Your Thoughts on the New GG The One

IMHO The One is just a lightweight A-frame tent – period. Its design is ancient and has been surpassed many times in recent decades. There are better options of variations of the A-frame and other more ingenious designs.

Crystal G,
Did read your OP, but IMO the One is not suitable for backpacking, period. For the reasons I stated. If you’ve ever seen a tent that does not ‘button up’ in a heavy blow, and noted the incredible forces generated when the canopy ‘balloons,’ I think you’d get my drift.

Having hiked in Northeastern New England like forever, I think you may underestimate how quickly the weather can unexpectedly turn nasty in the mountains. You say, 1-5 days. If you are going to use the tent for up to 5 days, that is plenty of time to experience horrid weather you could not plan for. Windstorms in the Whites can be as bad as one will encounter anywhere, and they often come with a rain and/or hail storm.

The primary purpose of a tent is protection in bad weather. And from the bugs of course, but they won’t give you hypothermia, which is a killer. Even a day or so is plenty of time to hike to a place you can’t get quickly out of in nasty weather. And things can go sideways in the middle of the night. We had a long drought this last summer that was atypical, more like sunny CAL. One can’t count on that ordinarily being the case.

I got caught recently hiking a few days in the spring, and staying near the top of a typical 4000′ NH mountain, just a day’s hike from the nearest road. Fortunately, I was in a closed shelter, but would have been OK using the tent. The weather was fine until after midnight, when heavy, freezing rain arrived. I could not leave in the middle of the night, and I had no traction spikes to get safely down the mountain. Waited until daylight, and it took forever to get down the icy mountain trail, where I had a day’s hike through rain and rushing water to get back to the car. Without the shelter, or a reliable tent, I would have been in a dangerous situation. That is one of several close shaves I could mention. As it was, by the time I got to the car I was soaked despite the raingear, and had avoided hypothermia only by the exertion of constantly moving quickly. That was planned for a four day hike, and turned out to be 3 days.

I differ from many on BPL by wanting to stay bone dry in a tent, so use only double walls. You may find you have a different take on that one.

You asked me about one of the TarpTent single wall DCF models; but I’ve yet to be persuaded that DCF is worth the money; but again, you may come to a different conclusion.

But I can’t overstate the need to get a tent you can rely on. You probably already have one with the X-Mid. If you want to go much lighter for much more money, Tarptent makes two DCF tents with double walls. I’ve never tried the single wall Zpacks tents, so can’t comment about those. When they first came out, they needed 14 or so stakes, and that turned me off right from the get-go. My current tent is a modified Australian one that takes six stakes, with or without the guylines, weighs 2 lbs 7 oz plus stakes and stuffsacks, and accommodates me and two Shetland Sheep Dogs.

Just wanted to post a quick follow up.  When I posted I kind of knew that nothing really was striking me as a compelling purchase because I am usually pretty good about making a decision.  Then, based on everyone’s input here (thanks to all of you), and Dan’s help in getting my X-Mid pitched low, I have decided to hold off on a purchase for now.  I used Dan’s advice and stuck my X-Mid 1 in my yard during a heavy rainstorm pitched as low as possible. I wasn’t in the tent but I stuck a polypro bathtub floor I made inside to see if moisture ended up there.  When I checked it later, my low pitch seems to have solved at least one of my two primary concerns with the X-Mid – everything was dry.  Yes, I still wish the inner was wider, but this is not enough of an issue that I feel compelled to get a new tent right now.

This decision was made even easier when my college age son arrived home for Thanksgiving and said he was interested in hiking the High Sierra Trail with me this summer.  He is over 6’4″ with size 14.5 feet.  Normally when we backpack as a family he shares a cheap Alps Mountaineering 3P tent with my husband (it is very heavy, but perfect for putting a bunch of teenagers in with no worries of damage – to the teens or the tent).  This means the tent hunt may move in an entirely different direction – so I think waiting for a bit makes sense and maybe I will just save for a really light DCF tent in a year or so.

Once again, thanks everyone.