Originally Posted by
Another Kevin
I won't say what's best for you, but I'll share the reasoning that I used the last time I bought a tent.
Weight. When I bought the Notch, I was looking to shed some weight from the inexpensive free-standing tent that I had been using. At 4 pounds nine ounces, the old one was surely not ultralight! One reason that I'd chosen the old one was that it was big enough for two, and my daughter often came along with me. With her grown and moved away to school (and nobody to share the weight of shared gear) a smaller and lighter shelter was in order. Comparing specs in the catalogs, I found that "under 2 pounds" looked like a reasonable goal.
Trekking pole supported. I've used trekking poles for a few years now, and I'm surely not going back to hiking without them. (That's what works for my knees. Your knees are your own business.) If I'm going to be carrying poles anyway, tent poles seem like a redundant weight. The big disadvantage of a trekking pole supported tent is that they're non-free-standing. That means a much greater 'fiddle factor' in the pitch. I'm OK with that. I don't pitch that often on solid rock or on a tent platform. When I do, I'm able to be a bit creative. When I've not been able to drive a stake, or where a stake won't hold, I've anchored my current tent to bushes, rocks, snowshoes, 'dead men' (bits of debris tied to a cord and buried in snow or sand), and toggles dropped in the gaps in a tent platform. It's sometimes not come up with the tautest pitch, but it's held. If your style is to arrive at or after dusk and want to have your tent up in seconds, this may not be for you.
Bug protection. I live in a part of the world that is infested with biting insects. Black flies, green flies, deer flies, horseflies, mosquitoes, no-see-ums, all arrive in swarms. And I find a "bug bivy" to be uncomfortable, particularly in hot weather when I may be sleeping on top of my sleeping bag or just have it pulled loosely around me. In various times and places, I've used fly-and-footprint pitches of my other tent, or slept under a tarp, or even slit the bottom of a contractor bag and rigged it with a ridge line. It's almost always resulted in unpleasant encounters with the local wildlife. Blessed is he who sleepeth behind screens: for he shall remain sane. This will likely not be an issue for those who hike in the arid West. I'm here in the wet Northeast.
Wind protection. For various reasons, I'd say that at least half of my hiking happens outside of prime hiking season, and so I find myself sleeping in marginal weather or worse. With some shelters, I find that if I button up tightly against the wind, then I battle condensation. I'm pretty good at site selection, but sometimes you just can't get out of the weather. The disadvantage of good wind protection is that sometimes it's hard to set up to catch the breeze on hot nights. If I were out more in hot weather, or if I were in the South, I'd probably want a different design that what I settled on.
Space. Since I'm often out in cold or wet weather, I like having a place to organize gear that's out of the rain and snow. The lightest of the backpacking tents do not have a lot of vestibule space. I'm willing to pay a small weight penalty to have the room. Also, I'm over 6 feet and a restless sleeper, so I want a shelter that isn't too confining. A smaller hiker who enjoys more trustworthy weather would likely want a smaller and lighter shelter.
Height. I want to be able to sit up in my shelter without brushing against the roof. (No matter how water repellent the material, you'll draw water through it by touching it.) I also want the side walls to be at a steep enough angle that they will shed snow fairly readily. If I'm using a three-season tent in winter, I know that I'm likely to be outside at least once in the night to knock the snow off, but I want to minimize the number of times I have to do it. If all you ever do in your shelter is lie down to sleep, I'm sure that height is less of a consideration.
Easy entry. I'm an old man and not as limber as I once was. All else being equal, contorting myself around a trekking pole in the middle of a doorway will get annoying fast. (I knew when I crawled into a buddy's Contrail that it wasn't for me, and I nearly brought it down by dislodging the pole that held it up. But I know people who happily wriggle past their tent poles.
Bathtub floor. Sometimes I'm hiking in a swamp. But also, in rainy weather, a low pitch encourages condensation, while a higher pitch gets rain splatter. A bathtub floor helps keep the rain splatter out of the sleeping area.
Cost. Cuben Fiber is out of my price range, so silnylon is where it's at.
Fly-first or all-of-a-piece pitch. If I'm pitching in rain or sleet, it's really great to be able to keep the body of the tent dry. That could be a problem with my old tent, where I had to thread the poles in place, pop it up, stake it out, and only then drape the fly over it. In heavy weather, the next job would be to wipe up the floor with my pack towel. I considered this a "nice to have" feature, probably not essential.
With these considerations in mind, I finally settled on the TarpTent Notch. The SMD Lunar Solo was also very much in the running. What eventually decided me on the Notch was mainly that I could get it with the half-solid tent body, which is better for wind and snow. I also happened to like the dual-vestibule configuration. I can put my pack cover in one like a bathtub and use it to organize gear, and keep my boots in the other and go in and out through it. And in warm weather, I can open both doors and get a really nice breeze through it. But it was a close decision. Both tents have the poles in the center, which helps with snow loading and allows for easy entry. Both have generous floor space. Both pitch fast, and pitch all of a piece. The Lunar Solo has a bit more headroom.
Are these ultralight? It depends on your definition. Either is about a pound and a half. (I went with a few ounces heavier on the Notch to get the half-solid tent body). That's surely heavier than a little Cuben tarp, such as some of the UL'ers use. But it's surely lighter than most freestanding tents.
Are they for you? It depends on your style. I know people who would be happy hiking with a five-ounce Cuben tarp as their shelter, and others who would insist on a 2.5-pound freestanding tent so as not to hassle about the pitch. Only you can say what's right for you, and from your comments, it sounds as if you don't know your own hiking style yet.
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