Guide to Buying an Ultralight Tent

Why Choose an Ultralight Tent?

Ultralighttents are increasingly popular, but why? People ask why people are prepared to spend extra on less, when it is not exactly a home-from-home. This is answered in the high-levels of research and technical innovation that goes into every aspect of these tents' design. The level of technological developments in ultralight tents shows true testament to the dedication of outdoor manufacturers such as The North Face, Terra Nova, Wild Country, MSR, Mountain Equipment, Vango and Vaude to make the best tents available.

Increasingly, people are enjoying the pleasures on the outdoors in more and more ways. This means their doing more outdoor sports and more styles of camping, which means they require different technologies. Ultralight tents are meeting these needs, by serving one fundamental need for several groups of people: 'if it's going on my back, I want it to be light!'

Ultralight tents are perfect for mountain marathons, adventure racing, mountain biking, backpacking and more. They're the ideal combination of minimal weight and stability, allowing people to go 'higher, wilder, faster and further' than before.

Above: MSR Hubba HP Ultralight Tent

Design Features of an Ultralight Tent

Ultralight tents have never been so technically advanced. Here is a break-down of features to look out for when shopping for your ultralight tent:

• Ultimately, ultralight tents must weigh less than 2kg (4.4lbs)
• Flysheet vents - improve airflow and ventilation (reduces condensation especially in single-skin ultralight tents).
• Variable airlflow vents - control the warm and cold air exchange inside the tent and help to reduce condensation and stuffiness in the morning!
• Ultralight aluminium or alloy tent poles (sometimes DAC featherlite poles - see below)
• Unique pole configuration to maximise space at the least weight, often resulting in innovative tent designs to allow for sleeping, cooking and gear storage.
• Is the ultralight tent 1 or 2 skin? I.e. does it have an inner and an outer tent, or just an outer?
• How many seasons will you realistically need it for. Usually when shopping for ultralight tents, the more seasons it can withstand, the more weight you will be carrying in your backpack.
• Can the ultralight tent have it's outer flysheet used as a tarp and footprint (groundsheet protector) alone or does it need the inner too? This can be extra helpful for ultralight weight / minimalist backpacking.
• Know your weights. Minimum weight is usually the inner tent, flysheet and tent poles only. Packaged weight usually includes the inner tent, flysheet, tent poles, tent pegs, tent stuffsac, pole bag, peg bag, guylines and repair items.
• Is the tent's inner or outer pitched first? In wet spells it's always an advantage to pitch the outer first!

Fittings of an UltraLight Tent Every item of an ultralight tenthas extremely lightweight properties combined with strength. For instance all of 2007/2008 models of The North Face Flight Series tents utilise a proprietary MicroClip to secure the canopy to the poles. These strong, ultralight clips employ a camming action to lock onto the pole and hold it securely in place. The result is a lighter weight clip with improved strength and holding power.

Flysheets

Many ultralight tent flysheets use a rip-stop nylon inner and outer to sustain a variety of conditions. Rip-stop nylon is a light-weight nylon fabric with inter-woven ripstop reinforcement threads in a crosshatch pattern, so the material resists ripping or tearing.

Tent Poles

Ultralight tents and lightweight tents must consider the weight implications of every item that they use, although the better manufacturers will not skimp on other design features as a sacrifice. An example is if the use of lightweight tent poles, that naturally need to be lightweight but also need to be strong, flexible and have durable fittings. The point here is that simply because they are lightweight, you do not miss out on other important features.

DAC Featherlite SL Tent Poles

Introduced in 2002, the new Featherlite SL Aluminium tent poles were designed with two main objectives: to offer a high strength-to-weight ratio and to be manufactured to slide quickly and easily through tight pole sleeves typical of lightweight and expedition tent construction. The result is an ultralight expedition tent pole that has an even higher strength-to-weight ratio than the original Featherlite pole, and one that works well with The North Face expedition tent sleeve construction. This new design includes an insert tube with a thinner wall than the main tube giving added strength to the sleeve joint. This construction detail eliminates excess weight and is balanced by a small strengthening tube at the joining position.

DAC Featherlite Poles

Found in some of our ultralight tents, DAC Featherlite poles are up to 15% lighter than aluminium poles of comparable strength. Additionally, Featherlite poles are less susceptible to failure because pole linkages are based on extrusion instead of glued-in inserts. Without the extra insert piece, there is less chance of breakage.

Powerflex 7001-T6 alloy tent poles combine strength and flexibility and are often used too.

Tent pegs

Most lightweight tents come with lightweight alloy or aluminium tent pegs, which are often perfectly strong enough and light enough for most, but you can now buy titanium tent pegs for those people to shave every gram off their pack weight.

Groundsheet protectors / Footprints

Groundsheet protectors (aka footprints) are designed simply to protect the base of your tent. These are a great investment as it's certainly cheaper to buy a hardwearing footprint than buy a new tent because the groundsheet has split on a rock that you didn't see. They are often used by minimalist campers too, where they simply use the outer of their ultralight tent as an ultralight tarp and a footprint to sleep on. Click here for more weight saving tips!