This year the "cottage" tent manufacturers seem to be competing for the lightest weight tent. The offerings will lighten both your pack and your bank account!

Gossamer Gear's "The One" came out a little over a month ago. This is a solo tent made of spinnaker cloth. 19 oz. with stakes added, but before seam sealing (which will probably add another ounce). Requires 2 trekking poles for support. $275. It is selling like hotcakes and so far has good reviews. One advantage of spinnaker fabric over silnylon is that it doesn't stretch when wet. One disadvantage is that it's noisy, as you'll see if you watch the video on GG's website (link above). It looks like a good tent, but there's not quite enough room for both me and my dog.

Six Moon Design's "Refuge X", just released, is a two-person tent made of cuben fiber (laminated spectra). With stakes added, before seam-sealing, it is 18.5 oz. so is definitely the lightest 2-person tent around. It will set you back a whopping $400. Also, the fabric is not warranted against tears--the stitching, yes, but not the fabric. You'd need to treat this one with lots of TLC and keep the kids and dogs well away. Cuben fabric stands up well against winds but not against punctures.

The Refuge is also available in silnylon, still for the introductory price of $200. With stakes added, before seam-sealing, it weighs 29.5 oz., still low for a 2-person tent, although a couple of ounces more than Gossamer Gear's spinnaker cloth Squall Classic.

Both Refuges require a pair of adjustable trekking poles for support.

Supposedly Henry Shires of Tarptent has both a lighter weight tent and a 4-person tent in the works, but not until later this year.

As for me, Hysson and I will continue to share comfortably my Six Moon Designs Lunar Solo. 27 oz. after seam sealing and with stakes. Fortunately, it comes in two colors so mine is a nice neutral gray, not the horrid green shown on the website.

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May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.--E.Abbey

I'm just curious..how light or heavy in the scheme of things is 2lb, 9oz. for a solo tent?  It's the Eureka Solitaire that I got a few years ago after a Chemeketan told me about it.  It wasn't carried in the higher end outdoor gear places, but was at gi joe's...for like $75.  It's weight includes tent, fly, and frame.  I can squeeze my pack in it with me.  Oh..and it's a 3-season.

It all depends on whether you want to get even lighter and spend more money! Although scorned by many, Eureka tents, because of their modest price, have long been a standby for Scouts and others. As long as yours works well for you, I'd hang on to it! While I think it's wonderful to encourage innovation and lighter-weight gear, there is an awful lot of "conspicuous consumption" (or "affluenza") going on.

Campmor carries a large selection of Eureka tents.

To get much lighter than what you have, you have to get into the "tarptent" category, single-wall tents (with lots of ventilation) made of silnylon (silicon-coated nylon) and no-see-um netting. Those are the style I have (I have three of them!) and that are described in my first post above. Other vendors of this tent style I didn't mention in my post above are Anti-Gravity Gear, Oware and Mountain Laurel Designs. The last two concentrate on tarps or pyramids that require separate bug netting inserts for full protection. GoLite tents also fall into that category.

There are some MSR tents that come close to the weight of your Eureka. I have a beef with MSR in that they insist on bright orange or yellow tents that show up a mile away--talk about visual pollution! But that's my own pet peeve--I know there are lots of people who swear by the Hubba series!

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May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.--E.Abbey

I have to chime in about Eureka tents.  We use a Pinnacle Pass 2xta and its perfect for our system.  At 4lb11oz, its heavier, but when spreading it between two adults and two dogs, the weight is more than offset by the other features.  Its bombproof, ventilates, freestanding, has the space and vestibules we need, etc., etc.  This tent is almost three years old and has many many miles on it.  I have no doubt this tent will last ten years or more (our last Eureka was 15yrs old).  Even better, the 2xta only cost about $120.  I guess my point is, you don't have to buy REI or expensive gear companies to have great gear - often homemade or cheaper brands are just as good or even better.  I'm not knocking the expensive stuff either, I have a WM bag with a pricetag that shocks most.  You just have to pick what works for you.  YMMV  It took me a while to figure out what this stood for, but its totally true!

The perspectives are helpful, thanks.

I must say I like the idea of a no-see-em netting under a high-tech fabric shelter.  Not sure if I'm understanding it from the commercial webpage photos.  It's just a tent made of netting under a tarp, but a little fancier?  If that's the case, when i buy backpacking shelter again, I may just buy the netting tent and pack a tarp, or a tent rainfly that I already own.

I usually follow Grannyhikers links and find them really informative.

One negative of tarps, is that they have an open side(s).  If the wind blows from that direction, rain can blow in and get you wet.  If it gets really windy, the tarp can get blown away.  You need to have the entire perimeter of your tarp/tent near the ground with stakes on the corner and in the middle of each side in order to survive windy situations, in my experience.

You can't really set most tent flies up by themselves.  There are sleeves that are part of the tent that poles go through and then the fly goes outside of this.  Try it at home on the lawn and see if you can set the fly up by itself.  Maybe you can sew on some little loops into the rainfly to contain the poles.

 

For me this is all a fun process of refinement until my gear costs nothing, weighs nothing ....... nor do I .... in hiker heaven.
I'm looking forward to seeing my weightless cat, Jules, there too!

Tarptents are actually fully-enclosed and bugproof tents, with a sewn-in floor. they are basically just lightweight, single-wall tents. They have a border of bug netting sewn between the floor and the bottom of the sides to allow for necessary ventilation (this being the key to avoiding condensation). The Henry Shires Tarptents (notice the brand name) have this netting sewn between the bottom hem of the canopy and the floor. The Six Moon Designs models have the netting attached to the wall about a foot inside the hem of the canopy. This allows the wall to overhang the netting so that (1) your sleeping bag is against the netting and not the wall and (2) the wall overhangs the netting section by quite a bit so there's no danger of splash in a really heavy rainstorm. However, I haven't had any problems with this in the Henry Shires Tarptents, either; you just have to be a little more careful to keep the excess netting inside when you snug the tent closer to the ground in bad weather.

The models with separate bug tents are basically tarps with the separate bug tent added. Note that most of the sites mentioned above (except Tarptent.com) make and sell both tarptents and separate tarps with separate bug nets, which may be where the confusion has arisen.

Two years ago, I did some weight comparisons between tarptents and just plain tarps: By the time you total the weight of the separate tarp, guy lines, stakes, ground sheet and bug netting the result weighs as much as a tarptent. And a tarptent is far easier to set up! Just don't plan to use them for winter camping--they are fine for inches of snow, but definitely not feet. If I were into winter camping (I'm not) I'd get a pyramid.

As mentioned, I have managed to acquire three of the things (two Tarptent and one Six Moon Designs) and love them. There's no way I'd ever go back to the old-fashioned double-wall tent--too heavy and claustrophobic, and I had far more troubles with condensation in those than I do in the tarptents.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, pretty soon the stakes will weigh more than the tent!

I hope that if anyone goes to see or actually gets one of these new tents, they'll report here! I'm not planning to get any of them, although I am waiting for Henry Shires' 4-person Tarptent. I'll need it when grandchild #3 (now 3) is old enough to go out with his big brother and sister.

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May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.--E.Abbey