[pct-l] Ultralight tents

[Dennis Phelan]

there are a couple of questions that you will need to answer yourself
first; (1) how do I feel about single wall tents and (2) how do I feel
about free-standing rather than non-free-standing.  the issue are that a
single wall tent will get condensation on the inside of the tent.  In my
experience this is a minor inconvience, but you should be aware in certain
conditions (high humidity) this can be very annoying.  The issue with free
standing Vs non-free standing is not having to rely on finding a place to
stake it down.  In my experience this is really only a problem when the
ground is too hard to drive a stake into or the snow cover is too deep to
get to the ground.  In those cases most people use a rock instead of a
stake or use or make a "snow stake" for the snowy conditions.  It also
should be noted that some of the ultralight free-standing tents are
free-standing only for the tent, but the rain fly must be staked down.
(kind of defeats the free-standing concept).  With all of this said, I
personally use Tarptents which are single walled (at least the models I
have) and I really like them.  I have noticed that many of the experienced
thru hikers (the group doing the CDT this year) are switching to the cuben
fiber Zpack solo or solo plus tents.  (cuben fiber is the lightest material
being used for tents, it is also $$$$)

Dennis P


On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 11:48 AM, Abby Popenoe <apopenoe at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm planning on thru-hiking next year, but for unrelated reasons I need to
> buy my tent for the trail now. I've been looking at Big Agnes ultralight
> tents (I'm trying to go under 2 lbs) like the Copper Spur, and Fly Creek,
> and the Nemo Meta, and I wanted to know people's opinions on these tents
> and brands in general for the trail. Also, what other tents did people use
> for a thru-hike and like?
>
> Abby P.
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