I think differences in region make quite the difference here. Having experienced the humidity and bugs of the American SE, I will never live there, nor be inclined to visit outside November thru February.

As is, I try quite hard to plan my trips such that I avoid camping in the mosquito zones during our spring and summer hatches. They can be as bad as anywhere, just for a short time only.

"* Weight saving - my solo tent is 1020g, tarp + bug net + bivy + warmer sleeping bag = ???"

You would have either a bug net/tent or bivy, not both. The setup I'm considering this season is a HMG Echo I or MLD Grace Solo in cuben, 7-8oz range including guylines. Adding a Serenity Shelter with sil/cuben doors for 6.2-8.5 oz, and you're at 16.5 oz max not including stakes. Essentially a double wall, with the option of leaving the bug tent at home. My Moment weighs 33.8 without stakes. Cost not added in as a factor though.

I've noticed that a few of the tarp users are from California. Rain is banned from blasting horizontaly into the ends of tarps in California. :)

"Rain is banned from blasting horizontaly into the ends of tarps in California. :)"

LOL. Although I'm mainly a fair weather hiker, hoping to change that.

Edited by TRAUMAhead on 12/21/2011 11:50:29 MST.

I use a solo tent for several reasons. I should also say that I don't walk, eat sleep. I might stop at 6 p.m. and lie around until 11 p.m. so I like several things.
1.Bugs. I want to sit up for hours sometimes, so no bivy/tarp would be fun.
2.Privacy. I also sleep until about 9 so I don't want to be a store window or that homeless guy on the corner for everyone to check out.
3. Someone said earlier about getting all my gear packed in the morning. Never lost so much as a minibic this way.
4. Not very much dirt and sand ends up in my sleeping bag.
5. Easy to set up. I only go one way, so I like my tent that way too.
6. I feel that my tent is much more maximized than a tarp. I don't understand why anyone wants a tarp that is 3 feet over at each end to prevent rain splash. Wasted space. Again, that's just me.
7. Safety. No bear out there can penetrate my wall of noseeum netting. Withstands bullets, also. Since I started using a tent I have not been shot or attacked by an animal one single time. They know.

The above post...wins.

Edited by TylerD on 12/21/2011 14:31:29 MST.

Yep, Chris said it best.

My solo tents over the past 15 years have been:
1. REI Sololite (heavy double wall)
2. TT Contrail (nice but could be better in wind)
3. TT Moment (Great tent & fast to pitch)

Next solo tent? Maybe a SMD Skyscape X (Cuben)

Solo tents are the lightest option that will work in virtually ANY campsite... and give complete protection from the elements and critters. (NO BIVY NEEDED)

Out of fiscal necessity I "tarped" in my early days ('70s) of backpacking and I'm over it.

BUGS!

I just ordered a ZPacks Hexamid Solo + with beak - with the net floor, it should be arriving soon. I also have a 5'X8' ID sil-tarp and MLD Bivy. All of these choices are to eliminate any chance of bugs,that begin with "M", from sucking me dry.

I was recently on a trip to the ERL Trail in Arkansas. In camp one night I looked out at the leafy ground cover with my headlamp. Behold, a million bright blue sparkles...that turned out to be spider eyes. Glad I don't just lay down and sleep in the dirt.

Actually, most all of the above, though maybe it really is just a cool gadget...

I have a nice tarp, a great homemade bivy, one of the original Hennessy UL hammocks, and several tarptent style shelters. The shelter I grab first when heading solo for the trail is my Tarptent Moment. This is entirely due to the ease of use - I can be lying down inside in about two minutes. I have privacy, room to change, store my gear, eat, excellent weather protection, etc. Sure, I can get most of those things from the other shelters, but not in such a quick and easy package.

Ex-bivy user here who went back to solo single wall tents and tarptents. Sometimes I needed a tarp to protect the opening if I had to get into the bivy during a storm, and the combined weight approached a solo tent.

Above freezing, it's the bugs. Below freezing, in stormy weather, a tent a place to crawl into my sleeping bag, read in a storm, etc.. One experience stands out; a winter trip in Big Bend (Texas) I rode out a fierce storm in comfort, sitting cross-legged in my tent (an old MSR Zoid 1) while sand blasting wind peppered the fly. With cuben tarps getting better, I may revert back to a bivy + small tarp system under freezing temperatures but it's pretty hard to beat the sheltering aspect while waiting a storm out in relative comfort.

)

Edited by asdzxc57 on 01/25/2012 17:47:06 MST.

