tents to tiny, solo backpacking tents. And even within any specific tent category you will find a truly vast range of prices. For example, two person tents can range from cheap throwaway £15 festival tents to similar size tents costing over £1500!
Here, at STATION13, our interest is only in the small, three season, one man and two man camping tents for lightweight camping and backpacking.
This page is here to provide you with a wealth of information on small backpacking tents in general and so arm you with enough knowledge to make an informed decision before committing to buy a tent. Please do also take a look at our '2 Person Tents - Additional Information' website pages.
Even in this category of camping tents there is a vast array of options, and what suits one person may not suit another. And then of course there is your budget to consider. Not everyone can afford to fork out for the most expensive, lightest, highest spec tent available. And indeed, you will find that even with the most expensive, lightest tents, from big name brands, there are always trade-offs. That is to say, there is no such thing as a universally perfect lightweight tent.
What I mean by this, is that to reduce overall weight, something has to give somewhere else. Fair enough, ditching relatively heavy and weaker fibreglass tent poles for lighter and stronger aluminium alloy poles makes perfect sense, but there comes a point whereby, even using the best, lightest, most costly, cutting edge materials, the only way to further reduce weight is by compromising on some other aspect of the tent. Thinner tent poles, one tent pole as opposed to two tent poles, thinner materials, six tent pegs as opposed to eight, smaller sleeping area, no vestibule, etc - all things that can possibly decrease the robustness and reliability of the tent and also reduce overall functionality.
Like I said, there are always trade-offs. To keep weight down to a miniumum, sacrifices elsewhere have to be made, which in essence means that when looking for your ideal tent, you will need to prioritise.
The weight of your tent
Weight is most often the number one priority, and for good reason. No backpacker wants to carry any more weight than necessary, however there does come a point whereby reducing the weight of the tent to an extreme can result in a far less practical tent, with less comfort and greater hardship – two things you probably won’t enjoy after a long day hiking. Now you can get ultra-lightweight tents that only weigh a kilogram or less, provide enough space for you and your pack, and allow you a very good nights sleep. Of course the very latest, cutting edge, ultra-lightweight fabrics come at a price, and you could by a decent second hand car for the price of some tents in this category. And be aware that these ultra-high priced tents are not themselves automatically the best tent for your needs, and indeed, if you check out feedback, they are not infallible or totally without their issues.
If these high-end, high performance, ultralight tents are out of your price range, but you still only want to carry around a kilogram, then small one man ‘coffin’ tents or bivvy tents are an option. However, you will likely have to leave your rucksack and other gear outside, be comfortable sleeping in such a confined space, and certainly not suffer from claustrophobia. Some people get on great with these tiny one man bivvy tents, but I must admit I do prefer at little comfort at the end of a hard day - a tent roomy enough for me to get changed in, store my gear inside with me, and have at least a little head room. Sometimes, particularly if budget is a major issue, then the comfort, convenience and sheer practicality afforded by slogging an extra ½ kg or so around, is well justifiable. But that’s just my opinion. If that extra ½ kg is going to cripple you or make your life a total misery, then unless you have an unlimited budget, you obviously have less options.
Of course it is quite easy to find a tent that meets my requirements, and for a very decent price, if I'm willing to accept that I will have to carry around 2.5 – 2.7kgs. However, if I want to shave a kilogram or so off the weight, then finding a tent that meets my specific requirements at a half-decent price is a whole different matter. As the grams come off, the tent prices tend to start soaring.
The key thing when looking for a suitable tent, is to know exactly what you want in the first place. Once you have determined what you are looking for in a tent, and what your budget is, then you have a good basis to start your research. Given the vast array of tents available, until you know exactly what your personal requirements are, then finding the most suitable tent for your specific needs will, to say the least, be very difficult.
You get what you pay for
As with many things, the old adage ‘You get what you pay for’ is often banded about when it comes to lightweight tents, and while there is always a certain truth to this saying, you can also, very easily, ‘Overpay for what you get’! Many people tend to shy way from anything made in China, however, the reality is that many of the bigger brand names, though based in the UK, USA or wherever, all have their products manufactured in China. So, if the tent is of quality material, quality construction and performs, I would not be overly concerned by this. In fact, when we were researching tents to source from China, looking for a reputable and reliable supplier, we found that you can find various versions of almost identical looking tents, some seemingly at substantial cost-savings. However, although outwardly they may appear identical, this is not the case, and indeed is far from true. When we looked a little deeper we saw that the differing versions are made to different standards and very different specifications, to suit different markets and indeed different pockets. Cost-saving and corner-cutting is evident on the cheaper versions: less waterproof flysheet; fibreglass poles, different inner tent materials and construction, and often more subtle hard-to-notice labour-saving construction differences that can impact performance in the field. Here, the old adage 'You get what you pay for' really does apply.
The biggest selling point for most one person and two person tents, and often the number one priority for any budding lightweight (or ultralight) backpacker, is weight. If you are travelling on a motorbike, or even cycling, lower weight and smaller pack size is important, but never as much so as when you are lugging your tent around all day, on your back, in a rucksack.
Cyclists can get away with a few more pounds, a small two man tent weighing 3 – 3.5kgs is not going to be crippling, but reducing this weight by 1 – 1.5kgs can make a hell of a difference when it’s on your back for hours on end.
I have walked the Coast to Coast Path, Offa’s Dyke Path and cycled Land’s End to John O’Groats twice. On all of these adventures (and they were adventures) I camped and used a Coleman Avior X2. This tent is no longer made, (why, is beyond me, as it was a cracking little tent) and while it would not suit everyone, I loved it. This tent never once failed me, handling everything mother nature chucked at it – I still have it and still use it. However, it is classed as a two man tent and it does weigh in at 2.45kgs. A few years ago I did not consider this to be any great issue, and I was one of those people that took with me everything I thought I may need, rather than just everything I would need. I was somewhat younger and fitter then, so lugging around a 21kg rucksack was manageable – but still bloody hard!
Nowadays, with dodgy knees, dodgy back and the odd twinge from my hips, my outlook has changed. Less is more!
So less tent weight is important for me now, but I still want certain features, so I’m still willing to sacrifice a little weight-saving for functionality and convenience. Now, I do tend to compare everything to my much-loved Coleman Avior X2, as it provided me with all the features I required, and so it does give me a solid foundation on which to make comparisons, so please bear with me.
Tent season ratings
Before I go on, just a quick word about the season ratings of a tent. Any half-decent tent is rated as a three season tent or a four season tent, the difference being that a true four season tent is designed to cope with torrential rain, very high winds and snow. The four season tent will usually have a snow skirt, it will feature thicker, stronger tent poles (usually more of), more guy lines and generally be of a semi-geodesic or geodesic design for strength and stability. Four season tents are designed to be more robust, but all this will come at a cost in terms of weight. In the UK, a good three season tent will usually be adequate for most of the year round unless you plan on camping atop Ben Nevis in the heart of winter. Note also, that a four season tent will generally be overkill for any other time of the year but winter. The particular tents that we are interested in at present are good, value for money, three season tents.
Tent design
Tent design itself is critical. There’s no point in having a ultralight tent that is so unstable or with fabric so weak that it won’t handle a bit of wind without collapsing or shredding, or ridiculously thin, weak tent poles that break the first time you use the tent. But the tent design itself will also lend itself to features that are or aren’t particularly desirable, or will or won’t suit your individual requirements. For example, it’s no use buying a tent that is not free-standing when you will be mainly camping on rocky terrain where it may be impossible to properly secure tent pegs into the ground, or buying a 2 pole 3 season tent and expect it to survive high up on the hills where you get gale force winds, and where you would really need a 4 season geodesic design of tent.
And don't buy a tent that, by design, is low profile and hence too small to sit up in, if you want to be able to sit up!
My Coleman Avior X2, has realistically, comfortably, only enough room for myself and my gear, but it was roomy enough to sit up in and indeed get changed in. It pitched fast, with the inner left attached to the outer, and stood up to wind and heavy rain with no issues whatsoever. I never cook in my tent, always preferring a local pub, so a cooking area is never an issue for me, but for some folk this may be a key requirement. That said, no manufacturer of small one/two person tents would ever recommend that you cook inside a small tent - there is so much potential for complete disaster, and it only takes one minor mishap for it all to end in tears!
Two-man tent... Err, no, I don't think so!
