The road to glory cannot be followed with much baggage.
Richard Ewell, CSA General
i have set up Tiger Walls (2&3p, regular and carbon/Dyneema) and we bought the Copper Spur instead.
The side entry really makes it a huge improvement.
That said, my wife and I now use a triplex. The duplex has a freestanding option (with an external frame) that sets up dry in the rain.
Depending on budget, etc you might want to look at the ZPacks duplex with the freestanding option.
I loved our half dome (with replacement pole set) but it was heavy.
On the PCT the Copper Spur comes in highest rated by actual through hikers.
The last three years the duplex has increased in use on the AT. It can be used with hiking poles or with the freestanding kit.
For two, the Triplex works well, but is not freestanding.
The Ghost just ventilates too well. The My Trail Co condensation was the heaviest I’ve met.
Front entry tents are just not my cup of tea.
Anyway, my thoughts.
Hubba Hubba is a little more freestanding than the Fly Creek 1 and a little heavier but side entrance. I have been able to use them both not staked out.
Your wording makes it sound like the Tiger Wall is not a side entry tent, which of course it is. I basically see little difference between the inside space of the Tiger Wall vs. the Copper Spur. The Tiger Wall (UL2) is almost a pound lighter, the Copper Spur is a true free standing tent. There are no other real differences, other than the Copper Spur is also probably a bit more durable.
I also own the Duplex, and yeah, that freestanding option for that choice might be the ticket, though by the time you add the free-standing option to the Duplex, you're almost to the weight of the Tiger Wall. Still, there are other advantages to the Duplex; the dyneema fabric doesn't absorb water nearly as much as Sil Nylon, so a packed soaking wet Sil Nylon tent adds a lot of weight (8-10 oz by my home experiments) over a dyneema tent (a few ounces), and as we all know, you have to pack a soaking wet tent quite often on an AT hike.
I ramble, but I do own and have extensively used almost all of the tents mentioned in this thread (including the Fly Creek and 1/4 dome).
All three tents are awesome choices. The 20% REI coupon is good for about another week if you choose anything but the zpacks (Duplex) options.
I never did pull the trigger on buying a 1 person freestanding tent. I really love my Tarptent Notch and just make it work when I'm on a tent platform. My 17 year old son though has expressed some interest in going in a backpacking trip with me but would like to have his own tent (rather than us sharing our 2 person one) and so I went back to this thread. I think having a mostly freestanding tent would be good for him (as he doesn't use hiking poles) and give me some added flexibility in future trips. Based on this thread I checked out the BA Copper Spur UL1, BA Fly Creek UL1, BA Tiger Wall UL1, REI Quarter Dome 1, REI Flash Air 1, Tarptent Moment DW, MSR Hubba Hubba.
I stumbled across the Nemo Hornet 1 and I'm very intrigued. It seems most similar to the REI Quarter Dome in that they are both mostly freestanding and just need a couple of stakes to finish them off. I'm reading it weighs in at 1lb 10oz trail weight which seems really nice. Anything else I should consider? Thank you to all those that already posted and thank you in advance to those that may reply further.
AT Flip Flop (HF to ME, HF to GA) Thru Hike 2023; LT End-to-Ender 2017; NH 48/48 2015-2021; 21 of 159usForests.com
I used a Nemo Hornet 2P on my thru last year. Like many others here I felt the extra few ozs was worth it. Overall the tent worked great. Held up in a couple of heavy rains when shelters were full and a couple of strong winds too.
It does need the fly to be staked out.
I replaced the line at the head end with on of a different color for orientation, which helps a lot when setting up, especially if it is raining aLready. Should’ve done one on one side too, would’ve helped even more, preventing setting up with fly inside out…which is easy to do. Esp in the dark.
Gosh, talking about spending a lot of $$ on essentially a coffin. I went through this same kinda thing a while back, having a std 2p tent at 5lbs and wanted something lighter. By the time I went through all the options and their corresponding compromises, I went with a hammock setup. Learned a few positives along the way about hammocks that I didn't consider, like yeah, its a one-person setup, but you have a LOT more dry space for stuff - dependent on tarp size, but at least as much as a 1p tent with the smallest of tarps. And what that extra space means is you don't feel like you're in a coffin every night.
