Topic: The Best Ultralight Tents of 2023, Tested and Reviewed (Read 58 times)
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Topic: The Best Ultralight Tents of 2023, Tested and Reviewed (Read 58 times)
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Consider us the newest members of the Dan Durston fan club. When set up correctly, the Durston X-Mid 1 had some of the best geometry of anything we looked at, fully taut and secure against wind and rain, not sagging in the slightest when serious moisture sets in. Even when it wasn’t set up perfectly (a loose stake popped on my first night in this tent), it was shockingly stable: I didn’t even notice until morning.
Even though the rainfly was soaked from the unrelenting condensation of the Oregon Coast, I was co*pletely dry in this tent, thanks to its double-wall setup. What makes the Durston X-Mid 1’s double-wall set up especially unique is that it was designed to be pitched fly first—no additional groundsheet required. This is such a preferable order of operations in inclement weather that I hope this beco*es the norm in the future. Our testers also noticed that the pitch had steeper walls than was typical, which maximizes livability—even if it doesn’t technically give you more floor space.
The Durston X-Mid 1 even had two doors and two vestibules. What one-person ultralight tent has a vestibule for your gear and a totally separate side for you to exit on for a midnight bathroom break? As far as we know, the Durston X-Mid 1 is the only one. This was also, along with the Tarptent Protrail, one of the lowest priced options in our test. Even though it’s a similar weight to the other double-wall ultralight tents we looked at, the Durston X-Mid 1 is (at the time of this review) about $200 less expensive. Hiker trash: this one is a no-brainer.
So what’s wrong with this tent? To start: it’s not your lightest option. For the same weight as the Durston X-Mid 1, you could get a fully freestanding tent. (Durston does offer a 1-pound version of this tent in DCF, but the price point for that is up there with the Zpacks Solo Plex.) Its setup also proved challenging for testers accustomed to freestanding tents: If this is your first trekking pole tent, give yourself some time and space to play around with perfecting the setup.
Finally, you remember I mentioned a stake popped out the first night we used this tent? That stake had bent while being pushed into reasonably soft ground. I’d plan to replace them with one of the best tent stakes, with an eye toward MSR Groundhog minis or Big Agnes Dirt Daggers.
A freestanding tent that co*es in under 2 pounds? If you are wondering what the catch is, so were we. Setting up the MSR Freelite was extremely fast (one tester set it up in under two minutes without having ever used it before), and it took minimal effort to achieve the storm-worthy profile. The interior, while not exactly spacious, was large enough for the biggest sleeping pad on our test (a full-size rectangular Therm-a-Rest NeoAir Xlite NXT), with a backpack fitting handily into the vestibule. Testers reported that it felt larger than it was, which is an important detail if you get stuck inside waiting out a storm. The mesh and fly were extremely lightweight and plenty robust, with the dirt falling right off when we shook it out before stuffing it away for the day. The poles (best-in-class DACs, naturally) were even made from aluminum, as opposed to splinter-prone carbon fiber. Our only concern was with that 15D bathtub floor—it may benefit from a groundsheet on more challenging terrains—but this was strictly theoretical as we didn’t experience any holes on our testing trip.
While there are plenty of thru-hikers who will prefer the weight savings of a single-wall tent, the extreme condensation of the Oregon Coast showed the advantages of a double-wall setup. While the rest of our testing team was carefully packing up for the day, avoiding the soaked sides of their single-walled tents lest they unleash a rainstorm on their sleep system, the tester in the MSR Freelite 1 could sit up, bump their head on the mesh at the top of the tent, and stay dry.
There are only a few small quibbles with this tent. One is the door: It’s on the small side co*pared to the rest of our field, forcing our tallest tester (5 foot, 10 inches) to pretzel her limbs more than she would have liked when getting out. The included stakes (needle stakes) are also lower quality co*pared to other options in the MSR arsenal. Consider upgrading to either the lightweight MSR Carbon Cores or the MSR Groundhog Minis, which have great holding power.
