Beginner Tent Choice

this thread might be helpful:
Cheap gear challenge

it has a lot of good cheap gear ideas as well as the places to get it. with some of the kits they come up with might give you some ideas. also, you might be surprised how simple tarp camping can be. just start with a big one like an 8’x10 cheapie from the hardware store. just make sure you play with it at home a few times and see if you can come up with something you’d trust to stop a little rain. it wont stop bugs though, that’s what head nets are for. hope this helps

Good questions. The short answer is, question your assumptions: You assume you need a tent and a sleeping bag.

A. – first question: Forget the tent. Get a tarp. 6X10 of 4 mil plastic is the cheapest. Make a 4 mil groundsheet. Buy a cheap, simple mosquito net such as an Equinox Mantis ($25) or an Outdoor Research Bug Bivy ($69 and has its own groundsheet). Use masons line or small Venetian blind cord for suspending the tarp. Learn to tie a sheet bend or get some half-inch wooden balls or use duct tape to make pull-outs. Again, to repeat: You absolutely do not need a tent! it is a waste of money and effort.

A. – second question: No sleeping bag is best… as in, don't get a sleeping bag; get a cheap, light, polyester quilt with a polyester cover. If you can't find one at Walmart, KMart, or Target, you can make one for $15 with 5 yards of $1/yard Walmart sale-table fabric and Walmart continuous filiament polyester batting. Cut it down into a backpacking quilt shape. See the numerous examples on the Internet. Or, you can spend a little more for really good insulation such as 5 oz/yard Climashield XP. In that case,2 yards of insulation will cost $60 with shipping and handling. To have a quilt that is really lightweight, spend $12/yard for good Thru-hiker Momentum fabric. The total weight of your quilt will be well under 1 1/2 pounds. You cannot get anywhere near that with a cheap sleeping bag. I would recommend that weight for winter in the Appalachians. See the quilt discussions in the Make your own Gear forum here at BPL.

Walmart also has excellent closed-cell foam sleeping pads in two thicknesses. Both are lightweight and efficient, made by some outfit in Arkansas. The thinnest one is good into the 20s. That pad is 24X72 – much too big for backpackping, IMHO, but it weighs only 15 ounces. Shorten, narrow and taper it to get the weight down to 10-11 ounces.

A. further advice: Keep questioning assumptions about what kind of backpack, stove, cook set, clothing, etc. you need. Read the articles on this and other sites about reducing pack weight and equipment choices. Always question the need for any piece of gear. And remember, the most experienced wilderlings use the least gear.

If you're set on a tent, I've heard good things about the Eureka Spitfire (and Spitfire UL). It's light, small, and you can definitely use it for backpacking. Maybe best of all, it's cheap. I've seen them on ebay for as little as $70, which is a steal for a lightweight tent.

For a sleeping bag, you can take a look at Campmor's line of down bags. They're not the lightest, but they're decently warm and cheap for a down bag.

There's an article on this site called Ultralight Backpacking 101, with a section entitled "Ultralight Ultra Cheap". Definitely worth reading.

The bottom line, as I found out the hard way, is to buy the lightest possible gear you can afford. There's lots of good gear for sale on ebay or on various forums if you have a limited budget. It's a learning experience, and it will take time to find what suits you best. Don't be discouraged if you end up swapping out gear 2 months after you buy it. I think just about everyone goes through it as they learn their style of backpacking…

Check REI-OUTLET. They have a one person tent, Chrysalis UL for $114. It's gotten really good reviews. As for sleeping bag, I would get at least a 15 degree bag. Down or syn. is up to you. Check out campmor.com too. Their hotdeals are usually very good. Finally go to thebackpacker.com and check out their gear review section.

Lance,

I started in much the same spot you are in. I was interested in lighter weight gear but I knew that no way could I abandon a tent. But I tried tarping in a low risk situation … I used an 8×10 blue plastic tarp from Menards while car camping with the tent in the trunk as backup and what do ya know … I didn't die!

After a few trials like that I graduated to 2 person Henry Shires TarpTents, a Squall first and then a Cloudburst. A couple years later I made my own TarpTent 1 from Henry's plans. Its maiden voyage was a fall BWCAW trip with little portaging and I kept a 5lb tent in the bottom of my Duluth pack. It rained a lot, positively poured two of the nights. BWCAW campsites don't necessarily lend themselves to floorless shelters but the tent never came out of my pack and I still slept dry.

If my understanding is correct, you already have a tent that you use for car camping and you'll still be car camping till next spring. Consider buying a $10 tarp and try it on trips where you can have the tent handy in the car for backup. Look around the internet for different ways to pitch tarps, there are dozens and many are quite weather resistant.

Ditto regarding sleeping bags, try using an unzipped sleeping bag like a quilt. That's a low risk low cost test.

Good advice so far.

One thing to keep in mind is that you *may* get significant snow in the Cranberry area, and a 3-season tent will not handle much snow.

Of course, as long as it is car camping, you can always bail to the vehicle.

I'm not sure exactly where you are planning on camping, but do remember to keep an eye on the weather and check on road closings in that area. Many areas in the WV mountains close roads when snowfall is significant.

