In the past couple of articles, we have discussed some of the materials, designs, styles and types of tents and shelter available. But likely all I have done so far is throw a lot of info at you. This article is intended to turn this information into a decision on what tent to get or take with you.
This article got delayed heavily. I had it about 3/4 done when Des and I had a chance to run off to Chile for our long awaited honeymoon. So that 5 week getaway to Patagonia slowed things here. We are planning to put together an article roughly following our trip.
Same as previously I will be linking to or referencing certain tents or shelters. None of these links or references are sponsored by the companies. They are just examples of the configuration that I am describing. I will only post examples that either I have personal experience with and would recommend or have been recommended by others whom I trust on the subject.
Considerations
So you know that you need to buy a tent or pick one of the 12 different shelters a buddy offered you to take on your trip. But how in the hell do you pick between them? The answer has a million variables that you could consider to try and select the best option. I am going to try and distill it down to a handful of the most important.
The main considerations I look at when selecting a shelter are:
- Weight
- Ease of set up
- Bulk
- Weather Resistance
- Bug shelter
- Price
- Availability
It should go without saying that setting a budget for your shelter is an important first step, along with deciding on a timeframe that you need it. If you find the perfect tent but it costs $1000 and takes 6 months to get into your hands then it won’t be very useful for next weekend’s outing.
Something to consider with setting a price point. Often the lightest and most compact option is a tarp shelter. These are also usually very cheap unless buying a DCF tarp. The main hold-up for tarp shelters is skill requirement and increased weather exposure. But to a user who is willing to rough it a little more, they can acquire an excellent setup for a pretty low cost.
Weight
The weight of the setup is obviously an important consideration if you intend to carry it any distance or elevation. Personally, I won’t carry a freestanding two-person tent over 4 pounds trail weight. If I am taking a solo shelter I will keep it under 1.5 pounds maximum.
It is very difficult to set a hard weight limit that I recommend to you. Everyone has varying levels of tolerance for rougher conditions, and often less weight means roughing it more (or spending $$$$ for DCF). In general, I would advise selecting the lightest option that meets your other requirements that you can afford. This may mean saving a little more up to get something nicer, or loosening up on your shelter requirements. This is from the huge number of times that I have gone out with a friend with a 5-6 pound, $100 tent from Canadian Tire; because they never planned to take it backpacking but here we are.
Ease of Set Up
For some, the ease of setup is a critical consideration. This includes both skills required to set the shelter or tent up and site selection. With practice and experience, this factor can become much less important. However, I still consider it based on my trip. If I am planning to be mobile until dark or later then I will usually opt for a simpler set up to aid in pitching camp in the dark.
I am planning a future article discussing the development of the aforementioned skills. Hopefully, some of you will be interested enough to try these skills out and discover the versatility and freedom of a light skill-based system.
Bulk
Bulk is not nearly as important as weight, but it still impacts your packing ability. Particularly if your trip requires specialty gear such as climbing, photography or hunting equipment. With the addition of these extra items a backpack rapidly fills and overflows.
Weather Resistance
Weather resistance requirements will vary wildly between individuals and climates. Generally, I will shoot for the lowest coverage option that works for what I am likely to experience. This generally gives me the lightest setup that I can get away with.
I consider both personal experience with the time of year and area alongside current weather forecasts to make this decision. I often see others fall into the ‘what if’ trap. They look at the typical weather for an area and time but then take gear for the once-in-a-century storm. The end result of this is usually that they have an extremely luxurious shelter to sleep in with a very cushy pad and cozy sleeping bag. This is a very good thing since they have worked twice as hard to get to the campsite with all the extra crap they lugged out there. I work off of typical and leave it at that unless I have particular experience with the area that tells me I need to go more intensive.
In years of doing this, I can only think of one single night trip that was uncomfortable enough to be a problem. We had a sideways monsoon-level rainstorm in January in the mountains of Alberta. This was an extremely unpredictable situation as the average overnight temperature in that area and time of year is far below freezing.
Bug Shelter
Bug shelter can be achieved in multiple ways and the importance of it can be modified. The most common way people think of is to take a tent with a full interior bug net. This adds the most weight and unless you plan to sit inside the tent for a significant length of time is probably not worth the weight. Personally I almost always opt for a bug bivvy or bug net setup rather than the full interior net. While it can be claustrophobic to spend a lot of waking hours in a bug bivvy, I just choose to stay out of the shelter until I am ready for bed.
The one time that I forgo this standard method is in the summer in the North Boreal. When you are starting to push into the areas where wild animals drown themselves in an attempt to escape the torment of mosquitoes and flies it is always worth bringing additional bug shelter.
What to Choose
So by now you’re probably thinking: ‘Great, so what. You’ve just thrown more hypotheticals onto our plates here’. You wouldn’t be wrong, but this is the point where I start to tie it together. You know the whole ‘Give a man a fish, teach a man to fish’ idea.
I will break this down into a few example user groups and recommendations for them.
The Car Camper
If your typical packing distance is 100m or less from the house into the car and then from the car to the spot you set the tent up at, then this is you. Generally, if this is your use of the tent then really anyhting will work fine for you. The main consideration at this point becomes how long you want a tent to last you. If a short lived tent is fine then just stick with the cheap tent from Canadian Tire and you will be OK. Want a little longer life? Then check out the entry level options from most brand names such as The North Face, Marmot, Mountain Hardwear or MEC. Any of these companies entry level tent will run you more than the Canadian Tire special but last significantly longer.
