Choosing a wild camping tent: from packaged weight to flysheet

Saturday morning, in the tent aisle. Two green tents look like twins, both ‘2-person’, and one is noticeably lighter than the other. Your hand is already on the right box. Except the two labels aren’t weighing the same thing: one counts the pegs and the stuff sack, the other doesn’t. You choose a tent by its spec sheet, and a spec sheet reads like a contract, small print included.

That small print always covers the same lines: packaged weight, floor width, structure, flysheet and season, porch. This guide takes them one at a time, based on what the manufacturers themselves publish and what the standard says. For a first night out, our guide to your first wild camp finds a tent simpler than a tarp; all that’s left is choosing the right one.

Minimum or packaged weight: what each brand puts in

In 1998, outdoor gear makers got together with ASTM International, an American standards body, to set a method for weighing backpacking and mountaineering tents: the ASTM F1934 standard, which MSR says it follows voluntarily [1]. According to the standard’s summary, minimum and packaged weight are what consumers use to evaluate tents [2]. Packaged weight is everything in the package, as you buy it. Minimum weight covers only the inner tentThe part you sleep in, with its groundsheet, often partly made of mesh., the flysheetThe waterproof outer layer pitched over the inner tent, which keeps off rain and wind. and the poles, without pegs, guylines or stuff sacks [1].

Not everyone uses the same words, though. Vaude’s ‘Minimalgewicht’, or minimum weight, also includes the minimum number of pegs needed to pitch the tent, but not the stuff sack or the storm guylines, and the brand warns that a tent set up this way only holds in favourable conditions [6]. Big Agnes lists a ‘trail weight’ and a ‘total weight’ [4], Hilleberg a minimum weight and a packed weight [5], without spelling out on their spec sheets what each one includes. Hence the only fair comparison: packaged against packaged, never one tent’s minimum against another’s packaged weight.

Even the packaged weight isn’t always what ends up in your rucksack. MSR points out that most of its tents are sold without a footprintA groundsheet cut to the shape of the tent floor, laid underneath to protect it, usually sold separately., whose weight you need to add if you take one [7]. Vaude supplies its tents with enough pegs for a first pitch, and leaves you to add more to suit the ground [8]. A tent pitched on trekking poles is weighed without them: 1.3 kg for the MT900 Minimal Editions from Forclaz, one of Decathlon’s brands, without the poles, naturally [9]. As a rough guide, Decathlon puts a light tent at around 1 to 1.5 kg per person [10], and Vaude advises staying under 2 kg on foot and 4 kg by bike [6], where flysheet and poles find room in the panniers, as our bikepacking kit list shows.

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Gram-counters, and I know a few, will be reaching for the kitchen scales: MSR admits that a tent weighed at home can come out slightly above or below the advertised figure, depending on the thickness of the coatings or the cut of the fabric [1].

One, two or three people: measure the floor width

The number in the name gives the number of sleepers the tent is designed for [7], not how much room is left around them. Vaude specifies that its ‘1-person’ and ‘2-person’ ratings don’t include luggage [6]; Hilleberg, by contrast, says it builds its tents for their occupants plus their gear [11]. Same word, two promises. And for a two-person trekking tent, Decathlon warns that there will be just enough room for your sleeping mats, and advises checking their size [9].

Let’s do the maths with published figures. MSR’s Hubba Hubba NX has a floor of 213 by 127 cm [3]. A Therm-a-Rest NeoAir XLite NXT sleeping mat is 51 cm wide in the Regular size and 64 cm in Regular Wide [12]. Two standard mats leave 25 cm to spare; two wide ones need 128 cm, 1 cm too much, and press against the walls. Big Agnes’s Copper Spur UL2 tapers towards the foot end, from 132 cm to 107 cm [4]: two wide mats fit at the head but not at the feet, where the floor is 21 cm narrower than their 128 cm. According to Therm-a-Rest, most two-person backpacking tents are 127 to 132 cm wide [12], room for two standard mats, rarely for two wide ones.

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Width isn’t everything. MSR advises looking at the height and slope of the walls as well: near-vertical walls let you sit close to the edge without hunching over, and two tents with the same floor area are not equal [7]. The Hubba Hubba NX peaks at 100 cm, the Copper Spur UL2 at 102 cm [3, 4], the Akto’s inner tent at 93 cm [5]. Vaude also recommends lying down in the tent with your mat and sleeping bag before you buy, as the length has to suit your height [6]. Hence the tip that both MSR and Decathlon mention: size up by one, a two-person tent for solo trips, a three-person tent for two [7, 9].

Freestanding, semi-freestanding or guyed out

Third line on the sheet: the structure. At MSR, a freestandingA tent whose poles hold its shape on their own, without pegs or guylines. tent stands on its poles alone; a semi-freestanding one also needs points pulled taut by pegs or guylines, like the FreeLite; tarp-style shelters go up with trekking poles or an accessory pole, and well-tensioned guylinesThe cords that connect the fabric to the pegs driven in around the tent. [7]. A tunnel tentA tent with parallel, semicircular poles, tensioned from both ends., for its part, won’t stand without pegs [10]. But the words change from one brand to the next. Hilleberg calls a dome ‘self supporting’ when only its porches need pegging out, and keeps ‘freestanding’ for one that needs no pegs at all [11]; Decathlon writes that a semi-freestanding tent stands up even without pegs [10]. So read the brand’s definition, not just the word.