As most backpackers, and lightweight campers in general know, the term 'two man' or 'two person' tent has to be taken with a pinch of salt. Many so-called ‘lightweight two man tents’ are, in reality, one-and-a-half man, one man and a young child, one man and his dog, one man with gear, or two (well acquainted) small men with just their sunglasses. And this pretty well applies to what ever the ‘man’ rating of the tent, i.e. a lightweight three man tent is generally only practical for two people and their gear.
The times I see tent reviews where the purchaser obviously has not done their homework and has slagged a good tent because they had expected to be able to get him, her, the dog, all their gear and still have space to cook, in a tiny, lightweight two man tent!
Tent reviews
And, while we are on tent reviews, it is generally accepted that a greater proportion of people only leave reviews when they are not happy bunnies, when they have an axe to grind, which can lead to a great distortion and general disservice to the tent in question. You may see a tent with thirty '5 star' reviews and ten lowly '1 star' reviews, leading you to think that one in four people thought the tent was absolute rubbish, but the reality will be that a much greater percentage of folk have for one reason or another left a bad review. By this I mean that people who are very happy with their purchase are less likely to leave any review at all. That said, there are often some suspiciously good reviews for blatantly poor tents too - and indeed a highly suspicious number of good reviews. Even ultra-cheap and cheerful so-called ‘festival’ tents can have mind-bogglingly good reviews, but then they are often only used for a few days at summer festivals by inexperienced campers, and at throw-away prices they adequately serve their purpose and folks are happy. But no serious backpacker would ever look twice at such a tent.
You will also find good reviews for tents that have only been erected in the back garden (or even a living room!) and so are effectively untested in the real world. And you always get the illiterate halfwit of a reviewer who scores the tent on something totally unrelated to the tent itself, like a good or bad delivery service, or because the colour nicely matches their shirt! Fair enough, there are some badly designed, poorly manufactured tents that deserve what they get, but quite often people leaving very bad, critical reviews have simply invested in an unsuitable tent - no fault but their own. Others are new to this outdoor life and simply do not understand tents or camping and seem to expect 5 star accommodation from something that weighs a couple of kilograms!
And again, you also see similar tent reviews on YouTube, whereby somebody gives a glowing recommendation to a tent, saying how wonderful it is, after basically just erecting it in a field on a nice sunny day. These so-called reviews provide absolutely no insight as to how the tent performs in the field, how it copes with the weather, how it sleeps, or the reliability of its components, nor do they usually provide any useful in-depth detail. Just erecting a tent and saying, 'Look, it's a great tent', is not a review! This is where you have to be careful, because not until you actually put the tent to proper use, out in the field on a genuine camping trip or a trek, along with your rucksack and all your kit, will you really be able to evaluate how well the tent stands up to less than ideal weather conditions, and indeed how well it performs overall.
Do your research
The key is, do your research. Don’t buy a tent with an inner that is only 5 foot 10 inches in length and then rate it lowly because it is too small, when you are 6 foot 3 inches tall! After a while you will learn to separate the genuinely 'useful reviews' from the, let’s just say, 'less than useful reviews'. A pet hate of mine is when a reviewer marks a tent down because of their own failure to understand what they are buying; they buy a tent on a whim, or impulse buy, and then severely criticise the tent for not being suitable. For example, people rate a tent lowly because they can not sit up in it. For some reason they blame the tent for their own inability to research the tent or read the specifications... Doh! Another review that comes to mind is the person who gave a tiny bivvy tent a low rating because there was no cooking area… What?! Yes, you know who you are. Research. Research. Research! It’s not hard nowadays with the internet.
All the information is out there, so don't buy on a whim and don't rush into buying a tent without doing your homework first. Remember, it's horses for courses, and a tent that suits one person may be totally inadequate and unsuitable for another person. There is no point whatsoever purchasing an ultralight 1.2kg tent if it’s simply not big enough for your needs, and you have to sleep with your feet sticking out of the door!
But I digress...
So, I’m looking for a lightweight two man or one man tent to suit my particular needs.
I don’t want to have to leave my rucksack and boots outside the tent at night, so I want enough internal space, preferably a large enough vestibule (porch area), to store my kit. So bivvy tents or tiny one man coffin tents are not for me. I definitely want a tent with quality aluminium alloy poles, they are lighter than fibreglass poles and more likely just to bend in extremes rather than snap – you hear about so many trips ruined by broken, cheap fibreglass tent poles.
Which reminds me. Before my first long distance walk (Offa’s Dyke Path), and before I knew much about what I wanted from a tent, I hastily purchased a Gelert Solo (now I believe also re-branded as the Blackthorn Highlander 1). On delivery I immediately set it up in the back garden and realised that this tiny fabric coffin-like tent, that appeared to internally be not much larger than a bivvy bag, was not for me. At 16.5 stones and 5’11, I found just getting in and out very tricky - it looked much bigger in the photos on the website! There was hardly any room to move and turn, and at 5'11" my head was pushing into the inner tent material one end and my feet were pushing into the inner tent material the other end - this was a very short tent! At the highest point it was just 65cm, and at the time I seriously wondered if I had been sent the child's version. That said, I see reviews for this tent whereby someone 6'3" says that it is a comfortable length for them, and conversely someone at 5'8" saying that it is too short... what's that all about? Just bonkers! Anyway, I could not even come close to sitting up in the Gelert and it was apparent that I would not be able to easily get changed in this tiny tent, and that even just getting in and out of my sleeping bag could be an issue. And if you don't particularly like enclosed, small spaces, then forget it! It was a bargain at £17 (or it seemed like a bargain at the time) and only weighed just over 1.6kg, which were the real attractions, but this is when I recognised that weight-saving is not the be-all and end-all. The fly and the floor of the Gelert Solo only had a hydrostatic head rating of 1500mm and the poles were truly, truly awful - mine were a sloppy fit into the poorly made aluminium ferrules and the fibreglass poles themselves looked more like lengths of black charcoal. Anyway, as I took it down, one of the cheap and nasty fibreglass poles split and it became a non-issue - it’s been in a cupboard ever since. But don't just take my word for it, see: Amazon Reviews
There are some seriously bad reviews for the Gelert Solo, which do tend to highlight some glaring quality issues with this tent. However, and rather puzzling, I’ve seen reviews of the Gelert Solo, whereby people have been very happy, some people can’t recommend it highly enough – even when having to constantly repair or replace broken poles... very strange indeed! There appears to be somewhat of a cult following for the Gelert Solo, and I do struggle to get my head round this, though I guess it all comes down to expectations, and if you don't expect too much then a cheap, budget tent may suffice. Personally I would not want to put my faith in a tent whilst on a two week adventure trip, knowing that the tent poles could give up at anytime and I could be left shelterless, at night, in the pouring rain, miles from anywhere... But, if your tent budget only extends to £20, and you are only camping a couple of nights, then I guess you take the gamble and learn to live with your decision.
Now I would like to get the tent weight down to under 2kgs, but still have somewhere to put my 65 litre rucksack and boots. My old Avior X2 with both a side and end entrance excelled here as, at the end opening, there is a vestibule area large enough for all my gear. I could then either access my gear from the inner tent or from the outside. I only ever used the end entrance for storage, always preferring to enter and exit the tent from the long side entrance. It really was an ideal arrangement for me.
One of my LEJOG travelling companions had a Vango Banshee 200, which by all accounts is also a good little tent, and he was very happy with it. The build quality and the fabrics were right up there. His Banshee was an older version with just the one side entrance and weighed in at around 2kgs (I believe the latest Banshees have two side entrances and perhaps slightly upgraded materials, but are also a heftier 2.35kgs – see, even Vango seem to have sacrificed some weight-saving for practicality). His Banshee was shorter internally and physically smaller externally than my Avior X2, but gave a weight saving of nearly 0.5kg over my Coleman. However, my pal had to sleep with his gear in the inner tent with him, whereas my 0.5kg weight penalty afforded me the luxury of greater sleeping space and my gear out of the way in the vestibule. At the time I was quite happy to pay the 0.5kg penalty for the greater comfort and convenience. Bearing in mind that both of these tents are described and sold as two man tents, my friend and his Banshee would not possibly sleep two people including their kit, and even my Coleman with its porch area for kit would seriously struggle to accommodate two people and kit.
