which tent?

[couchmaster]

I'm considering the mountain laurel designs Solomid tent and innernet, and the big agnes Fly creek 1. both look pretty light for tents, fly creek 1 looks like it may have more room than the solomid when it's innernet is in place. The solomid looks a little smaller and lighter, but by how much when the poles are considered? Anybody have any experiences or input?   

[bmike-vt]

i looked at the mld. nice stuff.

i eventually settled on a tarp tent. if i were running flat bars i'd have gone with the moment, but i opted for the contrail. packs smaller and is a wee bit lighter. and, i'll be using it while off bike, with trekking poles.

[couchmaster]

yes, i like the looks of this moment

[Blammo]

I'm considering the mountain laurel designs Solomid tent and innernet, and the big agnes Fly creek 1. both look pretty light for tents, fly creek 1 looks like it may have more room than the solomid when it's innernet is in place. The solomid looks a little smaller and lighter, but by how much when the poles are considered? Anybody have any experiences or input?   

I guess it depends on where and when you plan to use it.  I too am looking to replace my current tent with something lighter but still 3 seasons.  It seems like a lot of folks here recommend tarp tents.  I'm not sure a tarp tent will work for me because I do a lot of camping in the Big Bend area of Texas.  I don't see a tarp tent working in high winds with lots of sand/dust content.   I want to seal myself in as much as possible in those cases.  I'm 99% sure a tarp tent would fail in some of the storms I've been in ...HOWEVER they are light ...so I guess it guess you have to decide where your risk threshold is.  For a pound extra, I'm willing to go with an actual tent over the tarp tent.

I have never used any of the tents you ask about or any backpacking tent lighter than 4.97 lbs for that matter, so I have no specific recommendations for you.

[couchmaster]

I'm mostly going to be camping in the Northeast, lots of rain, and bugs.
solomid?
moment?
decisions, decisions

[bartspedden]

hmm - I used to live in the NE. Did lots in the Adirondacks. The one thing that I wonder about for single wall, no breathable tents is humidity. Even with good venting it seems that non breathable tents just drip all night long here in the very dry mountains of colorado. Ever consider a tarp? Your breath still condenses on them, but the venting is typically better then a tent.

[couchmaster]

I've bicycle toured and camped in the adirondacks, and west virginia using a 2 person tent(5 lbs.). been in some pretty good rain storms as well. I have an MSR e-wing tarp, and the AC bivy, for some reason I cant see myself staying all that dry in a rainy windy storm, only used it in the backyard and it wasn't raining. have you ever been through an all out rain storm using a tarp set up? I also get kinda claustrophobic inside that bivy and its roomy.   

[couchmaster]

maybe I'll go for a more breathable bivy, and give the tarp a real shot on a trip/ rainstorm before i give up on it. any suggestions on a breathable lightweight bivy?

[bartspedden]

Hey couchmaster, yeah, I don't think tarps are great for all out down pours, never meant to suggest they were. My moto is if it's raining too hard to stay dry, get up and move.  I used a moonstone goretex bivy for 8 years through all seasons in the Adirondacks with a synthetic bag with pretty good success.  I then used that same bivy in the rockies for another 7 years after moving to colorado.

I remember one trip in the 'sacks, the plan was to spend 3 weeks climbing as many routes on wallface as I could and look for new route potential in the process. I would be using the bivy as my only shelter.  You have to hike back to Indian Pass and then bushwhack about a mile to the base of wallface through one of the most amazing ancient feeling forests I've ever been through. Huge pines and hard woods, and thick green moss all over these massive boulders, very cool place! Well, as it typical NE weather, I hiked the 85lbs of food and gear back to my base camp in the rain. I mean pouring rain. The kind that just makes you put your head down and hike... listening to the rain bounce off your jacket... knowing that this weather isn't going anywhere. Well I sat the next 4 days out while it rained non-stop! After 4 days of being by myself, in the rain, stuck in my bivy for much of the time, I was going stir crazy. So I decided to cache my food/gear and hike back to my car and drive into town to see when this rain would stop. The Mountaineer in Keene was kind enough to help me get a weather report.  Rain for another 1.5 weeks. So I decided to leave most of my cache and go back after this weather system rolled through.  Even though I wouldn't be climbing for the next couple weeks I would be camping and had to hike back in and get my camping gear.  I spent the next 1.5 weeks at various lean-to's, in my bivy, waiting for the storm to finish it's task.  I learned a lot about breathable bivy's on this trip. While I did get through it, it also became clear that I wished I brought my double wall tent.  Even in the relative dryness of a lean-to, with the bivy turned inside out, I could never dry it out because of how humid it was.  And because of this my bag was always damp.  Since I had a synthetic, it was still keeping me warm enough, but I had learned something about single wall sleep systems and their limitations.

