What is the most effective backpacking tent or tenting shelter for thru-hiking or part mountain climbing all or a few of the Appalachian Trail? Running over 2,000 miles from Georgia to Maine, the Appalachian Trail travels throughout closely forested and mountainous terrain, with broadly various temperatures, each cold and hot. Frequent rain, ferocious insect life, and hiker competitors for good tenting areas are all essential components to think about when deciding on a tent or shelter to hike the path.
Given the selection of single-wall and double-wall tents, q hammock, flat tarps, and formed tarps, which one is the most effective to make use of? Can you simply sleep and shelters and never carry a tent in any respect? What about early spring or winter mountain climbing situations? I’ve skilled all of those approaches whereas part mountain climbing the Appalachian Trail and the reply is…it relies upon:
- On nighttime temperatures
- On biting bugs
- On the provision of excellent campsites
- On your pockets
- On your tolerance for carrying cumbersome gear and extra gear weight
- On your want for private consolation
Let’s check out the totally different choices and think about their benefits and drawbacks.
Single-Wall Tents
Most single-wall tents have partitions which can be half stable and half mesh. This improves airflow by means of the tent and helps to forestall inner condensation. Most single-wall tents have a completely built-in bathtub flooring that’s sewn to the partitions of the tent, making it straightforward to maintain the inside dry if it’s a must to arrange within the pouring rain. Many even have an built-in entrance or facet vestibule that can be utilized to cowl gear in dangerous climate. Popular fashions embrace the Zpacks Duplex, the Gossamer Gear “The One”, Six Moon Designs’ Lunar Solo, and the Tartpent’s Rainbow.
Advantages on the AT
- Easy and quick to arrange
- Excellent airflow which helps scale back inner condensation
- Lightweight and compact
- Set up with trekking poles, which helps remove some weight
- Bug-proof and slither proof
Disadvantages on the AT
- Drafty and chilly in cool climate.
- Requires good campsites with degree floor and ample area to arrange
- Difficult to pitch on wood platforms at designated campsites
Double Wall Tents
Double-wall tents supply wonderful climate safety, particularly in cool, windy, and moist climate throughout the cooler spring and autumn shoulder season months on the Appalachian Trail. They have an internal tent with a tub flooring, mesh partitions. and a separate rain fly that covers the internal tent and collects any inner condensation that will happen at night time.
There are two forms of double-walled tents: tents the place it’s a must to arrange the internal tent earlier than you pitch the rain fly; and double-walled tents the place you possibly can pitch the rain fly and internal tent on the similar time, or with the rain fly first after which hold the internal tent underneath them: the Durston X-Mid-1 and the Tarptent Notch don’t require a “fast fly” footprint to arrange, whereas the Big Agnes Copper Spur UL2 and the NEMO Hornet Elite OSMO 1 & 2 do.
Advantages on the AT
- Can be utilized in all three-season climate situations, together with colder climate
- Wind-proof with totally enclosed partitions
- Bug-proof and slither proof
- Usually, have a vestibule for lined gear storage
- Inner tents have deep bathtub flooring that may forestall flooding if water swimming pools beneath
Disadvantages on the AT
- Can be arduous to seek out campsites with adequate area or degree floor
- Tend to be heavier and bulkier than tarps and tarp tents though weights have been coming down.
Hammock w/ Tarp
Hammocks are available a variety of shapes, lengths, and weights, starting from tricked-out backpacking hammocks like a Hammock Gear Wanderlust or a no-frills ENO Singlenest. The largest benefit of utilizing a hammock is you can make camp wherever there are bushes to hold your hammock from, which is nearly in every single place on the Appalachian Trail (so long as rules allow). That’s an enormous benefit since there are plenty of locations on the AT the place it’s arduous to discover a first rate place to camp: the place there’s no degree floor, the place the campsites fill with water within the rain, or the place crowded situations require using stealth web site.
Advantages on the AT
- Great for tenting in forests, particularly when good ground-level campsites are scarce
- Bug proof and slither proof, supplied you add a bug web in case your hammock doesn’t include one
- Never have to fret about rain flooding your shelter flooring
- Provides protection in your gear at night time and a spot to prepare dinner out of the rain
- Easy to pack and arrange when used with snakeskins
- Great stealth tenting possibility
Disadvantages on the AT
- Requires further backside insulation and wind safety layers underneath 60-70 levels which will be costly, cumbersome, and heavy in comparison with different choices.
- Not possibility when no bushes can be found. It occurs, even on the AT.
Flat Tarps
Flat sq. or rectangular tarps have sq., 90-degree corners and are sort of old skool now. They’re price mentioning, nonetheless, as a result of they’re cheap, light-weight, and extremely adaptable since they are often arrange in many various shapes and orientations. They additionally match very properly into slender areas between bushes and may incorporate panorama options like fallen bushes and huge boulders.
Pitching them is a little bit of an artwork type and requires plenty of creativity, however may also be plenty of enjoyable. Still, good campsite choice is essential as a result of flat tarps don’t have flooring and should be augmented with an internal bug bivy or bivy sacks to supply extra bug and wind safety. Popular flat tarps embrace the Hyperlite Mountain Gear Flat Tarp and the Hammock Gear Traverse Tarp.