You can get a much warmer 'bag' by making your own quilt. I went that route after buying my first cheap bag, which was severely over rated on temperature. This is common with cheap bags and something else to keep in mind. By making your own, you know how much insulation you have.

Good luck with your trips this winter – the Cranberry area is beautiful. I've always seen it in '3 season' weather, but I imagine a good snowfall would make it a winter wonderland.

Pam

I'll second Eureka! tents. Excelent quality and low prices.

Eins

Pamela,
Thank you for mentioning this about the area. The weather there can change quickly and drastically, and the wind can really pick up. I recently was in the area with just a tarp, and while it was in the low teens and light snow at night, I would have preferred a tent if the wind kicked in.

I have a Mountain Hardwear PCT1, which weighs a bit over 3 pounds. I was not comfortable with the idea of sleeping under a tarp, even with a bug net, so I understand where you're coming from.

I like the tent very much – it is easy to pitch and roomy for one person. The only downside is that the fly is not vented so you will get some condensation.

Mountain Hardwear has replaced it recently by their Sprite 1 model which is a bit lighter and is billed as a "3.5 season" tent. The Sprite 1 looks very similar to the PCT tent. Check Campmor.com for a good price (around $130 when I checked).

Lance,

My first advice to you would be to save as much money as you can and maybe bump up your price range. As fellow poor college aged male I understand the money limits you have, but i went through this same situation about three years ago, and let me say I ended up spending a lot more money than expected by buying a less expensive tent to start with. My advise to you would be to try to save up a little bit more money, and buy a better (and lighter tent) than what you’ll be able to get for 140. One tent to look at is the Big Agnes Seedhouse SL (either 1 or 2 people). If you are willing to put a little more research into this i would recommend looking at a lot of the smaller companies, because they seem to have more detail in their work and they are usually very light and well crafted.

That being said, if you are pretty set in your price range (as i was), I would suggest looking at REI as they usually have pretty good tents (some are also relatively light). They frequently runs sales and they have an outlet section with a lot of closeout stuff. Another good thing about REI is that you can join their membership club (for free i think) and get a portion of your money back at the end of the year (they call it a dividend), but its a lot easier to spend it with them.

One other idea (and something that I’ve just recently been getting into) is making your own. You can fairly easily make a shelter with a few yards of silnylon, no-see-um mesh, a zipper and a few other items. I have posted a link to a SMD shelter that isn’t too tough. It is enclosed and is little more than a A-frame tarp. The website is here. There are a lot of different shelter designs, this is the one I just finished, and I have been very pleased with it.

On a sleeping bag (and I’m about to be bad-mouthed by everyone on this site), my first bag was a synthetic 20 degree slumberjack bag. It was pretty light (little more than 3 lbs) and relatively small. My best advice would be to find what the coldest temp you’ll be in and make your decision off that. Again, if you can scrape up a little more money, you’ll widen you options. Down is without a doubt the best idea (weight to warmth ratio), but it is also the most expensive.

Hope this helps, and good luck making your decision.

I would like to think this suggestion is a 'good' choice for those of us who are financially challenged with a good sleep system:

USMC Modular Sleeping Bag (MSB) and Bivy Cover

The USMC Modular Sleeping Bag gives you 2 bags in one.
1. Patrol Bag. Rated to 30F.
2. Intermediate Inner Bag. Rated to -10F.
***Zipped together the bags are rated to -30F for extreme cold weather.
Weight: 4.5 lbs for both bags

The USMC Bivy Cover is Gortex and comes seem taped and ready to use. It weighs in at 2.2 lbs. It zips together with the other bags and includes a sizable rain flap and has ample room. Trust me. I weigh in at just over 250 lbs and am 6' 2" tall.

I picked all of these up for $100.00. They retail for $230 or more if you buy them brand new. You would probably be looking at $120-$150 from what I have seen on e-bay and other sites selling these things. Mine was in brand new condition when I got it.

I brought it on a trip where I had significant rain (understatement) and was able to situate myself in the bag so that the bivy cover came up way past my head and I stayed pleanty warm and dry from the weather. I had a poncho/tarp as my back up and only ended up using it as headcover to cook under. The feet and legs were exposed alot of the time (I toss and turn a lot).

With this I feel totally comfortable without a tent and would think you could comfortably try a tarp or go with the cheapest tent you can find. I am a new convert (this year) to bivy bags.

As far as tents go you should keep checking the sales at REI Outlet. I picked up a Sierra Designs Clip 3 a few seasons ago for $130.00. This may be more tent than you need and isn't a 1 person shelter. But after a few years of modifying and getting lighter poles, stakes and lines I have the weight down to 5.1 pounds. It weighed 6.7 when I originally received it.

I hope this helps. Have fun and keep trying new things.

PS: By a Balaclava for your head. Makes a world of difference if you decide to go without a tent and is a favorite of my balding head.

You might be interested in a good quality, solid tent that does everything pretty darn well for most all three-season use at a terrific price….. or pay for a very expensive tent that does all the above plus one or two more aspects.

