New Tarptent Aeon Li

Magnetic door closures are awesome. Especially when your hands are numb or you have mitts on. I was surprised to see that TT didn’t add a little extra material on the end as a pull tab as the BPL review suggested (and as I’ve sketched below). As is, it looks harder to release with mitts.

I like it! with caveats. It reminds me of a Solomid. And here’s what I didn’t like about my early iteration Solomid: the friggin’ beak that didn’t come down to the ground. Wind could gust up under that beak and turn the tent to a sail. (It never did for me but I didn’t like that aspect.) This tent likewise leaves the entrance awning a bit more up off the ground than I’d like–hard to tell from the pictures. With the entrance pulled straight down flat it does seem to come to the ground–but is that wind/storm worthy? I mean, that’s a real question, I really don’t know.

wow people really jumped in and answered my questions while I showered!.

I like a minimalist solo hiker tent. I spend very little time in a tent given good weather, which is when I try to hike. Who needs a lot of room? I lie down to read and sleep.

I like a minimalist solo hiker tent. I spend very little time in a tent given good weather, which is when I try to hike. Who needs a lot of room? I lie down to read and sleep.

Room is nice when you’re tall and you don’t want your bag or head touching the walls when there’s condensation.

“I’m unfamiliar with corner struts but I don’t understand their function. Feel free to fill me in on this.”
Corner struts in general, and particularly TT’s “Pitch Lock” corner strut design, are useful when you have a shallow wall slope. In this case, the wall would need to extend out much further to have the same space, so the tent would have a larger footprint. So Pitchlock corners basically trim off that outer foot or so of wall that would be very low and thus not really useful. They are also more weather resistant than having a longer wall since the expanse is shorter and thus will collect less snow. Snow can slide off the edges when you have the pitchlocks, rather than accumulate. Another way of thinking about this is that if a tent has a very low roof around the edges, Pitch-Lock corners are one way to improve that.

So the upsides are a smaller footprint for the same space (if you are trimming off the low edges with these) or more space for the same footprint (if you add pitchlocks to an existing shape). The downsides are that the pitchlocks add probably more weight than they save (because the struts are likely heavier than the fabric they trim off) and they need to be removed if you want to pack the tent into a short shape that will store horizontally in your pack.

Here is a quick diagram showing a non-strut (outer) and strut (inner) versions of the same shape. The right side gets a smaller footprint and an area to dump snow with the corner struts. The left side would benefit from less because it’s steeper, so no strut there. Overall, struts are arguably better when you have a shallow wall slope.

 I spend very little time in a tent given good weather, which is when I try to hike. Who needs a lot of room? I lie down to read and sleep.

What happens when good weather turns to bad weather mid-trip?  Some people just don’t enjoy climbing into a tent that feels like a coffin.

^

thats why I have different shelters for different trips/weather forecasts.  (yes some trips are longer where you won’t have accurate weather.. but it should be within a spectrum)

Apart from the reduced footprint, those PitchLoc corners( if set up correctly) allow to put those panels in much greater tension than staking a corner down.

I shot a quick video clip to show how I do it

the other major advantage of the Aeon over other solo shelters is that a 7′ tall person does fit in :

In that second picture, the 7 footer looks pretty close to the ends. So if they were on a 2.5″ thick pad and in a sleeping bag/quilt, it appears they’d be touching the ends, as others have commented. Even without a sleeping bag, that’s awfully close to touching the fly considering it’s a single wall where you want to be safe distance away since it may be wet.

The length specs are 88″ and a 7 footer is 84″, so that’s a theoretical 2″ of gap at either end for the sleeping bag. I don’t see how 2″ minus the thickness of a sleeping bag = safe distance to the fly. Perhaps I’m misjudging this.

The closest competition here is the Plexamid, which has the same height (48″) and is slightly longer (89″ vs 88″). The Aeon looks to have more sleeping bag clearance because there is a pitch lock corner at one of the two end corners, but since the other end corner still slopes to the ground, I don’t see a major advantage. Either way, 95+% of hikers will fit.

I say this because I’m genuinely unclear why this is one of the points being emphasized. I agree the Aeon does have major advantages over the Plexamid, but I think the more impressive ones are the simpler pitch (fewer stakes), mesh door that doesn’t fall in the dirt, stormworthyness, better floor tensioning, and increased volume from the Pitch Lock corners.

I have always wondered why short struts are not used a whole lot more on tarps. Assuming mild weather, they can convert a rather basic tarp just adequate for people never taller than about 5′ 6″ into a respectable shelter for people over 6′.

I see little problem about rolling the tents up with the struts in place: you know they are there, so roll accordingly. Simple, really.

I am less confident about the use of such a design in the high mountains under high winds, but I readily accept that tarps are not meant for those conditions anyhow so that is not a criticism.

Yeah, we need some independent field testing!

Cheers

Agreed, rolling the tent up with the struts in place may not be a problem, but that’s assuming you have a roomy pack. However, it might be a consideration if you have a small, frameless pack, which is the point I believe Matthew K was making earlier in the thread.

