Quest for less – Tents

In my quest for lightening up my pack I’ve been looking at the big three. Shelter, Pack and sleeping bag. My current pack is an REI Mars. It is a great pack and I am really happy with it. I bought it for it’s 5,100 cu inches, mainly to help as I backpack with my kids  since I carry some if not most of their gear. It is heavy though, around 5 and a half pounds or so empty. So eventually I would like to get a lighter pack for weeklong trips that I go on my own or with other adults.

My sleeping bag is a +20 Downtime from REI and weighs about 2 and a half pounds. My sleeping pad is a Big Agnes Insulated Air Core and weighs under 1 and a half pounds. So my big three prior to this last tent purchase was 16lbs. 8lbs for Eureka Juno including tyvek footprint(I need to double check that), 5 lbs 8oz for REI Mars, 2lbs 8oz REI Downtime. Which puts me far from ultra-light hiking, but with my new tent puts me closer.

The focus of my quest as of late as been on a lighter shelter. I’ve gone over many different options. Single wall 2lb tents, under 2 lb hammocks, UL double wall tents. It’s been hard to settle on what to get. I was really close to buying a Hennessy Hammock, a friend in VA uses them and loves them. (I almost did it Bryce!) But I decided I don’t usually camp alone and so would need one for each person in my family. I looked at the single wall offerings including tarps and felt nervous about the single wall shedding rain and mainly condensation inside the tent as well as the price on those puppies. Tarps I felt don’t give enough protection from the elements or bugs and cost almost the same as some tents, which I don’t get at all.

I finally decided on a UL tent and bought REI’s Quarter Dome UL. It’s a two person backpacking tent. Double wall and weighs 3lb 11oz. I bought it on their outlet site and had an additional 20% off so for $169 I had a nice light tent with a foot print that weighs less than half of my current tent setup.

Now I have enough tent for my whole family to go backpacking with the two I now own. I just wish my Eureka was lighter. I had the opportunity to take my new tent out on what turned into an extreme(at least for me) weather test. Look for a full tent review on it soon.

Now my big three total is 12lbs and I definately felt it on my Ridge Lake hike. I’m looking at the REI Flash 50 to reduce that by another 2 1/2 lbs. But we’ll see.

S