If you plan to mostly do this but maybe do a night or two a year on a short distance, easy overnight trip then a step up into the entry-mid level tents offered as backpacking tents would be a solid decision. these tents won’t cost much more than the entry level tents from a brand name but will usually shave off a half pound or so for those occasional low intensty trips.
The Weekend Warrior
You have the Monday to Friday 9-5. The kids have soccer, hockey and piano multiple times a week. But, once a month you and the significant other can drop them at Grandmas and hit the trail for a 1-2 night outing and want to get some mileage in. You can’t really afford the flagship, cottage company, free-range, gluten-free, DCF model. But weight is important to you.
If this sounds like you, or some other life situation that leads you to limited time for the woods but a determination to get some mileage in then this is your section. Generally this camper is expecting to carry the shelter a decent distance most of the time but also wants the extra comfort to allow for a fairly luxurious shelter. The time to spend out learning sufficient bushcraft to be comfortabel in a minimalist shelter is either unavailable or otherwise committed.
My recommendation for this category is to jump past most of the mid-range brand name offerings and straight to some of their higher end offerings. The main reason for this comes down to longevity and weight efficiency. You will be looking at a little more money but a tent that will last you much longer and perform better through that life.
These tents are generally going to be double wall freestanding or semi-freestanding systems. These will give a reasonable balance of weight to comfort and a simple set up. More experienced users could investigate the non-freestanding worl for further weight savings, particularly if uyou usually carry trekking poles. Materials will ideally be Sil treated rather than PU. These will last much longer and usually come in at a lower weight.
The MSR Hubba series are a great example for this class of tents, a Double Wall, Freestanding, Sil Nylon tent with a pole efficient Dome shape. They are not the single nicest tent for any one use, but a very well rounded option at a very competitive price point for their features.
The Serious Sam
You work for the purpose of funding your time in the woods. When selecting your apartment it was imperative to have sufficient space to dry and store your gear. A downturn in the weather doesn’t turn you around. Maybe you have considered getting a part-time job at a camping store just for the discounts.
If this is you then I get you, you are my people. I worked part-time for a popular camping chain store in Canada for 6 years through school. Between gear purchased and trip expenses I maybe cleared 10% of my gross earnings.
In this category we are likely looking at high-end double wall Free or Semi-Freestanding tents or really beginning the dive into single walls, shaped tarps or flat tarps. You likely have the experience in the woods to know a couple decent guyline knots and maybe are even familiar with a Deadman anchor for your stakes.
If you are in this category I probably don’t need to recommend you a shelter, but, I will just because. Good picks might include the Big Agnes Copper Spur HV UL in an appropriate size for a double wall freestandign tent. The Mountain Laurel Designs Duo-Mid with an optional bug-liner depending on situation for a great non-freestanding pyramid. To the beginnings of tarp setups for those seeking the lightest options.
The Dirtbag/Thru-Hiker
If you are the dirtbag thru-hiker then you know who you are. and you definitely don’t need some casual like me to tell you what to buy. So this section is mostly for the interest of those who don’t fit in it.
If you are the type to find short-term contract work that lets you sleep on your bosses couch for the duration for the cost of groceries and a six-pack of craft beer on the weekends then this is for you. If you hike to live and work only as required to keep that going then this is you. You likely know how to cold soak a 4 star meal of couscous, foil pouch tuna and nutritional yeast. You have met Darwin more than once on the trail and know the origin story of every famous YouTube thru-hiker, most from being there in person.
In all seriousness this category likely can justify whatever price point is needed to hit their target weight goal. They may be made of money or just completely dedicated to the goal of lightweight camping. This is where I will recommend most of the DCF shelters on the market and the pursuit of minimalist tapered tarp systems.
Examples may include any of Hyperlite Mountain Gear’s shelters, Mountain Laurel Designs DCF offerings, Z-Packs non-freestanding options, Yama Mountain Gear, Adotec’s tarps and innumerable other small cottage companies.
These shelters represent the leading edge of current designs in the ultralight world. Materials are on the leading edge of textiles but often require an increased degree of care in their use. Coverage is not as luxurious as in the earlier categories, but sufficient for the more utilitarian approach their users take.
The Back-country Hunter
I have broken this group out separately for a couple of reasons. Those of us that fall in this category generally land into a couple of subcategories, the base-camp or the fast and light. I use a base-camp style to allow the use of a lightweight hot tent system in poor weather and a fast and light in early season pursuits when weather is less restrictive.
I find two significant differences between back-country hunting and typical backpacking. First, when back-country hunting you are hoping to walk in light and out heavy after shooting an animal, rather than the constant drop in fuel and food weight expected by a backpacker. The other significant difference is the approach to daily plans. Generally, a backpacker is planning to follow the trail from one planned camp area to the next and enjoy the view as they do. The hunter is often intending to search high and low for their prey and then pursue them as aggressively as possible. From this, I have found it common for me to be sitting on a high point glassing for animals in the mountains while getting pelted with snow/sleet/rain until dark.
For my fast and light early season hunts, I usually run with a small Sil-Tarp and a minimalist bug-bivvy. On the later season poorer weather outings I use my MYOG hot-tent with a lightweight wood stove. The ability to warm my shelter and dry wet gear at the end of a cold day is a game-changer.
Closing Thoughts
Hopefully, I pulled some of this into usable information for you folks. The world of tents and shelters can be a very deep dive, and there isn’t always a straightforward right answer.
I’m hoping to get an skills article up before too long. But first I need to get out to the woods and get some photos of the skills I want to showcase. I have found that I am bad at stopping to get images of my gear in action for this page.
Please feel free to hit me up with questions on the topic. As well any feedback on the articles is greatly appreciated so I can improve their quality over time.