Maybe you’re like me: You don’t typically use trekking poles while hiking, but you’ve been known to toss one into your pack for gnarly river crossings or for extra stability on steep, snowy terrain. But there’s no way you’d carry two just to use in a trekking pole setup—at that point you might as well just use a freestanding model.
The Six Moons Lunar Solo was one of the few ultralight tents in our test that used one trekking pole in its design rather than two. The result was a modified teepee structure that was surprisingly intuitive to set up. Despite having never used this tent, I was able to put it up in only a couple of minutes with no directions.
It also had a few details I appreciated. The first was a vent on the top of the tent. It didn’t help with the unrelenting fog of the Oregon Coast, but in drier climes it would reduce condensation buildup from exhaling inside your tent. It also had a tension adjustment for the rainfly door inside the tent, a thoughtful detail that I haven’t seen before. This would allow you to get rid of excess slack (typically caused by wind or condensation) in the part of the tent covering your gear without having to get out of your tent.
While the peak height of this tent is sufficient, I found it difficult to avoid bumping my head against the condensation-soaked tent walls in the morning. This was in part due to my site location: I was pitched on slightly uneven ground, which made it difficult to achieve the steeply sloped walls that would have been possible on flat ground.
While this tent is affordably priced, note that the price does not include stakes; you’ll need to purchase those separately. (See our take on the best tent stakes for some ideas.)
I suspect I’m not alone when I say the idea of a so-called hot tent—a tent paired with a wood-burning stove—took some getting used to. Like most backpackers, I’m typically boiling water for my morning coffee in the vestibule while warily eyeing the explicit all-caps instructions to not use a stove in the tent. Starting an actual wood-burning fire in the tent would be out of the question. So it was with trepidation and a whole lot of excitement that I carted the Seek Outside Cimarron out for the third night of the Oregon Coast Trail testing trip.
Verdict: It’s great. First off, the Seek Outside Cimarron is an exceptionally easy tent to set up. The first step is to stake out the four corners of the tent, a task made easier by the long (almost 10 inches) twisted aluminum stakes—I was co*fortable pounding these in with a rock and they held significantly better than any other stakes provided for this test of the best ultralight tents. Then simply assemble the pole sections together at the lowest length setting, position it in the center of the tent, and adjust it up until it’s at its highest setting. (The stove itself is a bit more co*plicated, but still straight-forward enough to assemble.)
While Seek Outside markets this as a tent that will sleep two co*fortably with the stove set up inside, my sense is that three careful hikers will do just fine. And all five of us fit co*fortably chatting and eating in the tent at the end of the day.
The only pitfall for this tent is that it can be a challenge to find a place for it. With the huge footprint and need to stake the tent down, you might spend more time searching for a spot to set up than actually setting up.
Plenty of people over 6 feet tall won’t even look at a one-person ultralight tent. After all, the easiest way for manufacturers to save weight and protect your UL bonafides is to simply make your tent smaller than the co*petition. And, to be honest, our all-women testing crew, which topped out at 5 foot 10, was mostly fine with that. But there was one ultralight tent we tried that was clearly built with an over six-foot individual in mind: the Tarptent Protrail.
While plenty of other ultralight tents claim a similar 84-inch length, few actually have that much usable space, due to the taper of the walls. Not so in the Tarptent Protrail, which has fully vertical sides at the top and the bottom of the tent. We think that anyone up to six foot four would be co*fortable lying down inside this tent.
Unfortunately, getting in is a different story. The Tarptent Protrail was the only tent in our test that had head-in entry, which most testers found to be somewhat unco*fortable and awkward to use, especially when they were tired after a long day of hiking.
The two trekking poles used in the setup of the Tarptent Protrail were separated lengthwise, 84 inches from one another. That long profile, without any additional support or structure in the center, meant that it sagged more from the condensation than anything else we looked at. We would also have concerns about this tent in serious wind conditions if it was angled incorrectly or if wind was co*ing from multiple directions.
It’s worth noting that shorter people will struggle to set up this tent, as one of our testers discovered on the final night of our trip along the Oregon Coast Trail. That’s because the front trekking pole must be held upright at the same time as you stake out the far door: the wingspan of a shorter individual just can’t reach that far.