Share the weight
While I’m thinking about it, if you always backpack as a couple or with a companion, then sharing the weight of a slightly larger three man tent can be beneficial. Usually the weight increase between two and three man tents is relatively little. OK, it is too heavy and too bulky for one person to carry alone, but when shared, the three man version of the same tent is considerably less weight than one person carrying a two person tent - and in many cases even a one person tent. Of course sharing has its downsides (you’ll think of a few), and myself I’m far happier having the tent to myself. When I first walked Offa’s Dyke Path, I was originally going to do the walk with a friend, and indeed we had considered sharing a three man tent. However, my friend could be somewhat unreliable, so I decided this might not be such a good idea and opted for the Coleman Avior X2, two man tent. And I’m glad I did, as my mate pulled out a week before we were due to set off, so if we had purchased a three man tent I would have been lumbered with unnecessary weight and an unnecessarily large tent. Anyway, back to the script…
Tents on a diet
Manufacturers can reduce the overall weight of their tents by employing lighter materials. The denier rating of the flysheet and flooring can reduce weight, but this inevitably comes at some cost to its strength, resilience and indeed overall durability. A flysheet with a denier rating of 15D will be much lighter than a flysheet with a denier rating of 70D of the same material, but the 70D flysheet will be far more robust and durable. You would also expect the floor fabric to be of a higher denier or slightly different material to the flysheet, as the floor will be taking a lot more abuse and be subjected to potentially much greater wear and tear. A ridiculously low denier floor rating would always concern me. Remember, weight-saving always comes at a cost.
And indeed, when all other avenues have been exhausted, one area that manufacturers drastically reduce weight is the floor material or groundsheet of the tent. All good modern lightweight tents have waterproof bathtub floors which are sewn onto the inner tent. In the old days this floor material was quite heavy, robust and durable, often some form of rubber or a laminate of materials, and a very different material to the inner and outer tent fabrics. Nowadays, in order to minimise weight, the floor material is often very similar to the lightweight outer flysheet fabric but with a higher denier rating and usually with a higher hydrostatic head – that is, it can withstand a much greater pressure of water before there is water ingress.
Tent floors
And so this is where I come to another bugbear of mine. Modern lightweight tent flooring fabric, though it can be made extremely waterproof, it is by nature very thin and so much less resilient, hence much more prone to damage by sharp objects (thorns, stones, etc.) than the thicker, heavier, older materials. Of course manufacturers know this, but they also know that their advertised ultralight tent sells primarily due to its advertised 'ultra-light weight'. The last thing they want to do is design in a more resilient tent floor that will add grams to the overall weight of the tent. They mitigate this issue by recommending that you use the tent with an additional groundsheet, commonly termed a ‘footprint’.
Picture this:
“Yes Sir, this tent is £499 but only weighs 1kg. However, in order not to invalidate the warranty you will need to purchase an additional footprint that costs a further £65 and weighs 0.5kg” !!
OK, maybe a little exaggeration on my part, but you can see my gripe here.
And in any case, the super-ultralight backpacker that drills holes in his toothbrush handle and removes the labels from his clothing in order to save weight would think it absolute sacrilege to carry an additional groundsheet!
There are pros and cons to everything, but when I camp out in a lightweight tent, and in order to protect the floor, I always lay my bright orange polythene survival bag down on the ground first. I always carry it with me as an emergency shelter anyway, but it very effectively doubles as a small tent additional groundsheet. And indeed this arrangement worked perfectly well with my Coleman tent over many years. And to this date I have never, ever suffered damage to my tent's groundsheet.
Hydrostatic head
A quick word about the hydrostatic head of a material (its waterproofness).
An outer tent material (flysheet) with, for example, a hydrostatic head of 2000mm can effectively withstand the pressure of a static column of water 2 metres high before water ingress - that is before the pressure will force water through the material - so quite a lot! Any material with a hydrostatic head of 1000mm or above is considered waterproof, and in a UK summer a tent employing a flysheet with a hydrostatic head of between 1000mm – 2000mm is normally adequate to keep water out. That said, the minimum hydrostatic head generally considered as waterproof for a UK three season tent is 1500mm. A tent with a flysheet hydrostatic head of 2500mm is accepted as being more than adequate for UK three season camping and all nature can throw at it. Obviously the higher this number the better, and indeed, for peace of mind, this is where you may just want to pay a little more for a tent employing material with a higher hydrostatic head, particularly if you intend, or expect, to regularly use your tent in more extreme weather conditions. However, there is no point in paying an excessive amount of your hard-earned money for a tent with a flysheet hydrostatic head of 5000mm if you only camp out a for few nights in your back garden in the height of summer.
I just should add that as well as employing a full mesh inner tent, some very expensive big brand name tents keep the overall tent weight down by employing a very thin, light flysheet, and you can pay a small fortune for these ultralight tents. However in order to achieve this, some of these flysheets (and indeed floors) have a relatively low hydrostatic head. In fact some of the higher-end, expensive tents that use ultra-lightweight materials only have a hydrostatic head of around 1200-1500mm! You save weight, yes, but at the expense of the tents waterproofness. Thinner materials are also often far less robust. That said, lighter silicone-coated nylon flysheets usually have a greater tear resistance than slightly heavier polyester counterparts... but yet another consideration is the fact that the light nylon flysheet will sag when wetted, whereas the polyester fly will not. Life is simply never simple! The choice of course is yours, and if every gram counts then perhaps spending £600 on a high-end ultralight tent is justifiable, but be aware that as the weight of the ultralight tent comes down, often so too do other specifications.
The hydrostatic head of the floor material is of far greater importance as your bodyweight pushing the floor down into wet ground is effectively the same as a large column of water pushing from the other side. In such circumstances some ingress of water can occur, hence the higher the hydrostatic head of the floor material, the greater chance the inside of your tent floor stays dry.
What are you actually getting for the specified weight?
Some of the very high-end, big brand name tents reduce the overall weight of their tents by including titanium tent pegs, and indeed a decent shepherd’s crook, 3mm x 150mm, titanium tent peg is very strong and weighs in at just 5.5 - 6 grams. However, even here some manufacturers take it to the extreme, providing titanium tent pegs that weigh a mere 2 grams - or even 1 gram! Great weight-saving, and while they may do for pinning down a groundsheet, in less than perfect conditions you really would want something more substantial than a toothpick holding down your flysheet. And while the 2 gram titanium tent pegs are generally inadequate and mostly unfit for purpose, themselves bordering on ridiculous, the 1 gram tent pegs are 'ridiculous' taken to a whole new level! And whoever thought it a good idea to supply high-end, very expensive tents with 1 gram tent pegs, seriously needs their head looking at!
And be careful when looking at total tent weights. Tents are often specified with a 'gross' weight and a 'minimum' weight or 'trail' weight, and often the minimum weight is that which is promoted. So always check to see what the stated weight actually includes, because along with the recommended footprint, some suppliers do not include the weight of the tent pegs, guylines, tent stuff sack, tent poles bag, etc. The minimum weight figure always looks far more enticing than the gross weight figure, but the reality is that your tent won't be of much use without tent pegs and guylines.
And then there is this: some manufacturers employ an extremely lightweight outer shell fabric that does not lend itself to having the seams factory sealed in the conventional manner. Fair enough. However, instead of sealing the seams in some other more ‘unconventional’ manner at the factory, they sell you the tent for hundreds of pounds of your hard-earned dosh and advise you to seal the seams yourself… What? C’mon…! Or is it just me that has an issue with this…?
Another potential area for weight-saving is the inner tent material. An inner tent made primarily of nylon no-see-um bug mesh (fine netting), will inevitably weigh less than a inner tent made primarily of full breathable polyester material. But then the mesh inner will certainly be colder and more draughty than the full polyester material inner.
Full mesh inner tent = reduced weight = colder. Slightly heavier full fabric inner tent = warmer = more weight.
Four season tents with storm flaps or snow skirts keep the draughts out but tend to be heavier and obviously provide less air flow which can lead to a build-up of condensation. Conversely a tent with no storm flaps or snow skirt may well be free of condensation, but quite draughty. I’ve also seen contrasting poor reviews given to the very same tent, one was because it was considered too cold and draughty, and one was because it was considered too hot without enough ventilation! Swings and roundabouts. But again you also have to consider where and when they camped, and just who has left the review… an experienced, hardened camper, or a fresh-faced, new-to-this-game camper who is relatively clueless. Whatever the case, you simply can’t have everything, and depending on conditions most tents tend to excel in one particular area, while falling down slightly - or miserably - in other areas. You simply can not expect an ultralight three season tent with a mesh inner, to perform well in up a mountain, in the snow, in the depths of winter.
