Slingfin 2Lite Trek tent review

A backpacker above the Cutthroat Lakes on the Doubletop Mountain Trail in Wyoming's Wind River Range.

The Best Backpacking Gear of 2025

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By Michael Lanza

Utah’s High Uintas Wilderness, Montana’s Beartooths, and Colorado’s Weminuche. Glacier National Park and the Tetons. The Grand Canyon (repeatedly). The Canadian Rockies. Southern Utah’s Owl and Fish canyons. The Wind River Range. The John Muir Trail and Wonderland Trail. Iceland’s Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls trails. New Zealand’s Milford Track, Routeburn Track, and Tongariro Alpine Crossing. These are just some of the places where I’ve recently tested the backpacking gear and apparel that I’ve reviewed at The Big Outside—so that I can give you honest and thorough, field-tested opinions that help you find the best gear for your adventures.

And that’s exactly how I came up with the following picks for today’s best backpacking gear.

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A backpacker at Evolution Lake on the John Muir Trail in Evolution Basin, Kings Canyon National Park.

The Best Backpacking Gear for the John Muir Trail

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By Michael Lanza

So you’re planning to thru-hike the John Muir Trail and making all of the necessary preparations, and now you’re wondering: What’s the best gear for a JMT hike? Having thru-hiked the JMT as well as taken numerous other backpacking trips all over the High Sierra—mostly between late August and late September, which I consider that the best time to walk the Sierra, to avoid snow and the voracious mosquitoes and blazing hot afternoons of mid-summer—I offer the following picks for the best ultralight and lightweight backpacking gear and apparel for a JMT thru-hike.

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Slingfin 2Lite ultralight backpacking tent.

Review: SlingFin 2Lite Ultralight Backpacking Tent

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Ultralight Backpacking Tent
SlingFin 2Lite
$505 (includes seam sealing; $30 less to order without seam sealing and do that yourself)
2 lbs. 10 oz. for the 2Lite, 2 lbs. 6 oz./1191g for the 2Lite Trek
SlingFin.com

Backpackers seeking an ultralight, two-person tent with decent space and solid performance in a range of backcountry circumstances actually have several good choices these days—including six of my 10 picks for the best backpacking tents. And yet, there are many reasons they should consider the 2Lite from SlingFin, as I concluded by the first night of a long hike through the High Sierra in August, when strong gusts pounded our camp at nearly 10,000 feet all night.

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Slingfin 2Lite Trek ultralight backpacking tent.

Review: Slingfin 2Lite Trek Ultralight Backpacking Tent

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Ultralight Backpacking TentSlingfin 2Lite Trek$329, 2 lbs. 6 oz.slingfin.com The world of ultralight backpacking tents can sometimes resemble a sort of Galapagos Islands of backcountry shelters, where odd-looking species evolve along a track (that probably defies some basic rules of evolution) toward competing goals of becoming stronger and incrementally larger while becoming lighter. Looked at from that perspective, the 2Lite …

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