Small 1-person tent for my little cub scout

My cubs & siblings have been happy with the Eureka Solitaire, and they've stood up to kids well. They're also the envy of their peers at pack campouts – "You get your OWN tent? I have to sleep with my parents and older sister!"

But at 2.5 pounds, they're not real lightweight. I dunno about your 7yo, but a real light tent would never have survived mine.

Tarptent Moment or Scarp?

If he is moving to a good boy scout troop they will teach the patrol method….so no solo tent. I'd be looking at a rei half dome 2 for 2 boys to share.

Erica – I have a new Eureka Solitaire that I will give you for postage. Brand new,never used and won't be used, but for this purpose might be ideal. About 2.5 lbs., but not so fragile. PM me if you think it will fit the bill. Thanks- Russ

For safety boy scouts/cub scouts are required not to sleep in a tent or room by themselves when on scout outings. Parents or other boys only allowed to sleep in the tent. So the tent will be for non scouting trips if it really is sized for one boy. I used the cheapest small two man tent I could find for my kid (a cheap stansport from big 5) so if he destroyed it, I wasn't too upset. The alps tents are nice for the price if you get one on discount but are heavy for folks on BP. pm me if you want to know more about the alps scout program.

The head repair guy for a top tent company suggested to me that tents can't do much against human factors of damage. In cubscouts we minimized bottom punctures from improper site selection by bringing ugly blue tarps for footprints.

For dogs, kids and inebriated friends the best mitigation is affordability of replacements. Walmart and Costco both sell car camping (4lb tents) for $20-40. I also use a walmart tent for myself when car camping to save durability on my UL gear. They work pretty well and aren't complicated (2 poles, 4 stakes). Takes 5 minutes to setup instead of 2 because of the pole sleaves instead of quick clips.

I did not know about the patrol method in the sense of sleeping in tents. I was assuming that he would be able to sleep alone, as long as he is near the rest of the group. I have heard that some troops are actually moving towards hammocking, to get even more LNT, but wouldn't that lead towards obviously being alone while sleeping? Or maybe it's allowed in boy scouts and not cub scouts? I guess I was also wanting him to get used to being solo, so that when we will go out together this summer, I can hang (which I prefer) and he could just be next to me on the ground. He has tried my hammocks, but doesn't like the feel of being above ground. (That will change hopefully!)

I guess I will keep looking for a lightweight small 2 person….

Scouts can sleep outside with other boys, cowboy camping, so I think hammock camping would be the same. The concern is having a boy alone in an enclosed space (tent, room, etc.). My troop has tents for our boys. We do not require boys to bring their own.

Here's a link to the national policy.

http://www.scouting.org/Training/youthprotection.aspx

I wouldn't spend much money on a tent for your son because most boys his age destroy gear. Good luck.

Scout Tenting – Like pretty much everything else in Scouting, there are the official rules and then there is the way that individual Scout units run things. So regardless of the rules, you need to check with the Cubmaster of his Cub Scout Pack, and ultimately the Scoutmaster of his Boy Scout Troop, to see what the local practice is. If he's really a Wolf Scout (7 yo), then his Boy Scout experience is far enough in the future that the Troop practice may well change before he gets there, so the only thing that matters right now is how your Cub Scout Pack does things.

The official rule for Cubs is that the boys camp with their families. In Packs I've been associated with, this has variously meant that the whole family is in one big tent, that the family can be in multiple tents on a single campsite, or that family adults are in their own tents while boys are in shared tents or cabins. The only thing you won't find is boys in a tent/cabin with unrelated adults.

If there's a rule that Boy Scouts can't be in one-man shelters, I've never run across it, and I know many Boy Scout units that don't enforce it.

Also keep in mind – in most Cub Packs there will be a maximum of 2-3 camping opportunities in a calendar year. Depending on how much you get out with your own son, you may control the majority of his camping experience. So do whatever the heck is right for you.