A little more on condensation
Of course if a flysheet is designed to keep water out, then it follows, by its very nature, that it will also keep water in. That is, under certain conditions, moisture from your breath and heat from your body will cause water in the air to condense on the inside of your waterproof flysheet when it is colder outside. Now this will happen with all tents, but small one and two man tents are particularly prone to the formation of condensation simply because of the more confined space.
With reference to tents, condensation is often a very misunderstood thing. I'm often surprised by the amount of people that knock a tent because of the formation of condensation on the inner of their tent flysheet, as if this just should not happen. Unfortunately, as one famous Scot once said, 'Ye cannae change the laws of physics'. It's down to science and it won't change any time in the near future!
Condensation will happen, its a fact of life. In colder conditions condensation will form on the inside of your flysheet, but it is what then happens with this condensation that really matters, and indeed where tent design can play a major role. If it runs harmlessly down the inside of your tent flysheet to the ground, then fine, no problem. If tent air circulation removes it at a rate that prevents it from dripping into your inner tent, then again, fine, no harm done. However, if condensation builds up to a point whereby it is literally dripping off the inside of your flysheet and onto your inner tent, then it may be a concern. If the inner tent is just lightweight nylon bug mesh, then condensation may drip straight though onto you. However, if your tent has a solid breathable polyester inner, then any condensation dripping from the flysheet may actually just dampen the inner tent fabric, spreading and dispersing harmlessly before actually finding its way through to you, and that's quite acceptable. The condensation your tent may experience comes down to two major things, firstly the weather conditions, and secondly the size of your tent flysheet air vents - if any. Now I've read some silly things about tents with more mesh inner tents being better at reducing condensation. This really is total nonsense and a sign that the seller doesn't know what they are talking about, because all inner tents are breathable and it is not the inner tent that suffers condensation. Apart from the built-in groundsheet, the inner tent is NOT waterproof and nor should it be, as it is this 'breathable' characteristic that allows moisture out - away from you - and into the area between the inner tent and the flysheet. Your tent flysheet air vents and the wind conditions will directly affect the condensation that you experience. On a windy night, the air travelling through your tent may well take the condensation away as it appears, whereas on a night with little or no breeze, then your tent may experience considerable condensation. The size of your tent flysheet air vents will obviously come into play here, and while bigger air vents may help reduce condensation, the downside is that you will have a much draughtier, potentially colder tent. Swings and roundabouts! I think the main issue with condensation is that people simply do not understand it and expect a good tent to be condensation free. Never going to happen! There may be some tents that, by design, better control condensation, but you will not find a tent that is condensation free in all conditions... no matter how much you are prepared to spend.
If you experience some condensation, simply giving the flysheet a good shake and (conditions allowing) airing it for a few minutes before it packing away is usually all it takes to remove the worst, and then when packing, folding the tent in such a manner that the inner tent is not directly in contact with any moisture remaining on the flysheet. Of course, in order to avoid tent damage from mould or mildew, the tent fabrics should be totally dry if packing away the tent for any considerable amount of time, as in after your camping trip has finished.
Now, hardier, heavier and sturdier four season geodesic and semi-geodesic tents can suffer real condensation issues, because by their very nature they are designed to keep all the unfavourable elements out: wind, rain, snow, etc. Under extreme conditions it is far more important to keep out the weather and retain heat within the tent, and with snow skirts and very small air vents, condensation can really build up. Under these circumstances, four season tents rely heavily on the tent design to allow the inevitable condensation to harmlessly run off the inside of the flysheet to ground. Unlike four season tents, three season tents tend to have larger air vents and/or better airflow by design. Along with flysheet air vents, and with no storm flaps or snow skirts, and with a flysheet that is raised slightly from the ground to allow for much better all round ventilation, most small three season tents can avoid any real condensation issues. But, as already mentioned, it is always a trade-off, good ventilation within the tent can help reduce condensation, but this can then make for a much colder, draughtier tent. The reality is that condensation is all just part and parcel of the wonderful outdoor camping experience!
Good, value for money lightweight tents
Unless money is no object, then high on your priority list will be cost. High-end ultralight tents can cost an arm and a leg, but if you do your research you can often find a lightweight tent that will more than meet your needs at a fraction of the cost, without sacrificing quality or making too big a compromise. And who doesn’t enjoy getting value for money?
When I research tents, I’m looking for a good, value for money tent that exactly suits my needs. However, I often find that the sacrifices in functionality, robustness, performance, reliability and general practicality can not be justified by the saving of just a few grams. Alloy tent poles that are made thinner to save weight are more likely to bend or buckle; less stable tent designs that save weight are more likely to distort or collapse in bad weather; less durable lightweight tent floors are more prone to punctures; those ridiculous 1 gram titanium tent pegs that stand no chance of holding in the ground from even the slightest gentle breeze. All these things reduce the weight you carry on your back, but sadly can also greatly effect how the tent functions and indeed performs in the real world.
Just be careful if you are looking into purchasing an ultralight tent. That ultra-lightweight advertised may not be quite so ultralight at all when you have to use an additional groundsheet and update those totally pointless 1 gram tent pegs to something functional. And this is to say nothing of the extra cost involved after already paying a small fortune for the tent.
So what tents out there can give my trusty Coleman Avior X2 a run for its money?
Here at STATION13, before we invest in tents, we need to know that the tent or tents that we supply to you, will not only be lightweight, made of quality materials and display quality workmanship, but also provide adequately for your needs, live up to your expectations in the real world… and not cost an arm and a leg.
We don't expect tents to be perfect in every respect or perfect for every particular individual, but they must be fit for purpose and good all round tents. Remember, we are looking for good value for money, high quality, one man and two man tents.
Watch this space…
…OK, if you have been watching this space, we have some news.
After doing our research, two tents that we have been very interested in, are manufactured by GeerTop of China. What attracted us to these two tents in particular, and indeed this China manufacturer, is the fact their tents do seem to be relatively high spec, high quality tents, they seem like a very reputable company - we’d not heard anything bad about their products... and, most importantly, both are very lightweight tents!
With the quality of the tent being of foremost importance to us, and GeerTop of China looking to be a genuinely good company providing genuinely good products, we imported samples of these two tents to evaluate. Both are lightweight one person backpacking tents.
These tents are the GeerTop TOPWIND 1, lightweight one man tent and the GeerTop PYRAMID, lightweight one man tent. The GeerTop TOPWIND 1 we were sent has the yellow flysheet (but is also available in red), and the GeerTop PYRAMID has the iron blue flysheet.
Click HERE to go to the TOPWIND 1 additional information page.
Click HERE to go to the PYRAMID additional information page
NOTE: We've since added the GeerTop Blazer 1 person camouflage tent to our stock.
Click HERE to go to the BLAZER additional information page.
There are of course all manner of camping tents to suit all manner of camping and all manner of individual requirements, from enormous family tents to tiny, solo backpacking tents. And even within any specific tent category you will find a truly vast range of prices. For example, two person tents can range from cheap throwaway £15 festival tents to similar size tents costing over £1500!
Here, at STATION13, our interest is only in the small, three season, one man and two man camping tents for lightweight camping and backpacking.
This page is here to provide you with a wealth of information on small backpacking tents in general and so arm you with enough knowledge to make an informed decision before committing to buy a tent. Please do also take a look at our '2 Person Tents - Additional Information' website pages.
Even in this category of camping tents there is a vast array of options, and what suits one person may not suit another. And then of course there is your budget to consider. Not everyone can afford to fork out for the most expensive, lightest, highest spec tent available. And indeed, you will find that even with the most expensive, lightest tents, from big name brands, there are always trade-offs. That is to say, there is no such thing as a universally perfect lightweight tent.
What I mean by this, is that to reduce overall weight, something has to give somewhere else. Fair enough, ditching relatively heavy and weaker fibreglass tent poles for lighter and stronger aluminium alloy poles makes perfect sense, but there comes a point whereby, even using the best, lightest, most costly, cutting edge materials, the only way to further reduce weight is by compromising on some other aspect of the tent. Thinner tent poles, one tent pole as opposed to two tent poles, thinner materials, six tent pegs as opposed to eight, smaller sleeping area, no vestibule, etc - all things that can possibly decrease the robustness and reliability of the tent and also reduce overall functionality.
