Tents

Hello,
I’d like to get a light 1-2 person tent suitable for moderate
backpacking, but I don’t want to spend much money. I’ll probably be using it mainly for 1-2 night trips on moderate-difficulty trails, and in good weather to the extent one can predict that. I also may use it in car-accessible campgrounds for longer periods- due to high gas and
an increasingly decrepit car, I am considering visiting national parks via bus and/or hitchhiking, and a compact tent would be nice for that.

So basically I don’t need anything fancy, so long as its not junk that will fall apart on me. How cheap can one go? For example I’ve seen one called a Texsport Knollwood Bivy Shelter for $35 that *seems* like what I’d need…what do you folks think?

I own two 2-person tents from Eureka!. While they are not as light as my Gore-Tex bivy sack, I usually end up taking one of those tents on most of my trips because I like the extra room a tent offers.

While slightly heavier than tents made by other companies, such as Mountain Hardwear, The North Face, and Sierra Designs, the Eureka! tents are much less expensive. I used one of them for an entire summer as a backpacking guide and acquired the other one the next season and used that one on a 21 day trip as well as several other 2-3 day trips.

For the price (both were about $90-$120 MSRP) they have served me well and I have few complaints.

I generally am not a fan of department store brand camping equipment. I’ve led trips where others on the trip were using a tent purchased from a Wal-Mart or K-Mart and they always had some problems with the tents. Usually rain and moisture build-up in the tent caused them to get wet or some part of the tent failed such as the zippers or the stitching came undone in places.

I purchased one of the Eureka! tents in 1999 and the other one came to me in 2000. Both get much use and are doing very well.