A freestanding tent still benefits from being pegged and guyed out: MSR always recommends it, to pull it taut, gain room inside and avoid finding it blown away when you get back [7]. The tunnel tent stands up very well to wind while staying light, according to Decathlon [10], and Hilleberg considers it ideal for multi-day trips, when you pitch and strike it every day [11]. The Akto pitches with a minimum of four pegs, and comes with ten in the bag [5].

Then there is the tent pitched on trekking poles, often called a tarp tent: light, but it needs two walking poles, Decathlon reminds us [10]. If you walk without them, add the weight of an accessory pole, the other option MSR provides for its shelters [7], and check the instructions for the pole height required.

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Single or double wall, three or four seasons

Most three-season tents are double-walled, with an inner of mesh or breathable fabric under a waterproof flysheet; single-wall tents, made of one layer of fabric, are mostly found in mountaineering and in tarp-style shelters, according to MSR [7]. The advantage of a double wall is simple: overnight moisture condenses on the underside of the flysheet and doesn’t get into the inner tent, Vaude explains [6].

On seasons, MSR classes all its backpacking tents as three-season tents, useful from spring to autumn in most places. A four-season tent keeps out snow and cold air and stands up to heavy snow loads and high winds, but it is harder to ventilate and heavier; as the brand puts it, if you need one, you probably already know [7]. Hilleberg sorts its tents by coloured labels instead: Black and Red Label for all seasons, Yellow Label for the snow-free months, in sheltered terrain or in warmer climates [13].

One detail on the sheet says a lot: does the flysheet reach the ground? Hilleberg warns that a flysheet that stops short can let in wind-driven rain and splashing water, and, if in doubt, urges you to go up a category [11]. Vaude, for its part, points out that weather in the mountains often changes quickly, and recommends a tent there that is quick to pitch and storm-proof [6].

The porch, and pitching in the rain

The porchThe area covered by the flysheet in front of the door, outside the inner tent; also called a vestibule. is your pantry: Vaude uses it for bulky luggage, wet boots and dirty kit, away from where you sleep [8]. Decathlon recommends at least one large porch on a two-person tent, puts two on its own two-person models, and makes the case for two-door tents, so you can get out at night without climbing over your neighbour [9]. The spec sheets give the area: two of 0.81 m² on the Hubba Hubba NX, 0.8 m² on the Akto, which has only one door [3, 5]. Hilleberg also offers extended porches, handy with a lot of kit, a dog or children, at the cost of a bigger footprint on the ground and a little extra weight [11].

What the standards say, and what they leave out

There is indeed a standard for camping tents: ISO 5912, whose fifth edition dates from March 2020, adopted in Europe as EN ISO 5912:2020. It sets requirements for safety, performance and fitness for use, sorts tents into two categories, one of them for lightweight tents, and into three performance levels [14]. It also provides a sleeping capacity calculation and a rain test, summarised in the table below. What it no longer says matters just as much: its introduction explains that stability, though considered important, was removed for lack of a reproducible test method [14].

Without a common criterion, wind resistance is tested each brand’s own way. Decathlon claims gusts of up to 70 km/h for its trekking domes and tunnels [10], Vaude puts its tents through a wind tunnel [6], and these results can’t be compared from one brand to another. None of the spec sheets or manufacturers’ advice pages cited here mentions ISO 5912, for that matter: the number of places shown doesn’t tell you whether it follows the standard’s calculation.

Tent or tarp for a first night

A tarp, a simple sheet of fabric pitched overhead, is very light but protects less well from the weather, according to Decathlon [10], and Hilleberg warns that riding out truly bad weather under such a minimal shelter can be miserable, if not downright dangerous; the lighter a tent, the brand adds, the less comfort it offers, and possibly the less security in bad weather [11]. For a first night, the tent keeps the edge for simplicity; the tarp can come later, with the pitches in our tarp guide. And the tent doesn’t make the whole night: the sleeping mat and its R-value and the sleeping bag decide how warm you are as much as the tent does.

Before you pay, six lines to check on the spec sheet, or to ask the shop about:

• The packaged weight, compared with another tent’s packaged weight, plus the footprint and poles if they are extra
• The floor width, at the head and at the feet, against the width of your sleeping mats
• The height and slope of the walls, and the length against your height
• The structure, freestanding, semi-freestanding, tunnel or pitched on poles, and the number of pegs supplied
• The flysheet, down to the ground or not, and the season it is designed for
• The porches, the doors and the pitching order in the rain

A good habit to get into, before you even look at the price: read the packaged weight, then get the tape measure out for the floor width, sleeping mats included. The rest of the sheet can wait for a quiet moment.

Worth watching

Wild Camping Adam runs through the five essentials to weigh up when choosing a tent for wild camping in Scotland and the UK, then budget options and a few useful extras.

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Guillaume Hoarau

Camping, wild camping, bushcraft and hiking

Guillaume Hoarau writes for Outfarer about camping, wild camping, bushcraft and hiking. A survival-skills enthusiast and a collector of old field manuals, he likes clear explanations, lists that earn their place and other people’s stories, which he tells well.

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