Like I said, there are always trade-offs. To keep weight down to a miniumum, sacrifices elsewhere have to be made, which in essence means that when looking for your ideal tent, you will need to prioritise.
The weight of your tent
Weight is most often the number one priority, and for good reason. No backpacker wants to carry any more weight than necessary, however there does come a point whereby reducing the weight of the tent to an extreme can result in a far less practical tent, with less comfort and greater hardship – two things you probably won’t enjoy after a long day hiking. Now you can get ultra-lightweight tents that only weigh a kilogram or less, provide enough space for you and your pack, and allow you a very good nights sleep. Of course the very latest, cutting edge, ultra-lightweight fabrics come at a price, and you could by a decent second hand car for the price of some tents in this category. And be aware that these ultra-high priced tents are not themselves automatically the best tent for your needs, and indeed, if you check out feedback, they are not infallible or totally without their issues.
If these high-end, high performance, ultralight tents are out of your price range, but you still only want to carry around a kilogram, then small one man ‘coffin’ tents or bivvy tents are an option. However, you will likely have to leave your rucksack and other gear outside, be comfortable sleeping in such a confined space, and certainly not suffer from claustrophobia. Some people get on great with these tiny one man bivvy tents, but I must admit I do prefer at little comfort at the end of a hard day - a tent roomy enough for me to get changed in, store my gear inside with me, and have at least a little head room. Sometimes, particularly if budget is a major issue, then the comfort, convenience and sheer practicality afforded by slogging an extra ½ kg or so around, is well justifiable. But that’s just my opinion. If that extra ½ kg is going to cripple you or make your life a total misery, then unless you have an unlimited budget, you obviously have less options.
Of course it is quite easy to find a tent that meets my requirements, and for a very decent price, if I'm willing to accept that I will have to carry around 2.5 – 2.7kgs. However, if I want to shave a kilogram or so off the weight, then finding a tent that meets my specific requirements at a half-decent price is a whole different matter. As the grams come off, the tent prices tend to start soaring.
The key thing when looking for a suitable tent, is to know exactly what you want in the first place. Once you have determined what you are looking for in a tent, and what your budget is, then you have a good basis to start your research. Given the vast array of tents available, until you know exactly what your personal requirements are, then finding the most suitable tent for your specific needs will, to say the least, be very difficult.
You get what you pay for
As with many things, the old adage ‘You get what you pay for’ is often banded about when it comes to lightweight tents, and while there is always a certain truth to this saying, you can also, very easily, ‘Overpay for what you get’! Many people tend to shy way from anything made in China, however, the reality is that many of the bigger brand names, though based in the UK, USA or wherever, all have their products manufactured in China. So, if the tent is of quality material, quality construction and performs, I would not be overly concerned by this. In fact, when we were researching tents to source from China, looking for a reputable and reliable supplier, we found that you can find various versions of almost identical looking tents, some seemingly at substantial cost-savings. However, although outwardly they may appear identical, this is not the case, and indeed is far from true. When we looked a little deeper we saw that the differing versions are made to different standards and very different specifications, to suit different markets and indeed different pockets. Cost-saving and corner-cutting is evident on the cheaper versions: less waterproof flysheet; fibreglass poles, different inner tent materials and construction, and often more subtle hard-to-notice labour-saving construction differences that can impact performance in the field. Here, the old adage 'You get what you pay for' really does apply.
The biggest selling point for most one person and two person tents, and often the number one priority for any budding lightweight (or ultralight) backpacker, is weight. If you are travelling on a motorbike, or even cycling, lower weight and smaller pack size is important, but never as much so as when you are lugging your tent around all day, on your back, in a rucksack.
Cyclists can get away with a few more pounds, a small two man tent weighing 3 – 3.5kgs is not going to be crippling, but reducing this weight by 1 – 1.5kgs can make a hell of a difference when it’s on your back for hours on end.
I have walked the Coast to Coast Path, Offa’s Dyke Path and cycled Land’s End to John O’Groats twice. On all of these adventures (and they were adventures) I camped and used a Coleman Avior X2. This tent is no longer made, (why, is beyond me, as it was a cracking little tent) and while it would not suit everyone, I loved it. This tent never once failed me, handling everything mother nature chucked at it – I still have it and still use it. However, it is classed as a two man tent and it does weigh in at 2.45kgs. A few years ago I did not consider this to be any great issue, and I was one of those people that took with me everything I thought I may need, rather than just everything I would need. I was somewhat younger and fitter then, so lugging around a 21kg rucksack was manageable – but still bloody hard!
Nowadays, with dodgy knees, dodgy back and the odd twinge from my hips, my outlook has changed. Less is more!
So less tent weight is important for me now, but I still want certain features, so I’m still willing to sacrifice a little weight-saving for functionality and convenience. Now, I do tend to compare everything to my much-loved Coleman Avior X2, as it provided me with all the features I required, and so it does give me a solid foundation on which to make comparisons, so please bear with me.
Tent season ratings
Before I go on, just a quick word about the season ratings of a tent. Any half-decent tent is rated as a three season tent or a four season tent, the difference being that a true four season tent is designed to cope with torrential rain, very high winds and snow. The four season tent will usually have a snow skirt, it will feature thicker, stronger tent poles (usually more of), more guy lines and generally be of a semi-geodesic or geodesic design for strength and stability. Four season tents are designed to be more robust, but all this will come at a cost in terms of weight. In the UK, a good three season tent will usually be adequate for most of the year round unless you plan on camping atop Ben Nevis in the heart of winter. Note also, that a four season tent will generally be overkill for any other time of the year but winter. The particular tents that we are interested in at present are good, value for money, three season tents.
Tent design
Tent design itself is critical. There’s no point in having a ultralight tent that is so unstable or with fabric so weak that it won’t handle a bit of wind without collapsing or shredding, or ridiculously thin, weak tent poles that break the first time you use the tent. But the tent design itself will also lend itself to features that are or aren’t particularly desirable, or will or won’t suit your individual requirements. For example, it’s no use buying a tent that is not free-standing when you will be mainly camping on rocky terrain where it may be impossible to properly secure tent pegs into the ground, or buying a 2 pole 3 season tent and expect it to survive high up on the hills where you get gale force winds, and where you would really need a 4 season geodesic design of tent.
And don't buy a tent that, by design, is low profile and hence too small to sit up in, if you want to be able to sit up!
My Coleman Avior X2, has realistically, comfortably, only enough room for myself and my gear, but it was roomy enough to sit up in and indeed get changed in. It pitched fast, with the inner left attached to the outer, and stood up to wind and heavy rain with no issues whatsoever. I never cook in my tent, always preferring a local pub, so a cooking area is never an issue for me, but for some folk this may be a key requirement. That said, no manufacturer of small one/two person tents would ever recommend that you cook inside a small tent - there is so much potential for complete disaster, and it only takes one minor mishap for it all to end in tears!
Two-man tent... Err, no, I don't think so!
As most backpackers, and lightweight campers in general know, the term 'two man' or 'two person' tent has to be taken with a pinch of salt. Many so-called ‘lightweight two man tents’ are, in reality, one-and-a-half man, one man and a young child, one man and his dog, one man with gear, or two (well acquainted) small men with just their sunglasses. And this pretty well applies to what ever the ‘man’ rating of the tent, i.e. a lightweight three man tent is generally only practical for two people and their gear.
The times I see tent reviews where the purchaser obviously has not done their homework and has slagged a good tent because they had expected to be able to get him, her, the dog, all their gear and still have space to cook, in a tiny, lightweight two man tent!
Tent reviews
And, while we are on tent reviews, it is generally accepted that a greater proportion of people only leave reviews when they are not happy bunnies, when they have an axe to grind, which can lead to a great distortion and general disservice to the tent in question. You may see a tent with thirty '5 star' reviews and ten lowly '1 star' reviews, leading you to think that one in four people thought the tent was absolute rubbish, but the reality will be that a much greater percentage of folk have for one reason or another left a bad review. By this I mean that people who are very happy with their purchase are less likely to leave any review at all. That said, there are often some suspiciously good reviews for blatantly poor tents too - and indeed a highly suspicious number of good reviews. Even ultra-cheap and cheerful so-called ‘festival’ tents can have mind-bogglingly good reviews, but then they are often only used for a few days at summer festivals by inexperienced campers, and at throw-away prices they adequately serve their purpose and folks are happy. But no serious backpacker would ever look twice at such a tent.