Two years after getting schooled on wallface I did another 3 week trip to Vermont and Maine to hike as many of the 4000'ers as myself and two other friends could. For this trip I brought a double wall tent and NEVER dealt with a damp sleeping bag even though we dealt with lots of rain from Stowe to Katahdyn and on to Acadia. For me NE = rain + humidity.

Over a decade later material technology has not improved enough to change what I had learned with that goretex bivy. Tent design is improving (and personally I'm in love the tarp tent moment design). Regardless, I spend enough time in a single wall tent/bivy each year to know that things are gonna get wet from condensation unless you vent them extremely well.  I don't mean to bash single sleep systems.  Quite the opposite! I have a bibler 3-season tent, a bibler 4-season tent, a golite shangri-la 1, and a titanium goat bivy. The three season tent I rarely have condensation issues with because the sides are mesh and venting rocks.  The 4-season tent on the other hand is more difficult to keep the hoar frost off of though. From the mountains of colorado to base camp on Aconcagua, the 4 season single wall tent suffers from condensation issues and you have to use venting strategy's to deal with this fact.

For me, a double wall tent in the NE is worth it's weight if I was bikepacking and not racing. If I was racing, I would most likely use a tarp and plan on being somewhat wet because even I was to use my shangri-la 1 I would end up somewhat wet from the condensation.  In my dreams I want the Moment to solve this condensation issue because it looks like it has a better venting strategy, but unfortunately I think it is just a dream. At the very least the moment is faster to set up!

In the end, regardless of what tent/tarp you go with it comes down to your skills I guess. I finally got a BPL membership this year to learn more about the SUL world. There are folks out there with tarp set ups that stay dry in climates like costal Alaska on multi-week outings, but they have mad skills! I want to learn from them.  Each time I figure out how to reduce the weight of my kit for anything from fly fishing to hiking to bikepacking, I end up having a better experience. A 3.5oz cuben fiber tarp may not be be for everyone….

[bartspedden]

maybe I'll go for a more breathable bivy, and give the tarp a real shot on a trip/ rainstorm before i give up on it. any suggestions on a breathable lightweight bivy?

I love my titanium goat bivy. 5.5oz. Breaths exceptionally well. Waterproof floor. It needs another DWR'ish treatment on top though. I think it needs to breath, but still bead water. The top seems to soak in water, which is bad.

[couchmaster]

thanks for all the info bart, one thing i dont have for sure are mad skills, i'm a suburbanite from new jersey. I do like the camping and bike touring. trying to get my camping gear weight down a bit , or I'll never fit this stuff into my revelate bags. On previous tours i had my 4 ortieb panniers stuffed to the gills. I got caught in west viginia this spring in some severe rain storms that lasted through the night and my tent held up fine, just a little spray got through but nothing to soak me. we were in the middle of nowhere, with no place to hide should our equipment have gotten wet. This brings me back to the flycreek 1 or possibly the msr carbon reflex 1. I'm no racer, but i do plan on future bikepacking trips. so many options, but i cant just keep buying new tents or I'll be in the poor house. oh thats right, i'm already in the poor house. speaking of mad skills, do you carry an axe with u for starting fires? how do u get a fire started when all the woods wet?

[bartspedden]

as far as drenching rains and getting wet and wanting a fire... been there. done that. Though I didn't get the much desired fire started... http://www.bikepacking.net/forum/index.php/topic,2502.0.html

My main challenge with this years CTR was that instead of a tarp, I brought an emergency bivy and hoped for the best. Clearly not a great strategy. But I survived, got stronger, and smarter (maybe). If it rained again I was going to cut the bivy open and use it as a tarp. same weight, more protection!

