Tents
In hubris and haste, setting out on the PCT I knew I needed a tent, and I knew the heavy 2-person thing I had used for short weekend trips wasn’t ideal. Doing zero research beyond perusing backcountry.com’s list of 1-person, 3-season tents, I ended up with a free-standing Alps Mountaineering Zephyr.
The tent is bullet-proof. And, at 4.5 lbs, it’s a backpacker’s equivalent of lugging around a bomb-shelter on your back.
The idea of using a non-free-standing tent freaked me out, but the parade of them marching North along the PCT convinced me that they might be okay after all. Regardless, I opted to haul the Zephyr all the way to Canada rather than invest in something lighter.
For the CDT, going lighter weight isn’t even a question. If free-standing is a priority, Big Agnes dominates the market. Non-free-standing brands that housed other hikers along the PCT include Zpacks, Six Moons, and Gossamer Gear.
I created the scoring matrix below comparing a bunch of tents from the brands mentioned, with the following criteria:
Weight
Number of doors
Free-standing or not
Vestibule Area
Price
Going across the top row, there is a factor for each criteria category. In the image below, tent weight has a factor of 2, because compared to other criteria, it was the most important for me. Free-standing ultimately didn’t matter, neither did vestibule space, so those are both set to zero.
In each criteria column, the highest scoring tent is highlighted yellow. For binary criteria (like free-standing vs. non-free-standing), several scores are highlighted.
The column all the way to the right is the overall weight-factored score for each tent. The best score is highlighted in green.
Despite the Big Agnes Scout 2 Carbon being the lightest weight, Six Moons got the highest score. This was driven mostly because at $230, it’s less than half the cost of most of the tents on the list. Still, I wasn’t stoked about buying the Six Moons tent. The Zpacks Duplex has received solid recommendations from many long-distance hikers, it looks awesome, and the price difference made me think of the old adage, “You get what you pay for.”
While it wasn’t the optimal choice based on the numbers, I ultimately followed my intuition and bought the Zpacks Duplex. The first time I set it up was a breeze, and it felt surprising sturdy - in no way inferior to my bomb-proof Zephyr. And cutting the weight of my tent by 65% was huge. I’ve had it in some relatively windy conditions and it did just fine. I’ve also set it up where the ground didn’t permit driving in stakes, and tying guy-lines to rocks worked just as well. I fully expect the Duplex to excel on the CDT.
Update 6/8/2020: Molly came along with me to San Gorgornio Mountain a couple weeks ago for her first backpacking experience. Here’s a quick video of us setting up the Zpacks Duplex:
