Packable tent

[Michael Y]

<p style=”text-align: center;”>Looking for info on the lightest most packable tent. I am 6’1 and use a large neoair. What tent can anyone recommend . I have an altaplex but don’t want to deal with the extra needed length of the trekking pole. My plexamid, aeon li, notch li, all have stays, they don’t pack well… any taller hikers have experience with the hexamid solo? Open to any brand tent that packs down, doesn’t need a special trekking pole and is around 1 pound. Thanks for any info</p>

[Matthew / BPL]

TT Protrail?

[Michael Y]

Any experience with mld solomid’s??? I am using a durston xmid now and the weight is the only negative. But the double wall is great.

[dirtbag]

Six Moon Designs Lunar Solo??

Slightly heavier then your 1 lb requirement but packs down stupid small and sets up quickly and you will have plenty of room with a large neo air inside…

[Michael Y]

I have a six moons skyscape trekker, the pvc/whatever it is ridge support tube is a little “cheap” to me and I’m not a fan. Does the solo have the same middle support tube? Kind of ruined six moons for me. I have never owned a duplex, from what I’m finding it might be my only option.

[Opogobalus]

You can only have “lightest” and “most packable” for whatever your comfort and safety requirements are..

But in general, avoid DCF if you want packable. Go DCF if you want lightest. The material is bulky.

Silpoly and silnylon take less volume but are heavier (you can go down to some of those 7D fabrics, which get close to the same weights as DCF and will presumably be the lowest volume).

Don’t get anything with struts.

Something hybrid with a built in inner will be lowest volume (less material) if you want a fully enclosed shelter with permanent bug protection and permanent floor. Some kind of tarp will be lighter and smaller when you don’t need those things – so the modularity might be useful if you want to be as packable and light as possible when you’re able to go without floor and bug netting.

Within silnylon/silpoly tents it’s probably a safe assumption that the lightest options are also the most packable. It’s kind of a redundant requirement until you’ve defined your other needs.

The tiniest tarp, made of the lightest possible silnylon/silpoly, that you can get under with the most aggressively uncomfortable pitch in the rain will be furthest you can go on the light/packable spectrum. Maybe supplement it with a trash bag for your legs, or rig something with your rain shell or umbrella for more coverage so you can reduce the tarp dimensions even more.

[Michael Y]

Has to have a floor and be fully enclosed for bug protection. Any thing I come across to accommodate a tall hiker has some stipulation , trekking pole extender , or some type of stays. I seen that liteAF had a prototype tent that looked perfect. Dcf, double wall, no stays, no special pole, and accommodated large hikers. with liteaf not continuing with that tent that I was hoping for I’m back to square one.

mld solomid fits the ticket but it weights just about as much as my xmid1.

[dirtbag]

No tube or anything like that on Lunar Solo. It packs ridiculously small. 1 trekking pole to pitch.

[dirtbag]

[Michael Y]

Does the lunar solo have a dcf option??? It weights the same as the xmid.

[dirtbag]

Nope. No DCF.

Im my experience.. DCF does NOT pack well. My Duplex did not pack small at ALL. And all of my DCF hammock tarps do not pack that small either.  I personally prefer the sil poly for a small weight penalty and much smaller pack space then the DCF.

 

[Michael Y]

So the DD xmid is my best bet.

[Michael B]

The weight difference between many of the tents which are offered in DCF and Sil is usually 2-3 oz, so there need to be other metrics to score with. It sounds like you value both weight and volume, but DCF and Sil usually trade those two. Have you considered a solo tarp with a mesh tent? An a-frame setup with those two, like a Yama Cirraform would likely fit the bill, but without knowing what your volume limits are, you are not going to get many suggestions. If it was me, I’d design and make my own to meet my needs (and I have).

what volume constraint are you working with?

[Michael Y]

This is all for a 4 day trip to the desert in AZ. So very limited trees. So a tarp set up would not be optimal if I can’t find many trees. Also the hard rock soil makes me think I want as few stakes as possible. Kind of puts me in a specific requirement for shelter.

 

anything I find that offers me a great weight savings has some sort of stays that limit packability.

[Michael B]

I am unsure what problems you have using a tarp if trees are not present – do you not use trekking poles, or are you trying to not use trekking poles? I’ve setup a-frames and half pyramids almost exclusively with trekking poles. My 9×9 with mesh tent weighed in about 16oz if I recall correctly, splash protection at both ends. I turned the tarp into a solo single wall pyramid, since I was board. It is, I believe, also about 16oz. It was my first try at a pyramid (pic shows it without its cap), I’ll be trying another prototype when I get around to it. Both are QUITE packable.