Advantages on the AT
- Very light-weight and compact
- Low value
- The most elementary A-frame pitch is simple to grasp
- Can be pitched utilizing trekking poles or tied to bushes/shrubs
- Does not require a flat floor to pitch
- Can be configured in an infinite variety of methods, together with ones that incorporate panorama options similar to fallen logs or boulders
- Can match into slender areas between bushes, unusable by different shelters
Disadvantages on the AT
- Does not present as a lot chilly, damp, or wind safety as a shelter with a flooring that’s totally enclosed on all sides
- Requires some type of bug safety similar to a bug web or bug bivy
- Takes significantly extra talent and observe to grasp organising
- Requires that you just carry extra stakes and man traces since you by no means know what “shape” you’ll pitch upfront
Mids and Shaped Tarps
Mids (brief for pyramid) and formed tarps differ from flat tarps in that they’ll solely be pitched a method, as dictated by their form. They’re basically floorless single-wall tents with out an internal tent, though most individuals decide to make use of some sort of internal shelter with them on the AT for rain and bug safety. These internal shelters are equal to the internal tents present in double-walled tents. Alternatively, you should utilize an ultralight bivy bag with a mesh cowl over the face, usually with some sort of UL footprint. However, while you issue within the want for an internal tent, it virtually makes extra sense to purchase an all-in-one single-walled shelter or tarp tent since they’re the cheaper possibility.
Shaped tarps embrace pyramids, double-apex tarps, A-frames with entrance vestibules, catenary reduce tarps, and so forth. Popular fashions embrace the Hyperlite Mountain Gear Ultamid 2, the Mountain Lauren Designs Duomid, and the Zpacks Hexamid Pocket Tarp with Doors.
Advantages for the AT
- Lightweight and simply packable
- Bug and slither proof when used with an internal tent or bivy sack
- Walls will be raised for higher air flow or pitched flush with the bottom to guard in opposition to rain
- Many arrange with trekking poles, which helps remove some weight
Disadvantages on the AT
- Requires good campsites with degree floor and ample area to arrange
- Difficult to pitch on wood platforms at designated campsites
No Tent or Shelter: Just Use AT Lean-tos
One possibility is to hike the Appalachian Trail or a bit of it and never take a shelter in any respect, with the intent of simply utilizing the designated lean-tos that are spaced at 10-15 mile intervals. I’d advise in opposition to doing this as a result of having a tent or shelter with you is a crucial piece of security gear, when you’ve got an accident and may’t go on, climate situations pin you down, you possibly can’t make it to a shelter every night time, a shelter is already full while you arrive (first come, first serve) the shelter has resident Copperheads, Rattlers, or a wasp’s nest inside, you don’t wish to share a shelter with the individuals already there, or it’s so disgusting and decrepit that you just’d by no means wish to sleep in it.
Bring a light-weight tent or shelter, even in case you solely use it sometimes. You’ll be glad you probably did.
Tents and Shelters for Winter Conditions
Hikers, particularly thru-hikers, are more and more taking to the Appalachian Trail in March to keep away from path crowding although winter situations nonetheless prevail down south. Winter provides a wholly totally different dimension to shelter choice on the AT because it’s almost unattainable to pound tent stakes into the frozen floor in case your shelter requires them. Instead, pitching a non-freestanding tent on prime of snow requires using deadmen (stakes frozen in place) which takes longer to arrange since they should freeze when you wait, whereas 12-14 hour-long nights make shelter consolation and livability extra of a precedence.
Unfortunately, not one of the shelter varieties talked about above is right for such situations, until you’ll find single-wall or double-wall tent which is free-standing. Free-standing, light-weight tents are comparatively uncommon however are nice in chilly climate as a result of your physique weight and your gear are sufficient to maintain them from blowing away with out staking within the comparatively protected campsites you discover on the AT. The Big Agnes Copper Spur UL 1 or 2 are good freestanding double-wall tents that steadiness consolation, ease of use, and light-weight.
If you have been enthusiastic about mountain climbing the AT in March (or earlier) and utilizing the lean-tos since they received’t be full, I’d urge you to rethink. Sleeping in a shelter with one open wall in freezing and windy climate the place it’s so chilly that that you must spend each second of a 14 hour night time in your sleeping bag is the pits. There’s actually no comparability between that and sleeping in a snug, windproof freestanding tent, even when it weighs a bit extra to hold.
How to Decide?
I’ve lined plenty of totally different tent and shelter choices above, however how do you determine which one to deliver? I believe an important components rely upon the climate you propose to hike in and your private consolation wants.
- If the bottom remains to be frozen and it’s unattainable to drive stakes into it, I’d advocate utilizing a freestanding tent since you don’t must stake it out and they are often arrange in rain with out the internal tent turning into moist.
- After nighttime temperatures rise constantly over 40 levels, I imagine a hammock is the best choice, so long as you increase it with some backside insulation like a foam pad or underquilt. Different quantities of insulation are wanted as temperatures improve, however the ease of discovering campsites and the flexibility to arrange a dry shelter within the rain are the chief promoting factors of hammock-based shelter methods.
- If you don’t like sleeping in a hammock, you’ll be extra snug switching to a tarp tent which gives higher air flow as the warmth and humidity of spring and summer time improve.
Whichever tent or shelter you select, don’t overlook that you’ve the choice to hike the Appalachian Trail in hotter climate, deferring thru-hikes or part hikes to a later date when that you must carry much less insulation (clothes and sleeping) and lighter-weight shelters.
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