Choosing A Tent

So, you’ve decided to join the ranks of smelly hiker trash, but you don’t have any gear yet. Get ready to pore over a bunch of choices and spend some money!

You can cobble together a lot of your gear pretty cheaply, but if you want to get the weight of your Big Three (pack, shelter and sleep system) down, like REALLY down, be prepared to invest some real money and some time doing research and using your gear. Pro tip– save your pack for last, AFTER you compile all of your other gear (this will allow you to pick the right capacity for your pack).

Shelters and sleeping bags/quilts are probably the two most expensive items you will own. Choose correctly and you will get years of use from your purchase. The trick is finding out what actually works for you, and this tends to be tougher with shelters, because there are a lot of factors to consider:

Free-standing or not?

Doors- front entry, side entry (single or dual)

Floor, or floorless?

Poles- conventional tent poles or trekking pole supported?

Fabric- silnylon, cuben (DCF) or other?

Size- 1 or 2 person

Single vs. double-walled or hybrid

Usable height and length

Let’s consider these criteria one at a time by starting with freestanding or not. Freestanding means that you insert the poles and presto, your tent is fully formed. You can pick it up and move it around, and you don’t HAVE to stake it down for it to work. Non free-standing means that it won’t hold its form without being staked out. Freestanding tents tend to have smaller footprints and can be utilized in places where you can’t pound a stake into the ground (tent platforms for example), but tend to weigh more. Generally speaking, a semi-freestanding shelter works just fine in almost any situation. These tents require some degree of staking out to achieve their functional form.

Where you want the door(s) located is important too. Front-entry tents tend to be a little lighter, but many folks don’t like having to crawl in and then pivot around on top of their stuff. Ventilation suffers a bit in these tents too. Side entry is less fussy, and dual side doors allow for great ventilation and views when the weather cooperates. Pay attention to how the door fabric lays when the door is open. If it falls downward, you can end up stepping all over it and tearing it.

Tents generally have a bathtub floor to protect you from pooling water, but some shelters such as ‘mids and tarps don’t necessarily have a floor. You CAN use a groundsheet or a bivy with them though for water protection. Also, tarps and ‘mids don’t come with bug netting, although you can usually purchase a bug net insert separately if you so choose.

Do you hike with trekking poles? If you do, you can save the weight of tent poles by using a trekking pole-supported shelter.

Fabric- silnylon is the standard. It’s cheap, but weighs more and absorbs moisture, and tends to sag and require readjusting when it does so. DCF (formerly known as cuben fiber) is much lighter but potentially more fragile and bulky to pack.

Single or double-walled? A conventional double-walled tent requires you to pitch the inner tent first, and then attach the rainfly over it. This is a fairly good system for moisture management, but if you have to pitch your tent in the rain, the inner will get soaked before you get the fly on. Single-walled tents avoid this issue but tend to suffer greater issues with condensation inside the tent. Single-walled shelters obviously are lighter. Some shelters are hybrid, with features of both.

One person vs. two person? Some people feel like a 1P shelter is like a coffin, others think it’s a nice cozy lair. Some like the increased interior size of a 2P shelter, which gives you a little extra room to lay out gear inside your tent, while others don’t want to carry the extra weight. Interior dimensions of your shelter are important (and often exaggerated by manufacturers). USABLE height and length should be considered. A shelter with a 7 foot length for example but with sloping end walls may only have 6 feet of usable length once you put a 3″ thick sleeping pad on the floor and then a lofty sleeping bag. If your bag touches the end walls, it could get wet at night due to condensation. Also, it’s nice to be able to sit up without your head hitting the ceiling.

Also consider expected weather conditions when choosing a tent. A tunnel tent is VERY storm worthy, but heavier. They are a great choice for alpine terrain and winter camping. A ‘mid handles wind and particularly snow very well. Other shelters offer varying degrees of lesser storm resistance and may require greater attention to site selection.

Know a couple of things going in. One is that your first tent purchase won’t be your last. Once you use it a few times, you are highly likely to find some of its characteristics not meshing with your wants and style. Fret not, it’s easy to sell your tent on an online gear trade forum. You’re going to have to actually live in some of these tents for a few days or weeks before you learn what you’re really looking for in a shelter. Second, you may well find that you want several different shelters in your quiver, for use in different conditions. There is no one perfect shelter. I have a handful of shelters in my collection, and below I’ll explain why.

My HMG Echo 2 tarp is my typical shelter on the AT. I spend most of my nights on the AT in shelters, but the Echo 2 makes a great “backup” shelter at only 9 oz. I generally use it once or twice during a weeklong section hike. I use it with a cuben groundcloth; the entire system including stakes is just under a pound. The 2P model gives me better coverage at minimal weight penalty. I also use this shelter on hikes where weather and bugs aren’t an issue. I plan to use it on my upcoming desert hikes.

I used the Tarptent Notch Li on my recent Florida Trail section hike. It uses DCF and weighs 19 oz. which set me back (gulp) $539, and uses two trekking poles for support. Great bug protection, and solid weather resistance and moisture management. I’m generally pleased with this shelter. Their silnylon version weighs 27 oz. but only costs $229. It has dual side doors, and in nice weather I find that I really like to roll up both vestibules to maximize ventilation and views.

Big Sky tents don’t get enough love on the internet because the company used to be pretty weak on the customer service side, but they’ve gotten better and they make really nice lightweight tents. The Mirage is a dual-wall hybrid, and the inner is already clipped to the fly, so when you pitch it the interior remains dry. It’s very simple to pitch, and it only weighs 34 oz. at a cost of $320. I like using this tent during sketchier weather. It has 4 additional guyline attachments that when deployed make this a pretty wind-resistant shelter.

Also in my quiver is a 3 person Hilleberg Anjan that I used on my Wind River Range hike, and will probably use on future hikes out west in the high country. It is a tunnel tent, and as such is very storm worthy. It too has an inner that clips to the fly from inside, which gives you the option to unclip the inner and pitch it in fly-only mode to save weight. A “Hilly” is about the most expensive tent you can buy, but they last forever and will save your butt when scary weather hits at 10,000 ft. They’re also relatively heavy. Mine weighs a little over 4 lbs., so I only plan to use it when I really need it.

If you’re new to all of this, you might want to consider borrowing shelters from friends for your first few hikes. Test drive several styles if you can, and find out what features you like, and what features you don’t. Everything has trade-offs. Find out which ones you’re willing to make.