[Michael B]

I am unsure what problems you have using a tarp if trees are not present – do you not use trekking poles, or are you trying to not use trekking poles? I’ve setup a-frames and half pyramids almost exclusively with trekking poles. My 9×9 with mesh tent weighed in about 16oz if I recall correctly, splash protection at both ends. I turned the tarp into a solo single wall pyramid, since I was board. It is, I believe, also about 16oz. It was my first try at a pyramid (pic shows it without its cap), I’ll be trying another prototype when I get around to it. Both are QUITE packable.

[Sandy Hilton]

Yama Mountain Gear Cirriform. The advantage the of front entry like the cirriform and Protrail is you get more useable length. Great for tall people.

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

“So the DD xmid is my best bet.”
It’s pretty close to as small as it gets. A singlewall tent will pack smaller than a doublewall, as long as it doesn’t add other things like struts or thicker fabrics. If you found a tent that was even lower denier fabrics, singlewall, less featured, and maybe physically smaller than you could save packed size.

[Brad P]

Yama Mountain Gear Cirriform. The advantage the of front entry like the cirriform and Protrail is you get more useable length. Great for tall people.

The new 1p Cirriform has the option of front or side entry. I have the new 1p Cirriform but I’ve only had the chance to set it up once, not camping time.

I’m 6’2″ and got the Extra 6″ long version. I’m looking forward to getting it out and testing it.

Its downside is requiring more stakes than other shelters. I’d read that it was difficult to set up, but my first time setting it up wasn’t really that difficult. The catenary cut helps getting it taut and I think it’s very storm worthy based on a video I saw of it next to other shelters in strong wind.

The primary downside is that it’s not currently available, so you have to wait for a run of them.

Dan’s tent looks great, simpler setup and is more readily available. It wouldn’t have so many fans if it weren’t a great tent.

[Opogobalus]

I’ve owned both a cirriform and currently own an xmid (1 and 2).

The cirriform is easy to set up – it was the first trekking pole tent I owned and I was pleased by how simple and intuitive it is. The geometry is easy to intuit, and the cat cuts are forgiving. I guess it would inherently be a longer set up, simply because it requires 3 more stakes.

So far I’ve spent more time fiddling to get a good pitch on you can set up the xmid with 4 stakes, despite the seemingly simpler set up, but I’m never camping anywhere with a stable enough system to leave home with less than 6 stakes + I find it hard to get a satisfactory ridgeline without 6 stakes. Realistically I usually take 8-10 on trips longer than 2 days, so the stake weight doesn’t really end up being less – if you do lots of one night trips with predictable weather patterns you could save weight with the x-mid.

Side entry on the new cirriform is pretty cool, though if don’t like front entry (I don’t care either way), you’re going to have to use front entry in the rain, which is presumably the worst time to use front entry if you don’t like crawling in/falling in backward.

Price is an obvious huge difference. But if you care about supporting small businesses in the states, and one of the few cottages that seem to genuinely be making an attempt at reducing its environmental impact, then Yama is a good place to support. Customer service is top tier. I’ve heard Drop’s service is adequate (I haven’t needed to find out), and Dan’s feedback and responsiveness is second-to-none.

Supposedly the factory Drop uses is above par on employee welfare and other things people are concerned with regarding overseas labour – I haven’t dug deep enough to really know. As a result of using a factory with high standards, the x-mids are made of top tier materials and near-perfect constructions (my first gen x-mid 1p looks a lot more “raw” than my newer x-mid 2 – but certainly still above the level of a lot of cottages).

YMG are among the best of the cottages with sewing standards – to my amateur eye, I’ve never seen anything questionable, which seems to be consensus in reviews. My cirriform was 15% off as a “second” as the fabric was discoloured in a patch and a tie-out had been re-sewn on. I couldn’t find any evidence of the re-sewn patch (it had been put on backwards I think) and the “discolouration” took a lot of searching to find a very marginal faded patch less than the size of a credit card. I thought that spoke to Gen’s high standards, when you see the stuff companies like zpacks send out at $600+

Both are great tents, I only don’t have the cirriform now as my whole bag got lost by a bus company a few years ago so i was curious about other options (insurance refused to pay for over a year).

If I was tall I’d go with the cirriform. If I was likely to use it modularly with a bivy sometimes, I think the shape would work better than the x-mid. Otherwise the x-mid is great.

[CHRIS S]

TT Protrail LI

 

[Evan E.]

Take a look at the Gossamer Gear 2020 The One, there are still some on sale. Very packable, light, and fairly roomy inside.

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