You will also find good reviews for tents that have only been erected in the back garden (or even a living room!) and so are effectively untested in the real world. And you always get the illiterate halfwit of a reviewer who scores the tent on something totally unrelated to the tent itself, like a good or bad delivery service, or because the colour nicely matches their shirt! Fair enough, there are some badly designed, poorly manufactured tents that deserve what they get, but quite often people leaving very bad, critical reviews have simply invested in an unsuitable tent - no fault but their own. Others are new to this outdoor life and simply do not understand tents or camping and seem to expect 5 star accommodation from something that weighs a couple of kilograms!
And again, you also see similar tent reviews on YouTube, whereby somebody gives a glowing recommendation to a tent, saying how wonderful it is, after basically just erecting it in a field on a nice sunny day. These so-called reviews provide absolutely no insight as to how the tent performs in the field, how it copes with the weather, how it sleeps, or the reliability of its components, nor do they usually provide any useful in-depth detail. Just erecting a tent and saying, 'Look, it's a great tent', is not a review! This is where you have to be careful, because not until you actually put the tent to proper use, out in the field on a genuine camping trip or a trek, along with your rucksack and all your kit, will you really be able to evaluate how well the tent stands up to less than ideal weather conditions, and indeed how well it performs overall.
Do your research
The key is, do your research. Don’t buy a tent with an inner that is only 5 foot 10 inches in length and then rate it lowly because it is too small, when you are 6 foot 3 inches tall! After a while you will learn to separate the genuinely 'useful reviews' from the, let’s just say, 'less than useful reviews'. A pet hate of mine is when a reviewer marks a tent down because of their own failure to understand what they are buying; they buy a tent on a whim, or impulse buy, and then severely criticise the tent for not being suitable. For example, people rate a tent lowly because they can not sit up in it. For some reason they blame the tent for their own inability to research the tent or read the specifications... Doh! Another review that comes to mind is the person who gave a tiny bivvy tent a low rating because there was no cooking area… What?! Yes, you know who you are. Research. Research. Research! It’s not hard nowadays with the internet.
All the information is out there, so don't buy on a whim and don't rush into buying a tent without doing your homework first. Remember, it's horses for courses, and a tent that suits one person may be totally inadequate and unsuitable for another person. There is no point whatsoever purchasing an ultralight 1.2kg tent if it’s simply not big enough for your needs, and you have to sleep with your feet sticking out of the door!
But I digress...
So, I’m looking for a lightweight two man or one man tent to suit my particular needs.
I don’t want to have to leave my rucksack and boots outside the tent at night, so I want enough internal space, preferably a large enough vestibule (porch area), to store my kit. So bivvy tents or tiny one man coffin tents are not for me. I definitely want a tent with quality aluminium alloy poles, they are lighter than fibreglass poles and more likely just to bend in extremes rather than snap – you hear about so many trips ruined by broken, cheap fibreglass tent poles.
Which reminds me. Before my first long distance walk (Offa’s Dyke Path), and before I knew much about what I wanted from a tent, I hastily purchased a Gelert Solo (now I believe also re-branded as the Blackthorn Highlander 1). On delivery I immediately set it up in the back garden and realised that this tiny fabric coffin-like tent, that appeared to internally be not much larger than a bivvy bag, was not for me. At 16.5 stones and 5’11, I found just getting in and out very tricky - it looked much bigger in the photos on the website! There was hardly any room to move and turn, and at 5'11" my head was pushing into the inner tent material one end and my feet were pushing into the inner tent material the other end - this was a very short tent! At the highest point it was just 65cm, and at the time I seriously wondered if I had been sent the child's version. That said, I see reviews for this tent whereby someone 6'3" says that it is a comfortable length for them, and conversely someone at 5'8" saying that it is too short... what's that all about? Just bonkers! Anyway, I could not even come close to sitting up in the Gelert and it was apparent that I would not be able to easily get changed in this tiny tent, and that even just getting in and out of my sleeping bag could be an issue. And if you don't particularly like enclosed, small spaces, then forget it! It was a bargain at £17 (or it seemed like a bargain at the time) and only weighed just over 1.6kg, which were the real attractions, but this is when I recognised that weight-saving is not the be-all and end-all. The fly and the floor of the Gelert Solo only had a hydrostatic head rating of 1500mm and the poles were truly, truly awful - mine were a sloppy fit into the poorly made aluminium ferrules and the fibreglass poles themselves looked more like lengths of black charcoal. Anyway, as I took it down, one of the cheap and nasty fibreglass poles split and it became a non-issue - it’s been in a cupboard ever since. But don't just take my word for it, see: Amazon Reviews
There are some seriously bad reviews for the Gelert Solo, which do tend to highlight some glaring quality issues with this tent. However, and rather puzzling, I’ve seen reviews of the Gelert Solo, whereby people have been very happy, some people can’t recommend it highly enough – even when having to constantly repair or replace broken poles... very strange indeed! There appears to be somewhat of a cult following for the Gelert Solo, and I do struggle to get my head round this, though I guess it all comes down to expectations, and if you don't expect too much then a cheap, budget tent may suffice. Personally I would not want to put my faith in a tent whilst on a two week adventure trip, knowing that the tent poles could give up at anytime and I could be left shelterless, at night, in the pouring rain, miles from anywhere... But, if your tent budget only extends to £20, and you are only camping a couple of nights, then I guess you take the gamble and learn to live with your decision.
Now I would like to get the tent weight down to under 2kgs, but still have somewhere to put my 65 litre rucksack and boots. My old Avior X2 with both a side and end entrance excelled here as, at the end opening, there is a vestibule area large enough for all my gear. I could then either access my gear from the inner tent or from the outside. I only ever used the end entrance for storage, always preferring to enter and exit the tent from the long side entrance. It really was an ideal arrangement for me.
One of my LEJOG travelling companions had a Vango Banshee 200, which by all accounts is also a good little tent, and he was very happy with it. The build quality and the fabrics were right up there. His Banshee was an older version with just the one side entrance and weighed in at around 2kgs (I believe the latest Banshees have two side entrances and perhaps slightly upgraded materials, but are also a heftier 2.35kgs – see, even Vango seem to have sacrificed some weight-saving for practicality). His Banshee was shorter internally and physically smaller externally than my Avior X2, but gave a weight saving of nearly 0.5kg over my Coleman. However, my pal had to sleep with his gear in the inner tent with him, whereas my 0.5kg weight penalty afforded me the luxury of greater sleeping space and my gear out of the way in the vestibule. At the time I was quite happy to pay the 0.5kg penalty for the greater comfort and convenience. Bearing in mind that both of these tents are described and sold as two man tents, my friend and his Banshee would not possibly sleep two people including their kit, and even my Coleman with its porch area for kit would seriously struggle to accommodate two people and kit.
Share the weight
While I’m thinking about it, if you always backpack as a couple or with a companion, then sharing the weight of a slightly larger three man tent can be beneficial. Usually the weight increase between two and three man tents is relatively little. OK, it is too heavy and too bulky for one person to carry alone, but when shared, the three man version of the same tent is considerably less weight than one person carrying a two person tent - and in many cases even a one person tent. Of course sharing has its downsides (you’ll think of a few), and myself I’m far happier having the tent to myself. When I first walked Offa’s Dyke Path, I was originally going to do the walk with a friend, and indeed we had considered sharing a three man tent. However, my friend could be somewhat unreliable, so I decided this might not be such a good idea and opted for the Coleman Avior X2, two man tent. And I’m glad I did, as my mate pulled out a week before we were due to set off, so if we had purchased a three man tent I would have been lumbered with unnecessary weight and an unnecessarily large tent. Anyway, back to the script…
Tents on a diet
Manufacturers can reduce the overall weight of their tents by employing lighter materials. The denier rating of the flysheet and flooring can reduce weight, but this inevitably comes at some cost to its strength, resilience and indeed overall durability. A flysheet with a denier rating of 15D will be much lighter than a flysheet with a denier rating of 70D of the same material, but the 70D flysheet will be far more robust and durable. You would also expect the floor fabric to be of a higher denier or slightly different material to the flysheet, as the floor will be taking a lot more abuse and be subjected to potentially much greater wear and tear. A ridiculously low denier floor rating would always concern me. Remember, weight-saving always comes at a cost.
