Ultralight Backpacking Tent Reviews

Gear Review: Big Agnes Fly Creek HV UL2 mtnGLO and Fly Creek HV UL3 Ultralight Tents

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Big Agnes Fly Creek HV UL3 in Panamint Range, Death Valley National Park.
Big Agnes Fly Creek HV UL3 in the Panamint Range, Death Valley National Park.

Ultralight Backpacking Tents
Big Agnes Fly Creek HV UL2 mtnGLO
$440, 2 lbs. 1 oz. (not including stuff sacks and stakes)
Big Agnes Fly Creek HV UL3
$450, 2 lbs. 15 oz. (not including stuff sacks and stakes)
moosejaw.com

As we searched for a campsite while backpacking in the canyon of Utah’s Dirty Devil River in late March, the wind picked up. Then the rain started. My wife and daughter pitched the new Big Agnes Fly Creek HV UL2 mtnGLO in minutes without having even looked at it before—a testament to its simplicity. Once darkness fell a little while later, they turned on the lights—the tent’s built-in LED lights, that is—and I think they promptly forgot there was a storm just outside their nylon walls.

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Gear Review: Exped Mira II Hyperlite Tent

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Exped Mira II HL tent.
Exped Mira II HL tent.

Ultralight Tent
Exped Mira II Hyperlite
$429, 2 lbs. 14 oz. (without the included stuff sack and eight sturdy stakes, at least six of which are needed to pitch the tent)
moosejaw.com

On the first of two nights backpacking with my 15-year-old son in Idaho’s White Cloud Mountains, I got an immediate sense of what I liked about Exped’s sub-three-pound Mira II HL (besides its low weight): With darkness and rain rapidly approaching, we pitched the tent easily in a couple of minutes. We lived and slept comfortably inside, thanks to a design that maximizes space while minimizing weight. And when it rained through the night, we stayed dry despite keeping one vestibule door wide open to help ventilate the interior.

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Gear Review: Sierra Designs Tensegrity 2 FL Tent

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Sierra Designs Tensegrity 2 FL
Sierra Designs Tensegrity 2 FL

Ultralight Tent
Sierra Designs Tensegrity 2 FL
$390, 2 lbs. 10 oz. (without the included stuff sack and nine sturdy stakes, which are needed to pitch the tent)
sierradesigns.com

When I first saw this tent displayed at the Outdoor Retailer trade show a year ago, I wanted to test it in the backcountry. The whole concept behind SD’s new Tensegrity line intriguingly throws out the playbook on what backpacking tents are supposed to look like: Gone are the inward sloping walls, traditional vestibules, and poles, all with the goal of making a shelter that’s not just lighter but more functional. I took the Tensegrity 2 FL on a six-day rafting trip down Idaho’s Middle Fork of the Salmon River—and mostly liked what I saw in this unusual shelter.

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Gear Review: Tarptent Double Moment Tent

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Tarptent Double Moment
Tarptent Double Moment

Three-Season Tent
Tarptent Double Moment
$349, 3 lbs. 4 oz.
tarptent.com

With a preference for backcountry tents that are lightweight and stable, I’m willing to sacrifice capacious living space and the convenience of freestanding models, and I’ve seen tunnel-style designs that stand up well to strong winds despite their low total weight. Intrigued by the Double Moment’s space-to-weight ratio, I took it out on a five-day backpacking trip down Paria Canyon on the Utah-Arizona border in late March and a three-day backpacking trip on the Royal Arch Loop in the Grand Canyon, to see how it would hold up.

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Gear Review: MSR FlyLite Tent

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MRS FlyLite
MRS FlyLite

Ultralight Tent
MSR FlyLite
$350, 1 lb. 9 oz. (not including stakes)
moosejaw.com

More backpackers are realizing what tent makers have known for years: The smartest way to reduce pack weight is by trimming the single heaviest item in your backpack—your tent. And you achieve the greatest weight savings there by eliminating or at least greatly reducing the poles and rainfly. The MSR FlyLite does both. On a five-day, late-March backpacking trip with my family in Paria Canyon, in Utah and Arizona, the FlyLite shined for having an outstanding space-to-weight ratio while proving itself stable in strong gusts, and not very susceptible to the bane of most single-wall tents: condensation.

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