Of course you could always remove the struts and pack them separately, but this adds extra faff at set-up and breakdown. What I would really love to see is collapsible “pitch-loc” corners that could be folded without removing them, thus enabling a smaller packed-size. A bit like Terra Nova did with the struts on their Laser Competition tent a few years back.

Anyhow, the Aeon looks to be a wonderful design! In fact, we are now spoiled for choice in the ~1lb, fully-enclosed shelter category, a category that was inconceivable not that many years ago!

Educate me.
Why could you not roll the tent up, pbag it in a small stuff sack, and strap it to the top of your tiny frameless pack UNDER the lid?
Eh – you could even use the stuff sack cord as a safety link onto your frameless pack so you don’t lose it (the tent).

Cheers

Despite the struts, with four fewer stakes, the Aeon Li weight is very close to the Plexamid, depending on which stakes you use. Option to pitch without a front guyline is nice, too.

Guessing $600 to $650, we’ll get a final price next year.

Tempting …

— Rex

Hey Rog, what if your small pack doesn’t have a lid, as mine doesn’t?

I suppose you could put it on top of the roll under the top strap, but I hate having anything on the outside.

I still think this has to go in vertically but that’s not a criticism, it just is what it is.

I think 30 cms is the ideal maximum rolled length (without removing the struts) for a wee 30L sack like the WT Sonder, SWD 30 for example and probably even a (WT Luxmore) 40L.

If someone sends me one I promise to try it out and report back.

I still am guessing $399 AUD!

At today’s exchange rate $399 AUD would be $287 USD.

That would be just unbelievable, in fact I don’t believe it…

“Educate me.
Why could you not roll the tent up, pbag it in a small stuff sack, and strap it to the top of your tiny frameless pack UNDER the lid?”

i did that for a while with my Notch and Kumo until I caught the stuffsack on a tree and barbed wire on the same trip. Neither ripped the sack but it motivated me to carry my shelter inside my pack where it has more protection. That would be even more important with a DCF shelter.

“i did that for a while with my Notch and Kumo until I caught the stuffsack on a tree and barbed wire on the same trip.”

Roger – Everyone does not hike in the kind of country you do.  Some of us are deep in the thick, briar-infested woods, not clinging to a windy, rock and lichen strewn cliffside…not that there’s anything wrong with that :-)

As usual looks well thought out.

The strut objection is a non issue.

I’ve used tarptents regularly since early 2011. Then I often carried my Scarp 1 in an unframed Golite Jam.

In summer now I carry a Notch inside a GG Kumo.

Vertically at one side outside the packliner but inside the main bag.  It really is a non issue.  Never had any balance/weight distribution issues. Everything else in the pack weighs something?

Struts rock!

Some people love to find problems where solutions are obvious.

Yeah, point taken about thick scrub. Inside the pack.

Cheers

The Aeon is very light.

I’d prefer the room of the Notch Li but perhaps in my geezerhood I’ll require the light weight of the Aeon.

Seems Henry is beginning to realize we Baby Boomers will need lighter and lighter gear. Of course I’d use one of my carbon fiber hiking poles for the Aeon. Anything heavier would be out of character. ;o)

Good name B/C it may take me an (A)eon to creep up the trail to my nightly campsite. (Now where’d I put my Alleve?)

BTW, I do see my geezerhood “add lightness” motto in my new 6 lb. 1 oz. Browning X-Bolt Pro rifle with its carbon fiber stock (yes!) and fluted barrel and bolt.

Eric, I’m not sure if the Notch is roomier.  It has two doors/vestibules but it’s also double walled meaning less internal space.  The Aeon is 30″ wide the whole length and is 4″ taller and longer than the Notch Li.

“At today’s exchange rate $399 AUD would be $287 USD.

That would be just unbelievable, in fact I don’t believe it…”

Curses! Foiled again.

“Good name B/C it may take me an (A)eon to creep up the trail to my nightly campsite” You card!

PS  Eric I think the Aeon might be roomier than the Notch.

Love it if you could comment after you had seen one after the other!

Value your judgement. Thinking of getting one.

Keep warm- 34 C here today. Megalite’s resting for a while.

Cheers Graham

I couldn’t find the information, so a question – as a non-trekking pole user, what would be the appropriate sized single pole to buy?

Also, I apparently didn’t read the entire thread carefully enough, but how does the vestibule seal closed… zipper, velcro? I saw mention of magnets here, but not on TT’s site…

Thx all.

Here’s a similar tent that I made in 1975.  Proportions look different from Aeon because this one is 4+ feet high .  Weight was nearly 3 lbs with the materials I had available at the time.

Here’s a similar tent that I made in 1975. Proportions look different from Aeon because this one is 4+ feet high . Weight was nearly 3 lbs with the materials I had available at the time.

Very clever!

I started backpacking in 1975 with a Jansport pack… looks like that may be what’s sitting next to the tent.

Thanks for that blast-from-the-past…

The magnets are to keep the vestibule doors open like on the Notch Li it looks to have the same type of  door closure system, you can see at approximately 2 min. in on THIS VIDEO .