And indeed, when all other avenues have been exhausted, one area that manufacturers drastically reduce weight is the floor material or groundsheet of the tent. All good modern lightweight tents have waterproof bathtub floors which are sewn onto the inner tent. In the old days this floor material was quite heavy, robust and durable, often some form of rubber or a laminate of materials, and a very different material to the inner and outer tent fabrics. Nowadays, in order to minimise weight, the floor material is often very similar to the lightweight outer flysheet fabric but with a higher denier rating and usually with a higher hydrostatic head – that is, it can withstand a much greater pressure of water before there is water ingress.
Tent floors
And so this is where I come to another bugbear of mine. Modern lightweight tent flooring fabric, though it can be made extremely waterproof, it is by nature very thin and so much less resilient, hence much more prone to damage by sharp objects (thorns, stones, etc.) than the thicker, heavier, older materials. Of course manufacturers know this, but they also know that their advertised ultralight tent sells primarily due to its advertised 'ultra-light weight'. The last thing they want to do is design in a more resilient tent floor that will add grams to the overall weight of the tent. They mitigate this issue by recommending that you use the tent with an additional groundsheet, commonly termed a ‘footprint’.
Picture this:
“Yes Sir, this tent is £499 but only weighs 1kg. However, in order not to invalidate the warranty you will need to purchase an additional footprint that costs a further £65 and weighs 0.5kg” !!
OK, maybe a little exaggeration on my part, but you can see my gripe here.
And in any case, the super-ultralight backpacker that drills holes in his toothbrush handle and removes the labels from his clothing in order to save weight would think it absolute sacrilege to carry an additional groundsheet!
There are pros and cons to everything, but when I camp out in a lightweight tent, and in order to protect the floor, I always lay my bright orange polythene survival bag down on the ground first. I always carry it with me as an emergency shelter anyway, but it very effectively doubles as a small tent additional groundsheet. And indeed this arrangement worked perfectly well with my Coleman tent over many years. And to this date I have never, ever suffered damage to my tent's groundsheet.
Hydrostatic head
A quick word about the hydrostatic head of a material (its waterproofness).
An outer tent material (flysheet) with, for example, a hydrostatic head of 2000mm can effectively withstand the pressure of a static column of water 2 metres high before water ingress - that is before the pressure will force water through the material - so quite a lot! Any material with a hydrostatic head of 1000mm or above is considered waterproof, and in a UK summer a tent employing a flysheet with a hydrostatic head of between 1000mm – 2000mm is normally adequate to keep water out. That said, the minimum hydrostatic head generally considered as waterproof for a UK three season tent is 1500mm. A tent with a flysheet hydrostatic head of 2500mm is accepted as being more than adequate for UK three season camping and all nature can throw at it. Obviously the higher this number the better, and indeed, for peace of mind, this is where you may just want to pay a little more for a tent employing material with a higher hydrostatic head, particularly if you intend, or expect, to regularly use your tent in more extreme weather conditions. However, there is no point in paying an excessive amount of your hard-earned money for a tent with a flysheet hydrostatic head of 5000mm if you only camp out a for few nights in your back garden in the height of summer.
I just should add that as well as employing a full mesh inner tent, some very expensive big brand name tents keep the overall tent weight down by employing a very thin, light flysheet, and you can pay a small fortune for these ultralight tents. However in order to achieve this, some of these flysheets (and indeed floors) have a relatively low hydrostatic head. In fact some of the higher-end, expensive tents that use ultra-lightweight materials only have a hydrostatic head of around 1200-1500mm! You save weight, yes, but at the expense of the tents waterproofness. Thinner materials are also often far less robust. That said, lighter silicone-coated nylon flysheets usually have a greater tear resistance than slightly heavier polyester counterparts... but yet another consideration is the fact that the light nylon flysheet will sag when wetted, whereas the polyester fly will not. Life is simply never simple! The choice of course is yours, and if every gram counts then perhaps spending £600 on a high-end ultralight tent is justifiable, but be aware that as the weight of the ultralight tent comes down, often so too do other specifications.
The hydrostatic head of the floor material is of far greater importance as your bodyweight pushing the floor down into wet ground is effectively the same as a large column of water pushing from the other side. In such circumstances some ingress of water can occur, hence the higher the hydrostatic head of the floor material, the greater chance the inside of your tent floor stays dry.
What are you actually getting for the specified weight?
Some of the very high-end, big brand name tents reduce the overall weight of their tents by including titanium tent pegs, and indeed a decent shepherd’s crook, 3mm x 150mm, titanium tent peg is very strong and weighs in at just 5.5 - 6 grams. However, even here some manufacturers take it to the extreme, providing titanium tent pegs that weigh a mere 2 grams - or even 1 gram! Great weight-saving, and while they may do for pinning down a groundsheet, in less than perfect conditions you really would want something more substantial than a toothpick holding down your flysheet. And while the 2 gram titanium tent pegs are generally inadequate and mostly unfit for purpose, themselves bordering on ridiculous, the 1 gram tent pegs are 'ridiculous' taken to a whole new level! And whoever thought it a good idea to supply high-end, very expensive tents with 1 gram tent pegs, seriously needs their head looking at!
And be careful when looking at total tent weights. Tents are often specified with a 'gross' weight and a 'minimum' weight or 'trail' weight, and often the minimum weight is that which is promoted. So always check to see what the stated weight actually includes, because along with the recommended footprint, some suppliers do not include the weight of the tent pegs, guylines, tent stuff sack, tent poles bag, etc. The minimum weight figure always looks far more enticing than the gross weight figure, but the reality is that your tent won't be of much use without tent pegs and guylines.
And then there is this: some manufacturers employ an extremely lightweight outer shell fabric that does not lend itself to having the seams factory sealed in the conventional manner. Fair enough. However, instead of sealing the seams in some other more ‘unconventional’ manner at the factory, they sell you the tent for hundreds of pounds of your hard-earned dosh and advise you to seal the seams yourself… What? C’mon…! Or is it just me that has an issue with this…?
Another potential area for weight-saving is the inner tent material. An inner tent made primarily of nylon no-see-um bug mesh (fine netting), will inevitably weigh less than a inner tent made primarily of full breathable polyester material. But then the mesh inner will certainly be colder and more draughty than the full polyester material inner.
Full mesh inner tent = reduced weight = colder. Slightly heavier full fabric inner tent = warmer = more weight.
Four season tents with storm flaps or snow skirts keep the draughts out but tend to be heavier and obviously provide less air flow which can lead to a build-up of condensation. Conversely a tent with no storm flaps or snow skirt may well be free of condensation, but quite draughty. I’ve also seen contrasting poor reviews given to the very same tent, one was because it was considered too cold and draughty, and one was because it was considered too hot without enough ventilation! Swings and roundabouts. But again you also have to consider where and when they camped, and just who has left the review… an experienced, hardened camper, or a fresh-faced, new-to-this-game camper who is relatively clueless. Whatever the case, you simply can’t have everything, and depending on conditions most tents tend to excel in one particular area, while falling down slightly - or miserably - in other areas. You simply can not expect an ultralight three season tent with a mesh inner, to perform well in up a mountain, in the snow, in the depths of winter.
A little more on condensation
Of course if a flysheet is designed to keep water out, then it follows, by its very nature, that it will also keep water in. That is, under certain conditions, moisture from your breath and heat from your body will cause water in the air to condense on the inside of your waterproof flysheet when it is colder outside. Now this will happen with all tents, but small one and two man tents are particularly prone to the formation of condensation simply because of the more confined space.
With reference to tents, condensation is often a very misunderstood thing. I'm often surprised by the amount of people that knock a tent because of the formation of condensation on the inner of their tent flysheet, as if this just should not happen. Unfortunately, as one famous Scot once said, 'Ye cannae change the laws of physics'. It's down to science and it won't change any time in the near future!