"I wonder if anyone else has an ear so tuned and sharpened as I have, to detect the music, not of the spheres, but of earth, subtleties of major and minor chord that the wind strikes upon the tree branches. Have you ever heard the earth breathe... ?"
- Kate Chopin
Vargo NO-FLY 2P TENT
I have this tent. Two people would have to really like each other to squeeze in here, but for one it's great. It weighs well under three pounds and is sort of freestanding. The tent itself uses a common cross-pole dome design, but the vents must be staked out. It needs a bit of room to stake out.
Agreed! But what do you do when you will be camping at a designated campsite, for which you can't be sure of the suitability of trees for hammock hanging? Or where the "tent" is specifically required to be on/over the tent pad? Do you keep a tent for such occasions, or do you try your luck and hope to ask forgiveness rather than permission if the site turns out to be not so ideal and you can't set up where you're supposed to?
Thanks. I'm in a spot where very soon I'll be down to two main setups: a hammock, and a 1P trekking-pole tent that has peeling seam seam tape in difficult corners.
If this if for a through hike, then I suggest you read trail reports of those who've thru'd with a hammock. Its really not much of an issue, but then you may have to make some accommodations for site selection where applicable. You can camp outside the shelters now in GSMNP, and my understanding is that you can go down below treeline in the whites with relative ease, or of course, utilize the huts. That said, I'd likely carry a very light pad for any times I found myself perhaps wanting to be with others in a tent platform location, shelter, etc.? As well as a very light bivy. Most hangers use a "floor" of some sort to put there stuff on underneath, might want that large enough to put the bivy on. And learn how to hang your tarp with trekking poles - not hard at all, but I do think it requires a certain way of doing it to be less tricky/awkward.
p.s. if you're concerned about the weight of "extra" gear, then just use a pad in the hammock instead of an UQ. Note that shorter pads work better, but might still need a sit pad for your feet.
"I wonder if anyone else has an ear so tuned and sharpened as I have, to detect the music, not of the spheres, but of earth, subtleties of major and minor chord that the wind strikes upon the tree branches. Have you ever heard the earth breathe... ?"
- Kate Chopin
"a 1P trekking-pole tent that has peeling seam seam tape in difficult corners."
You could ignore the peeling tape and seam seal it from the outside.
I would imagine that if the inside is PU coated (given that it was taped) the outside would be too, so you use Seam Grip for that.
My intuition is that the usual "seal from the outside instead" solution works well for a tent fly, but maybe less well for bathtub floors. Specifically, I suspect a lot of dirt would cling to the outside of a bathtub floor that has had "Seam Grip + WP" applied to it.
Perhaps I am mistaken, though.
No, I'm a weekend warrior ... even if it's during the week, I don't go out for long. But even backcountry, the places I go often require use of designated sites. In other words, I don't just keep hiking til I find a good spot to hammock camp. It's of course no better in frontcountry camping - you have your tent pad and may not have suitable trees around it ... or even be allowed to set up off pad.
And I do use a pad as standard "beneath insulation" in my hammock already, so I'm good there.
Once it's dry ...it's dry. The trick is to first clean the area where you want to apply the seam sealer with mineral spirit or white gas. Let it dry, then either brush the Seam Grip in the stitch line or use an irrigation syringe .Black Diamond used to include the syringe with a tube of Seam Grip for the Bibler tents as well as the Epic version of their BD branded shelters.
I used to have the Copper Spur UL1 and switched to the Tiger Wall UL1. I did not want or need the awning that the Copper Spur UL1 has. The Tiger Wall is semi-freestanding, but that has not been an issue for me, and I like the lower weight - although it's not that big a difference. I also like the smaller footprint of a single-person tent. I'm 5'11, and both single-person tents worked fine for me, but I don't camp much, meaning I'm generally up before first light and hike until sundown, so I'm only in it long enough to sleep. I use an inflatable mummy pad that is tapered, so there is room beside me for my gear. I don't leave anything outside my tent - too many critters have chewed on it or run off with it over the years. :-)