Tunnel Tents Tutorial and State of the Market Report – Part 1: Definition and Pitching

"I had one of those blue and white Flashlights. Used it till it disintegrated. Still being made. Amazing since it came out in 83?"

Yeah, but the newer ones are heavier :(

Running the poles through the sleeves makes the old one more stable and less flapping in the wind. The lack of a vestibule is a bummer… but that probably makes it lighter. Plus new newer one has a lot of buckles and other nonsense. But I have always been partial to Sierra Design tents. Pretty good products at a reasonable price.

And here is my first tent… not a tunnel, not light (5.5 lbs), not good in snow, single wall & condensation, and not that good in wind. But hey, not a lot available almost 50 years ago.

Hi Nick

I have one very similar, but in green Japara (cotton) fabric, with little walls at the sides. it was my pride and joy in the Boy Scouts (early 60s).

Cheers

Miguel well said. In the UK we find the wind the main issue camping as it's exposed a lot. Trailstar now has a cult following. Everyone it seems wants one.

Roger a superb article and thank you for writing it. Tunnel tents are superb. I have a Vango one. Cheap, superb and good in the wind. External guy points and internal tension band gives rigidity to the poles and it works great. Space is good for two. Just hardly use it. Solo its a bit overkill.

I had to smile at the Arctic exploration tent photo you shared. When I read about trips across ice caps, or attempts to get to the South pole. I normally see three pole tunnel tents are the tent of choice. Tells you all you need to know about how good they are.

Look forward to more. Nice to see you back sharing here.

I had one of those SMD Flashlights (the same as shown in the earliest photos above) from the mid-1980's and a later Clip Flashlight (because I gave the old one to my daughter) from the mid-1990's. Both were condensation traps because of the outward-sloping screen door, which meant the fly had to be zipped up tight even in the merest drizzle. (I note that the door of the most recent version shown above is nearly vertical, most definitely an improvement.) Especially in the clip version, I had puddles of condensation on the floor and my sleeping bag in the mornings. That's why I now insist on a single-wall tent with lots of ventilation–at least I can reach the condensation to wipe it off! It was good in strong winds, though, especially the one with the sleeves. The Clip version is easier to set up but not as strong, IMHO. I'm not sure why it had more condensation than the old one, since the door situation was the same in both.

Speaking of weather, I just saw this post on the PCT-L from subtropical (?) southern California (Mt. Laguna): "at 5pm [Pacific Daylight time], 30F, 40mph wind and quite a bit of snow…" [-1 C, 65 kph, "quite a bit" doesn't translate to metric :-) ] I pity the PCT hikers out there right now!

While my Gossamer Gear/Tarptent Squall Classic is not quite a hoop tent, the back end is a hoop, the front is V-shaped (and uses my trekking pole, so nice and strong), it has side guylines, is nicely streamlined and has a low profile. I've found that it does very well in strong winds. It's of course more vulnerable to side winds than a tent with more than one hoop, but it has done extremely well for me so far. It's a great design by Henry Shires (I have the 2009 version) and I'm sorry that GG discontinued it!

I'll wait patiently for Addie to do her thing with Part 2, and I look forward to more comments from Roger. It's amazing how much interest this article is getting! Hopefully it will inspire more of us to think outside the box, or rather, outside the pyramid and dome!

Hi Sam

> the tunnels don't seem to lend themselves to netting along the length of the tent, on both sides.
Well, having netting along both sides of a single-skin tent is actually quite easy.

This shows one of my summer tents with dark netting along both sides. Good ventilation from those gaps, but no insects. And the middle of the tent is not much higher than then ends. Yes, there is at least a 50 mm gap between the top of the bathtub and the fly.

Yes, we can get some condensation, but I have been pleasantly surprised at times by how little we get. The high ventilation outlets and the low inlet ventilation is at least partly responsible for this – combined with the heat output from two bodies driving the convection flow.

> We see pole sleeves less and less now in the US, and more and more clips. They seem to
> think we are too lazy or stupid to thread sleeves, so must have the clips, despite the downsides.
For which you can blame either the marketing departments, or their possibly correct assessment of the vast newbie market. Consumer appeal outranks functionality every day.

Cheers

@ Roger & Inaki, etc. re: VauDe

FYI – Vaude have taken a unique approach to clips, which mitigates some of their inherent problems, but at the cost of weight and unnecessary complexity:

link to article w/ photos

As far as I know, all of their "power" line of tents have a similar system which locks the clips in place on the poles and is quite rigid. I had one of them, but returned it, because the weight was unjustifiable, IMHO:

Agreed: sleeves are tried & true when done properly.

Hi Bio

Yeah, I looked at the Vaude tents. They still have the top of the door overhanging the groundsheet, which has GOT to be the sign of incompetence in design. I mean, for that amount of money, you get snow and rain inside the bathtub?

And the clips still can rip out of the seams: the stress is too localised. Their excuse for using clips is just that: an excuse for putting cheapness over performance.

Cheers

Really liked this article, Roger. Your writing style is infectious. I will toss my few cents in. I have been the proud owner of a first-gen TNF Westwind and it is still proudly serving me in harsh winters (except for this one!) in the Wasatch. One thing drives me nuts on most of the older tunnel designs, including the original Westwind: non-continuous sleeves. Nothing is worse than fiddling with 12 (!) different sleeves with a 50 MPH driving blizzard . The designs seem to have changed so that's a good thing.

On the weather thing, I am in Salt Lake and when March rolls around, it means it's canyon time. I just got back from five days in Grand Gulch and saw everything from 80 degree days to 25 degree nights, rain, snow and swirling 80 MPH dust-devils. To be clear, this is normal for the Southwest in shoulder (read: available water sources) season. Most people aren't wandering around the Maze in August because of availability of water, so I'll call the 'shoulder season' the 'real season' in the south west. I have really seen it all, including surprise 10-inch blizzards (and a small but definite earthquake this last week!), but really, we can count on wind and plenty of it. Mix a two-day 70mph gale with sand and you get the idea. I am just pointing out that weather means many things to many people and no, we aren't sitting around in bikinis sipping mai tais in the sun out here in the west. Well, not all the time at least.

Summer rolls around and we're talking about the Wasatch, Sawtooths, Wind Rivers, Uintas, San Juans, etc. Daily thunderous downpours, ever-present threat of snow and massive winds. So weather is a problem no matter what.

I have been using a Lightheart Gear Solo for the last year from March until November and it has been perfect other than some blowing sand/snow inside the tent, which I don't care about. I will not use it in winter and would never use the Westwind in the summer. Hard to argue that one is better than the other, however. They both serve a purpose.

> no, we aren't sitting around in bikinis sipping mai tais
What colour bikini?
Sorry – my very bad sense of humour. :-)

Cheers

I am partial to camouflage, personally. Thankfully, my lady friends are not! I am looking forward to part 2 of this series. Very good analysis.

Best.

Hey Roger,
Here is a larger tent for you to check out:
http://www.alaskatent.com/oven/aopipeline.html#
Not for backpacking but for base camp it is getting quite a bit of use up in Alaska. In places like Kodiak and Western Alaska that gets 70+mph winds and terrible amount of rain it has held up well. (Alaska is part of the United States I think we can compare our weather)

I am going to start building copies of Rodgers tunnel tent. Could all potential customers please provide feedback, as to what you would like to see in the finished product. Price points, colors, other features, etc. I dont know anything about tunnel tents, but it should be pretty easy, Rodger has already done most of the work.