Condensation will happen, its a fact of life. In colder conditions condensation will form on the inside of your flysheet, but it is what then happens with this condensation that really matters, and indeed where tent design can play a major role. If it runs harmlessly down the inside of your tent flysheet to the ground, then fine, no problem. If tent air circulation removes it at a rate that prevents it from dripping into your inner tent, then again, fine, no harm done. However, if condensation builds up to a point whereby it is literally dripping off the inside of your flysheet and onto your inner tent, then it may be a concern. If the inner tent is just lightweight nylon bug mesh, then condensation may drip straight though onto you. However, if your tent has a solid breathable polyester inner, then any condensation dripping from the flysheet may actually just dampen the inner tent fabric, spreading and dispersing harmlessly before actually finding its way through to you, and that's quite acceptable. The condensation your tent may experience comes down to two major things, firstly the weather conditions, and secondly the size of your tent flysheet air vents - if any. Now I've read some silly things about tents with more mesh inner tents being better at reducing condensation. This really is total nonsense and a sign that the seller doesn't know what they are talking about, because all inner tents are breathable and it is not the inner tent that suffers condensation. Apart from the built-in groundsheet, the inner tent is NOT waterproof and nor should it be, as it is this 'breathable' characteristic that allows moisture out - away from you - and into the area between the inner tent and the flysheet. Your tent flysheet air vents and the wind conditions will directly affect the condensation that you experience. On a windy night, the air travelling through your tent may well take the condensation away as it appears, whereas on a night with little or no breeze, then your tent may experience considerable condensation. The size of your tent flysheet air vents will obviously come into play here, and while bigger air vents may help reduce condensation, the downside is that you will have a much draughtier, potentially colder tent. Swings and roundabouts! I think the main issue with condensation is that people simply do not understand it and expect a good tent to be condensation free. Never going to happen! There may be some tents that, by design, better control condensation, but you will not find a tent that is condensation free in all conditions... no matter how much you are prepared to spend.
If you experience some condensation, simply giving the flysheet a good shake and (conditions allowing) airing it for a few minutes before it packing away is usually all it takes to remove the worst, and then when packing, folding the tent in such a manner that the inner tent is not directly in contact with any moisture remaining on the flysheet. Of course, in order to avoid tent damage from mould or mildew, the tent fabrics should be totally dry if packing away the tent for any considerable amount of time, as in after your camping trip has finished.
Now, hardier, heavier and sturdier four season geodesic and semi-geodesic tents can suffer real condensation issues, because by their very nature they are designed to keep all the unfavourable elements out: wind, rain, snow, etc. Under extreme conditions it is far more important to keep out the weather and retain heat within the tent, and with snow skirts and very small air vents, condensation can really build up. Under these circumstances, four season tents rely heavily on the tent design to allow the inevitable condensation to harmlessly run off the inside of the flysheet to ground. Unlike four season tents, three season tents tend to have larger air vents and/or better airflow by design. Along with flysheet air vents, and with no storm flaps or snow skirts, and with a flysheet that is raised slightly from the ground to allow for much better all round ventilation, most small three season tents can avoid any real condensation issues. But, as already mentioned, it is always a trade-off, good ventilation within the tent can help reduce condensation, but this can then make for a much colder, draughtier tent. The reality is that condensation is all just part and parcel of the wonderful outdoor camping experience!
Good, value for money lightweight tents
Unless money is no object, then high on your priority list will be cost. High-end ultralight tents can cost an arm and a leg, but if you do your research you can often find a lightweight tent that will more than meet your needs at a fraction of the cost, without sacrificing quality or making too big a compromise. And who doesn’t enjoy getting value for money?
When I research tents, I’m looking for a good, value for money tent that exactly suits my needs. However, I often find that the sacrifices in functionality, robustness, performance, reliability and general practicality can not be justified by the saving of just a few grams. Alloy tent poles that are made thinner to save weight are more likely to bend or buckle; less stable tent designs that save weight are more likely to distort or collapse in bad weather; less durable lightweight tent floors are more prone to punctures; those ridiculous 1 gram titanium tent pegs that stand no chance of holding in the ground from even the slightest gentle breeze. All these things reduce the weight you carry on your back, but sadly can also greatly effect how the tent functions and indeed performs in the real world.
Just be careful if you are looking into purchasing an ultralight tent. That ultra-lightweight advertised may not be quite so ultralight at all when you have to use an additional groundsheet and update those totally pointless 1 gram tent pegs to something functional. And this is to say nothing of the extra cost involved after already paying a small fortune for the tent.
So what tents out there can give my trusty Coleman Avior X2 a run for its money?
Here at STATION13, before we invest in tents, we need to know that the tent or tents that we supply to you, will not only be lightweight, made of quality materials and display quality workmanship, but also provide adequately for your needs, live up to your expectations in the real world… and not cost an arm and a leg.
We don't expect tents to be perfect in every respect or perfect for every particular individual, but they must be fit for purpose and good all round tents. Remember, we are looking for good value for money, high quality, one man and two man tents.
Watch this space…
…OK, if you have been watching this space, we have some news.
After doing our research, two tents that we have been very interested in, are manufactured by GeerTop of China. What attracted us to these two tents in particular, and indeed this China manufacturer, is the fact their tents do seem to be relatively high spec, high quality tents, they seem like a very reputable company - we’d not heard anything bad about their products... and, most importantly, both are very lightweight tents!
With the quality of the tent being of foremost importance to us, and GeerTop of China looking to be a genuinely good company providing genuinely good products, we imported samples of these two tents to evaluate. Both are lightweight one person backpacking tents.
These tents are the GeerTop TOPWIND 1, lightweight one man tent and the GeerTop PYRAMID, lightweight one man tent. The GeerTop TOPWIND 1 we were sent has the yellow flysheet (but is also available in red), and the GeerTop PYRAMID has the iron blue flysheet.
Click HERE to go to the TOPWIND 1 additional information page.
Click HERE to go to the PYRAMID additional information page
NOTE: We've since added the GeerTop Blazer 1 person camouflage tent to our stock.
Click HERE to go to the BLAZER additional information page.
GeerTop TOPWIND 1 |
GeerTop PYRAMID |
We set up the tents and compared the various features:
We set up and compared the GeerTop TOPWIND 1, The GeeerTop PYRAMID, my old GELERT SOLO, and my beloved COLEMAN AVIOR X2
We set up and compared the GeerTop TOPWIND 1, The GeeerTop PYRAMID, my old GELERT SOLO, and my beloved COLEMAN AVIOR X2
The GeerTop PYRAMID
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My old Gelert Solo
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My old COLEMAN AVIOR X2
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Weight: 1.2kg
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Weight: 1.62kg
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Weight: 2.45kg
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The GeerTop TOPWIND 1
Weight: 1.84kg
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GeerTop BLAZER
Weight: 1.5kg
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My old COLEMAN AVIOR X2 and old GELERT SOLO
You might wonder why I am talking about these old model of tents, that may no longer even available. Well, this is just to add a little perspective. My much-loved, trusty Coleman Avior X2 still looks good, but I'm pretty hooked by the new GeerTop models, and the weight-saving they offer over my Coleman is just too impressive to ignore. The TOPWIND 1 gives me a weight saving of over 600 grams for a tent that still happily meets my requirements, while the PYRAMID provides me with an incredible weight-saving of around 1.2kgs!
And, as I do now always walk with walking poles, I rather expect the PYRAMID tent will be my go-to tent from this point on... that said, the other one person GeerTop tents both have very endearing qualities... so... hmmm...
You might wonder why I am talking about these old model of tents, that may no longer even available. Well, this is just to add a little perspective. My much-loved, trusty Coleman Avior X2 still looks good, but I'm pretty hooked by the new GeerTop models, and the weight-saving they offer over my Coleman is just too impressive to ignore. The TOPWIND 1 gives me a weight saving of over 600 grams for a tent that still happily meets my requirements, while the PYRAMID provides me with an incredible weight-saving of around 1.2kgs!
And, as I do now always walk with walking poles, I rather expect the PYRAMID tent will be my go-to tent from this point on... that said, the other one person GeerTop tents both have very endearing qualities... so... hmmm...
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My trusty old Coleman Avior X2, all the features I like, but it can't compete with the weight-saving advantages offered by the new GeerTop TOPWIND 1, the PYRAMID and the BLAZER.
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My old (never-used in anger) Gelert Solo. Only 1.6kgs, No room inside for my 65 litre rucksack but I could get my boots in under the flysheet. However, very suspect quality - I had to Gaffa tape all the cheap fibreglass poles as one cracked the very first time setting it up.
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The old gives way to the new...
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TOPWIND 1 - PYRAMID - GELERT SOLO
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Avior X2 - TOPWIND 1 - Gelert Solo - PYRAMID
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Pack Sizes: Avior X2: 44cm x 19cm - TOPWIND 1: 42cm x 15cm - Gelert Solo: 40cm x 14cm - PYRAMID: 38cm x 11cm