Maybe digressing, but I think an article on how to avoid common pitfalls when choosing a tent could be useful.
For example one is to confuse floor area (2d) with usable space (3d) .
Another , very common, is to forget that you most likely will be on top of a mat (and the difference between a 1" and a 2.5" is greater than 1.5" at the end of a tent..) as well as inside a sleeping bag a few inches longer than you at both ends.
Only two out of a dozen or so points I can think of...
Franco

I'm not quite an ultralighter, more just lightweight/superlight. I choose a solo tent for convenience and simplicity. There are many that pack small, utilize a connected pole system, and work as expected. I love getting to camp, laying out the tent on the matching footprint, throwing the pole in front of me and watching it assemble itself, clipping the tent to the pole, and putting your stuff inside. Throwing the fly on and staking in is fast, and I like the kind that is free-standing for the same reason. I have tried a few, but I now love the Fly Creek series from Big Agnes. So light, extremely durable and very waterproof/stormproof (first trip out was a crazy storm on mt marcy and it held up incredibly well with ZERO leakage.) Even when I woke up and discovered water running between a tarp I had sloppily set up as a footprint and the tent floor, the water never came through. That was a miracle.

I think that those who do longer distance through hiking and need to shave every ounce would be much happier in a tarp or tarp-tent setup. They are more versatile and can be pitched in less ideal situations. Plus if you're a really crazy ultralighter you use the tarp as a rain poncho as well! I just can't deal with mice, having to baby my tent, having to futz with the setup over and over to get it pitched right, and having to rely on the right pitching angles to avoid exposure, etc. Nothing like just zipping up a rain fly if it starts to rain, or if you don't want a breeze blowing over you. Also great to have a place to change when needed, and you can cram your girlfriend in if you need to.

Finally, there are many 1 person shelters that make superior winter tents - less open space to heat and a tighter, more enclosed space means more warmth. Also means you don't need a bivy, so when calculating weight, those with a one person tent can leave a bivy out of the equation. For example, I've weighed some tarp/bug screen layer/footprint/bivy setups at equal to or more than some of the lightest solo tents.

Used a solo tent, an REI Quarter Dome T1, for the past four years or so. I really liked it but parted with it recently because I wanted to go lighter and wanted more room (got a two-man Easton Kilo). That said, what I liked about the Quarter Dome, and like about tents in general, is the bug protection, weather protection, privacy, and the extra warmth tents can provide. The Quarter Dome was great because it was narrow enough that I could drop it almost anywhere with no problem, though the setup sucked a bit.

"* Weight saving - my solo tent is 1020g, tarp + bug net + bivy + warmer sleeping bag = ???
You would have either a bug net/tent or bivy, not both."

Fair enough, but I forgot to add poles for the tarp option.

You may take walking poles anyway (I don't), but you don't _need_ them for walking, you need them for the tarp. And you need stakes too.

Franco added an important component: With the increasing popularity of 2.5 inch thick air pads (such as the NeoAir), head and foot end clearance for a tent is of greater importance than ever, even for short folks like me (5'3"). (My KookaBay pad is 3.5 inches thick, which doesn't help.) It's really important to be able to sit up without brushing the hood of the sleeping bag) against the tent ceiling, and extremely claustrophobic to have the tent ceiling only a couple of inches from the face! I've also found more condensation when the ceiling is close to my face.

Another interesting trend is that it's becoming a lot harder to separate a "tent" from a "tarp." There are now dozens of tarp plus fully enclosed bug tent with bathtub floor combinations around that really blur the lines between tent and tarp. With the two together, you basically have a double-wall tent with net inner. A number of the tarps have beaks, too, to cope with that horizontal rain that seems to come from all directions at once in Rocky Mountain thunderstorms. Most of them (unlike the "traditional" double wall tent) can have the fly/tarp set up first (or have the inner tent clipped under the outer, like the new Tarptent offerings), so you can set it up in pouring rain without getting the inner tent wet. A number of "cottage" firms list the tarp and net tent separately so you can even get the tarp/fly from one manufacturer and the net tent from another, assuming they are compatible sizes.

So here's a good question for you--where do you draw the line between a solo tent and a solo tarp? I don't think there is one any more!

It's like the various distinctions between "framed" and "frameless" packs, which resulted in the popular ULA Ohm being excluded from both the SOTM reviews on packs!

Edited by hikinggranny on 12/22/2011 12:12:41 MST.

Christopher,

When similar materials and setup systems are used, the weight difference is very small between tarp/bivy and a tarptent. To compare a tarptent more accurately to your tarp + bivy, the SMD Skyscape X is 15 ounces.

Comparing a cuben tarp and bivy without including the weight of hiking poles will obviously weigh a lot less than a silnylon tarptent that has a long tent pole included in the weight.

You got there. I was going to go on about a duo cuben tarp + bug headnet + Ruta Locura poles for 16.5 oz but there's too many variables/personal preferences/fabrics/locations to consider.

been using a Lunar Solo but just traded up to Skyscape X

1. rain protection (live in the NW)
2. bugs
3. place to stash gear while away from camp

Sean,

Please report back on how you like the Skyscape X. I have to admit that 15oz is pretty tempting. I currently use a Gossamer Gear SpinnShelter and a Alpinlite Bug Shelter 1.25 when needed, so 20.35oz with bug protection.