For a beginner, I would suggest going the first route: getting a pretty darn good tent for a cheap price, rather than spending hundreds of dollars more for something fancier (or the other extreme — paying really dirt cheap price for a lousy tent)

If you agree, then the aforementioned Eureka tents are a great choice. However, REI Outlet has an Alps Mountaineering Orion 1 tent on sale for just $69.93. If there’s an REI store near you, then you can have the tent shipped to your local store for pick up and avoid paying shipping cost.

I would rank Alps Mountaineering at a par with Eureka. Solid tents — favored by scouts for their quality, ease of use, and good value. The Orion is a self-standing dome tent — and just about the easiest tent to use. The mesh inner tent provides 100% bug protection and excellent ventilation while the outside fly provides full weather protection. Unfortunately, no picture of the fly is shown, but it’s blue in color, and provides for a small vestibule at the door end.

That looks just like my Taurus 1 by them. I wonder which came first though.

They really are one and the same. Methinks Alps simply gave the ones distributed to REI a different model name — for whatever marketing reasons, probably at REI's request.

Brett — how are you liking yours?

If memory serves (one can no longer get the Taurus 1 direct) the colors are a bit different too…

I was always interested in teh Taurus 1.5 but they stopped selling it…

nm

I really like mine. There were only two freestanding lightweight options for a person of my height, this and one of the TT Rainbows. I liked this option because once you added the stuff you need to the Rainbow and took it away from the Taurus there only ended up being a one pound difference but over $100 in price. The Taurus is also more versatile because you can don't have to use the rain fly in really hot weather or stake it out real far to vent better or really cinch it down in the cold weather so that it is almost bomproof with its bathtub floor. In fact I might order another one but will wait to tonight so that others can have a crack at one.

holy crap that's a heck of a steal…

Might look at the Sierra Designs Hyperlight AST tent with the great price at REI Outlet right now. The Hyperlight is a two person tent, but its 5 pounds is light for car camping and its very spacious for one person. It's also a very good tent for backpacking with lots of flexibility to deal with weather, good and bad. Plus, if you might have someone else with you at times, the Hyperlight has all the extra space needed without a large weight penalty.

As others have mentioned, REI Outlet has good prices on some other nice lightweight one-person tents in an even lower weight range. But if the two-person Hyperlight interests you, too, here is the link to REI Outlet:

http://www.rei.com/REI-Outlet/product/752452

Retail price $249 is reduced to $169.93, and can take off another %20 with the REI Outlet promo — get's the price down to about $135, or $5 less than you've budgeted.

The Hyperlight has good reviews, including here at BPL and at BackpackGearTest. For example, see the following link with good photos:

http://www.backpackgeartest.org/reviews/Shelters/Tents/Sierra%20Designs%20Hyperlight%20AST%20tent/Owner%20Review%20by%20Ray%20Estrella/

The Hyperlight is a favorite for my wife and me because of its space and ease of pitching, although I try to get away with using our original Squall Tarptent whenever possible to save three pounds. Do have to admit that, if we didn't have the Hyperlight already, we'd buy one — especially at the current REI Outlet price. Have used our Hyperlight above treeline in the fall, with heavy winds and snow, in Washington's Cascades with no problem at all.

With its quality and features, and for the price at REI Outlet, the Hyperlight is a great deal — 5 lbs or not.

JRS

I've been backpacking for decades now so my tent and tarp inventory is moderately large. Last year I got a TarpTent Contrail. It's a single wall tent with mesh ventilation 360 deg. It's a solo tent W/ lots of space and only a little over $100. Plus it's one of the lightest solo tents on the planet. I hate the bugs and other creepy crawlies that come with tarping so I love my Contrail. It's not freestanding but the T.T. Rainbow is, for only a few ounces more.

Many on this forum have TarpTents of one model or another and the quality is great. Before you buy anything look long and hard at Henry Shires TarpTent site.

Eric

Need less ventilation in colder weather?

I would take a look at it as well, it is a 2 person and can be a bit tight with 2 and a 80lbs dog, but can deal with any amount of rain and should be able to handle snow (if you are managing it)… the weight it not bad if divided by 2. Or try the 1 person Sierra Designs tents.

Lightning: 4 lbs (2 person)
http://www.sierradesigns.com/tents.display.php?id=47

LightYear 2 lbs 11oz (1 person)
http://www.sierradesigns.com/tents.display.php?id=45

I prefer a tent myself, and since with 2 people I run around 35oz, I consider this worth it to have a free standing, bomb proof shelter, esp for Colorado. There are plenty of others that as noted are fine with a tarp. I have not used the 1 person lightyear, but did use a 2 person version and it is of course not free standing… It worked well, but did not really have the space to sit up.

All that said, borrow a tent from someone and see what it is like. You can pick up cheap tents on craigs list or ebay… then get a feel for them… Look for people posting tents for sale and ask people you know who camp if they have one you can borrow… then you can just save up for what you are looking for, after trying some various types (free standing, guyed out, and of course try a tarp as they folks here suggest… ). I am not sure I will ever not bring a tent, but I like them for the reasons mentioned and many more…

– Jake