Tents
A tent is more than just a simple shelter for spending the night out in the open air. It’s a refuge, your own little home that you can pitch wherever you want out on the trail. The following brief guide will help you discover the model to best suit your needs.
Buying a tent
To choose the tent that will be right for you, you should first ask yourself:
- Where, when and how you plan on using it?
- How many people it will have to accommodate?
- How much you can afford to spend?
A three or four-season’s model ?
First, consider during when and at what time of year you will be using the tent. A three-season tent will be perfect for spring, summer or fall camping, while you will need a four-season style with a reinforced pole set able to support the weight of snow if you want to enjoy winter camping.
If, however, you’re the kind of camper who likes to explore places where extreme weather conditions are always a possibility, you would be well advised to opt for an expedition (or winter) tent. This type is sturdier and warmer, featuring stronger poles and more of them, and is designed to reduce ventilation to a minimum in order to conserve heat inside the tent.
Finally, so-called family tents (sometimes also known as summer tents) are usually big enough to stand up in. On the other hand, they are so heavy and bulky that they can only be carried using a motor vehicle.
Shape and design
The first design to be aware of is the traditional A-frame tent, which is roomy and easy to put up, but has the disadvantages of being heavy, lacking in streamlining and necessitating a great many runners in order to stay up.
Such tents, however, have become less common since the advent of free-standing dome-shaped tents, which can be pitched without being fastened to the ground because of their overlapping poles. This model’s main advantage? It can be set up anywhere and then moved, if necessary, to the best available site. Once that has been selected, all that remains to be done is to anchor the tent securely to the ground so that it won’t blow away with the wind. Hemispheric in shape in the past, today’s dome models—now known as “modified dome” tents—come in a variety of forms designed to increase the amount of usable interior space.
Finally, tunnel-shaped tents still have their fans, particularly cyclists, given their light weight and low profile, which makes them more streamlined. However, they require the use of pegs and runners, limiting the types of ground upon which they can be set up.
Single or double walls?
Only a tiny proportion of the tents currently available on the market feature single-wall construction. Made of high quality, waterproof/breathable technical fabric, such tents are lighter, but more expensive, and sometimes difficult to ventilate.
Instead, the vast majority of tents have double walls: one interior layer that “breathes” as a result of the use of openwork panels and mesh, the other—the rainfly—on the exterior, made up of a waterproof shell. The two do not come into contact, which allows the layer of air between them to both insulate the tent and wick away the moisture generated by human bodies that, if not removed, would cool the interior of the tent.
Sometimes, the rainfly is designed to extend out over the tent’s door or doors in order to form one or two covered areas or vestibules that can be very handy for keeping muddy shoes, smelly socks and other small equipment dry, as well as from cluttering up the tent interior.
Materials
Unlike in the past, today the inner wall of a tent is most often made of nylon, a sturdy material that, in addition to being affordable, tends not to absorb moisture and is very resistant to wear. In contrast, polyester, which is better resistant to moisture and the sun’s harsh UV rays, is the preferred material for rainflies, even though it is less tolerant of stretching and wears out more easily. Generally, a tent should have a strong, extremely waterproof floor with edges that extend up its sides to avoid water seeping into the base. Due to its high resistance to tearing and wear, nylon is often used to make this component.
In order to reduce a tent’s weight, some manufactures choose to use very thin ripstop fabric whose mesh structure prevents tears or rips, if they happen, from spreading across the tent. Another fabric that is widely used to make tents is taffeta, the quality and resistance of which varies according to the thickness of its threads. Relatively speaking, taffeta continues to be more durable than ripstop fabrics.
Various other considerations
Placed in the middle of fabrics that are often stretched to the limit, zippers can easily break. They should ideally be the spiral type and made of nylon, making them lighter and easier to handle.
Seam quality is another important factor to be considered: if they stretch when strain is put on the tent, water will be more likely to seep in. Every tent has a waterproof rating measured in millimetres. A 5,000 mm tent is therefore less water-resistant than a tent with a 10,000 mm rating.
Usually fastened to each other by means of an interior elastic cord, tent poles should be light, sturdy and have a minimum amount of flexibility. They will be less expensive if they are made of fibreglass, but they will also be heavier and more likely to crack. Poles made of carbon are lighter and stronger, but are more expensive and sometimes easily broken. This explains why many manufacturers prefer aluminum, available in a number of alloys with varying levels of sturdiness and lightness.
Trying it out
In order to choose the right size of tent, go inside, lie down on its floor and estimate the amount of space that will remain once all the campers are in.
A good tent should be able to be pitched quickly and easily. The ideal way to find out how long it will take to put up is to try doing so yourself while you are still in the store.
It is also crucial to test how sturdy the tent’s structure is. To do this, push on the walls and frame to check whether the tent will tend to give way under the pressure of the wind. If the walls readily touch each other when you are conducting this test, the tent’s waterproofness could be affected. Finally, tents with straighter (more vertical) walls do not stand up to wind as well, but they do enable better runoff of rainwater.
Use
Carry tent pegs separately so as not to perforate the tent canvas.
Pitch the tent in the shade as much as possible so as to avoid UV rays damaging the rainfly.
If possible, shelter the tent, especially if it is big, from the wind in order to prevent it from being overly exposed to heavy gusts.
In order to avoid putting holes in the tent floor when pitching it on ground that is uneven or riddled with small rocks, use a tent footprint or groundsheet, that is, a plastic or nylon tarpaulin. The groundsheet will help trap any moisture coming in from the ground. Most tent manufacturers offer groundsheets in the same sizes and shapes as their tents, which increases their effectiveness.
Maintenance
Check zippers regularly and, if necessary, coat them with wax.
Tent floors, rainflies and seams sometimes have to be rewaterproofed with a polyurethane or silicone coating (in the case of fabrics), if not urethane (in the case of seams).
Before storing a tent for an extended period of time, clean it with slightly soapy water, rinse thoroughly, and then let it dry out completely in the open air.
Store the tent in a dry, dark, dust-free place. Ideally, it should be stretched out completely.