Backpacking tent

After 10 years of loyal service and hundreds of nights of sleep in all weather conditions, it was time to retire my trusty  one-man backpacking tent.  I had bought it when I was single and any girl I was dating at that time was too prissy to rough it in the wilderness.

It was a small tent – perhaps too small for somebody my size – but it rolled up to the size of a Pringles can and weighed less than 5 pounds.  There was enough room under the fly for my backpack and boots and most importantly it never leaked once, not even during torrential downpours.

When I bought the tent it wasn’t cheap and I wondered if I really needed something so expensive.   I got my answer during a hiking trip to Torres Del Paine National Park in Chile.  I was in a overly crowded campground and had just finished pitching my tent when a windstorm struck.  When the gusts died down my tent was only one left standing. Later that night the  winds returned but my tent held up and I managed to get a decent night’s sleep.   The next morning the place looked like a war zone.  More tents were down that up.  Some campers had given up and just slept in the collapsed tents.   I remember the look on the faces of the largely international crowd the next morning.  Many looked like they hadn’t slept at all.

But now I am no longer single and am fortunate to have a fiancé who is willing to backpack,  I need a tent that sleeps two.  Note that I didn’t say I need a two man tent, since to some manufacturers that means room for two very small people, or 1.5 normal size people, or just one person my size.  I need room for two to sleep comfortably with room for the backpacks on the side.

But when I started shopping I knew I needed help.  I have a lot of experience sleeping in tents but little experience when it comes to purchasing one.  I searched online, and while there was some good information I got the idea a lot of backpacking gear is made to market to weekend warriors who like flashy gear.  I didn’t need a tent that looked like a space ship.

So I solicited the help of a friend of mine who works at a nearby REI store.  He explained everything to me, and told me what I should look for and what I can do without.  And after I made my purchase he agreed to summarize his comments and publish them here below.  Note that like me, my friend has a full time job and his employer might not like him writing about products that he sells.  For this reason I will not use his real name but instead call him Greg.  Also like me, Greg isn’t the best of writers.  So I had to correct a few of his typos

Despite what Robert may think, there have been improvements in tent technology in the last ten years.   And I don’t mean that they just all now look like “spaceships” as he says.

For example poles are now designed to bend differently and therefore creating more room inside the tent.  This may seem of little importance since tents are primarily used for sleeping, not as opera houses.  But anyone who has slept in a tent during heavy rain knows touching the interior wall of the tent can cause water to seep in.  The new vertical walls give better protection against this.

Now for those of you who live in drier climates and don’t think this is relevant, trust me, it is.  It rains a lot more at night than most city dwellers realize.  And having to sleep in a wet sleeping bag can turn a spectacular weekend in to an exhausting moody one.

Sometimes I get a customer who wants to buy the most expensive gear.  He wants a subzero down sleeping bag, a single wall ultra lightweight mountaineering tent and insulated waterproof boots made for mountain climbing.  He thinks because they are the most expensive, they must be the best.

But this gear is designed for high altitude mountain climbers.  The rest of us would be sweating in that sleeping bag even on a cool night and  the boots are designed to attach snow shoes to and will be extremely hot and heavy.  And the tent is designed to ward off snow, not rain.  In short, none of the equipment is optimal for 90 percent of us, including even those that are more than weekend warriors.

So if one day you decide to take that dream trip to the climb the Annapurnas in Nepal,  just rent the high mountain gear.  If you decide you like cold weather high altitude camping you can go ahead and buy the gear.  Trust me on this one, I myself do a fair bit of high altitude climbing, but it’s not for everyone.

On the other end of the scale you have inexpensive tents. If you want a tent to set up in the backyard that the kids can play in during the day, these tents will do just fine.  But if you plan on sleeping in that tent on a trip, even if it’s to the local state park, you should buy something of decent quality.

The reason is this.  When you are in a tent you are separated from the elements by a ultra thin sheet of nylon or polyester   There are no glass windows, heaters or air conditioners, and even the best camping mattresses are not as comfortable as a bed.

Sometimes it rains at night and sometimes it rains during the day, but sooner or later your tent will see the rain.  And that rain is going to try to join you inside your tent.  All you have to protect you and your sleeping bag from getting wet is that few mls of nylon.  In a cheap tent, that water will get trough and at best everything will be damp.  If the rain continues the next morning it will be tough to dry your stuff out.

Furthermore you may have had to walk a long way to get to that destination, which most likely means that you are going to have to walk a long way to get back.  You need to get a good night’s sleep to have energy the next day.

I have never understood why some people are willing to fork out hundreds of dollars a night for a hotel room but won’t spend fifty dollars more for a decent tent. I don’t stay in a lot of expensive hotels, but I can’t imagine a 200 dollar hotel room bed being twice as comfortable as that of a 100 dollar a night hotel room.

But the difference between a 50 dollar department store non-name dome tent and a 100 dollar REI, Eureka or Hard Mountain one is huge.  For a few more dollars you get something that will keep you comfortable for years to come. I assure you that if you buy a Walmart tent, it won’t last 5 years.   The poles will break and the seams will leak.

Greg told me countless stories about both his customers and his experiences in the wilderness. But eventually I asked him which tent would be good from me and my fiancee. He wasted no time taking a shot at me

… Robert’s girlfriend is neither tall nor overweight, but Robert himself is over 6 feet tall, and quite honestly could drop a few pounds. For this reason he needs a tent that has a footprint at least 90 inches long and a minimum of 56 inches wide.

Due to his size I recommend the
REI Half Dome 2 Plus Tent. It is big enough for both of them with room under the vestibules for their backpacks. It has two doors, so there is no need to crawl over the other one to get in or out. And perhaps most importantly it weighs only 5 and a half pounds.

I took Greg’s advice and bought the The Half Dome 2 plus and me and my better half have already used it three times. And with just our luck, it rained everytime but not a drop seeped through. I love it, and more importantly my fiancee does ‘)