As far fire is concerned, while I know how to get a fire started in the rain using one match... it's a time and energy consuming process. I like to cheat. I thought that using the store bought fire starters would work... not so much! I have to admit that "I should of listened to my Dad" - he likes the steel wool mixed with some vasaline impregnated cotton balls. Another lightweight emergency fire starter is 1 oz of stove fuel. 

Even with these cheaters it still comes down to dry wood though, and that's the time consuming process...  Here's what I've done in the past. In the NE you can search for wood that's tucked under downed trees, or protected in the rain from some natural cover. Collect a bunch of different size twigs/sticks. More then you think you will need. Get your knife out, find your driest piece of wood and whittle till your hearts content and you have a couple of fistfuls of shavings.  make a little fire pit and make two small parallel rows of rocks. Take some 1/2 inch twigs and make a little platform over the rocks. With your platform in place place your shavings on it. The idea here is to allow air to flow around the shavings so that they get all the oxygen that they want. Either put your vas aline/cotton-ball/steel-wool firestarter in the center of your shavings, or drip some stove fuel over the shavings. Light it and slowly add small twigs.  Keep adding small twigs until you have some coals once you have some coals you can start adding bigger and bigger twigs.

[couchmaster]

damn dry wood! i've had success with dry grasses and small shavings and twigs in the backyard even using a flint and knife combo when it was wet out, but in west virginia this year I just coudnt get a fire started using a little camp fuel and a lighter, I managed to get the shavings going, but the twigs i found were just too wet. anyway, i'm problably gonna stick with a double wall tent, just have to figure which one, MSR carbon reflex is like $5oo. (cringe) Thanks again for all the info

[couchmaster]

CTR......hahaha, your definately hardcore! for me i think probably weak is all that is left when i use my little bit of strength,8>(..... after getting wet and hypothermic like that, I probably would have just laid there,shriveled up and died! hahaha I wonder if having a nice layer of fat on would help in these type of situations?...i dont wanna find out

[bartspedden]

Trust me, the hard core guys get the CTR done in half the time, but thanks :-)

For half the price of the MSR, check out the Exped Vela 1.  I've never used it, but I like the sound of the ventilation strategy. And at 3lbs, its not that heavy.

[couchmaster]

the exped vela 1 definitely looks like the driest tent out there for torrential rains. looks like there's no perfect all around tent, exped for borderline freezing rains, early spring, and late fall , and the moment from late spring to early fall........... 

[bartspedden]

Now you're getting it! It's all about compromises and comfort level. What tent did you use in Virginia? What did you like about it? What didn't you like about it?

[couchmaster]

I used an MSR hubba hubba, it worked great, torrential rains for a few hours during the night. I stayed dry, just a little spray, i guess this could have been condensation spraying down from the rain hammering the fly? or slight leakage? the tent weighs in at 5lbs, and I'd like to get the weight down if i could. I really haven't camped in weather that was in the 30's, only down to the upper 40's. more and more i'm liking the moment and the liner it has.

[bartspedden]

Gotcha, the hubba hubba is a sweet tent, just heavy. The moment, at 30oz, is MAJOR weight saver and looks to be a damn nice tent. If I thought it would be raining every night of the CTR the moment would be in my kit. I bet you can sell the hubba hubba for the cost of the moment too!

[couchmaster]

hahaha, never thought of that, but i think I'll try it. you've been a wealth of information..........I used to ride motorcycles all over this great land, and spent a few wet nights broken down under bridges and such, no fun. I'm a little more scared out in the wilderness where help could be harder to find. It's all bicycles for me now, exercise fresh air, its great! i almost got chased out of the woods in the adirondacks by a grunting deer one night, woke me up three times. only to come home and find out from a buddy that hunts that it wasnt a deer at all, it was a black bear. ooohh, freaky, had i known then i probably would have ran out of there and came back in the morning. lots to learn for this city slicker.