What’s the greatest backpacking tent or tenting shelter for thru-hiking or part mountaineering all or a number of the Appalachian Path? Working over 2,000 miles from Georgia to Maine, the Appalachian Path travels throughout closely forested and mountainous terrain, with extensively various temperatures, each cold and warm. Frequent rain, ferocious insect life, and hiker competitors for good tenting areas are all essential elements 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? Are you able to simply sleep and shelters and never carry a tent in any respect? What about early spring or winter mountaineering circumstances? I’ve skilled all of those approaches whereas part mountaineering the Appalachian Path and the reply is…it relies upon:
- On nighttime temperatures
- On biting bugs
- On the provision of fine campsites
- In your pockets
- In your tolerance for carrying cumbersome gear and extra gear weight
- In 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 might be half stable and half mesh. This improves airflow by the tent and helps to stop inner condensation. Most single-wall tents have a totally built-in bathtub flooring that’s sewn to the partitions of the tent, making it straightforward to maintain the inside dry if it’s important to arrange within the pouring rain. Many even have an built-in entrance or facet vestibule that can be utilized to cowl gear in unhealthy climate. In style fashions embrace the Zpacks Duplex, the Gossamer Gear “The One”, Six Moon Designs’ Lunar Solo, and the Tartpent’s Rainbow.
Benefits on the AT
- Straightforward and quick to arrange
- Wonderful airflow which helps scale back inner condensation
- Light-weight and compact
- Arrange 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 house to arrange
- Troublesome to pitch on picket platforms at designated campsites
Double Wall Tents
Double-wall tents provide glorious climate safety, particularly in cool, windy, and moist climate throughout the cooler spring and autumn shoulder season months on the Appalachian Path. They’ve an inside tent with a bath flooring, mesh partitions. and a separate rain fly that covers the inside 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 important to arrange the inside tent earlier than you pitch the rain fly; and double-walled tents the place you possibly can pitch the rain fly and inside tent on the identical time, or with the rain fly first after which dangle the inside tent underneath them: the Durston X-Mid-1 and the Tarptent Notch don’t require a “quick fly” footprint to arrange, whereas the Large Agnes Copper Spur UL2 and the NEMO Hornet Elite OSMO 1 & 2 do.
Benefits on the AT
- Can be utilized in all three-season climate circumstances, together with colder climate
- Wind-proof with totally enclosed partitions
- Bug-proof and slither proof
- Often, have a vestibule for coated gear storage
- Inside tents have deep bathtub flooring that may stop flooding if water swimming pools beneath
Disadvantages on the AT
- Will be laborious to seek out campsites with enough house or degree floor
- Are typically 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 most important benefit of utilizing a hammock is which you can make camp wherever there are bushes to hold your hammock from, which is nearly in all places on the Appalachian Path (so long as laws allow). That’s an enormous benefit since there are numerous locations on the AT the place it’s laborious to discover a respectable place to camp: the place there’s no degree floor, the place the campsites fill with water within the rain, or the place crowded circumstances require using stealth web site.
Benefits on the AT
- Nice 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
- By no means have to fret about rain flooding your shelter flooring
- Supplies protection on your gear at night time and a spot to cook dinner out of the rain
- Straightforward to pack and arrange when used with snakeskins
- Nice 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 an excellent 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 type of old style 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 alternative shapes and orientations. Additionally they match very nicely 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 kind and requires numerous creativity, however may also be numerous enjoyable. Nonetheless, good campsite choice is essential as a result of flat tarps don’t have flooring and have to be augmented with an inside bug bivy or bivy sacks to offer extra bug and wind safety. In style flat tarps embrace the Hyperlite Mountain Gear Flat Tarp and the Hammock Gear Traverse Tarp.
Benefits on the AT
- Very light-weight and compact
- Low price
- Essentially the most fundamental A-frame pitch is simple to grasp
- Will be pitched utilizing trekking poles or tied to bushes/shrubs
- Doesn’t require a flat floor to pitch
- Will be configured in an infinite variety of methods, together with ones that incorporate panorama options equivalent to fallen logs or boulders
- Can match into slender areas between bushes, unusable by different shelters
Disadvantages on the AT
- Doesn’t 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 equivalent 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 “form” you’ll pitch prematurely
Mids and Formed 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 primarily floorless single-wall tents with out an inside tent, though most individuals decide to make use of some type of inside shelter with them on the AT for rain and bug safety. These inside shelters are equal to the inside tents present in double-walled tents. Alternatively, you should use an ultralight bivy bag with a mesh cowl over the face, typically with some type of UL footprint. Nonetheless, if you issue within the want for an inside tent, it nearly makes extra sense to purchase an all-in-one single-walled shelter or tarp tent since they’re the cheaper possibility.
Formed tarps embrace pyramids, double-apex tarps, A-frames with entrance vestibules, catenary minimize tarps, and so forth. In style fashions embrace the Hyperlite Mountain Gear Ultamid 2, the Mountain Lauren Designs Duomid, and the Zpacks Hexamid Pocket Tarp with Doorways.
Benefits for the AT
- Light-weight and simply packable
- Bug and slither proof when used with an inside tent or bivy sack
- Partitions 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 house to arrange
- Troublesome to pitch on picket platforms at designated campsites
No Tent or Shelter: Simply Use AT Lean-tos
One possibility is to hike the Appalachian Path 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 vital piece of security gear, in case you have an accident and may’t go on, climate circumstances pin you down, you possibly can’t make it to a shelter every night time, a shelter is already full if you arrive (first come, first serve) the shelter has resident Copperheads, Rattlers, or a wasp’s nest inside, you don’t need to share a shelter with the folks already there, or it’s so disgusting and decrepit that you just’d by no means need to sleep in it.
Convey a light-weight tent or shelter, even should you solely use it sometimes. You’ll be glad you probably did.
Tents and Shelters for Winter Situations
Hikers, particularly thru-hikers, are more and more taking to the Appalachian Path in March to keep away from path crowding even if winter circumstances nonetheless prevail down south. Winter provides a completely totally different dimension to shelter choice on the AT because it’s practically unimaginable to pound tent stakes into the frozen floor in case your shelter requires them. As a substitute, pitching a non-freestanding tent on high of snow requires using deadmen (stakes frozen in place) which takes longer to arrange since they should freeze whilst you wait, whereas 12-14 hour-long nights make shelter consolation and livability extra of a precedence.
Sadly, not one of the shelter sorts talked about above is good for such circumstances, until you could find an excellent 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 Large Agnes Copper Spur UL 1 or 2 are good freestanding double-wall tents that stability consolation, ease of use, and light-weight.
When you had been fascinated about mountaineering the AT in March (or earlier) and utilizing the lean-tos since they gained’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 it’s good to 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 cushty, windproof freestanding tent, even when it weighs a bit extra to hold.
Easy methods to Determine?
I’ve coated numerous totally different tent and shelter choices above, however how do you resolve which one to carry? I feel an important elements rely on the climate you intend to hike in and your private consolation wants.
- If the bottom remains to be frozen and it’s unimaginable to drive stakes into it, I’d advocate utilizing a freestanding tent since you don’t should stake it out and they are often arrange in rain with out the inside tent changing into moist.
- After nighttime temperatures rise constantly over 40 levels, I consider a hammock is the best choice, so long as you increase it with some backside insulation like a foam pad or underquilt. Totally different quantities of insulation are wanted as temperatures improve, however the ease of discovering campsites and the power to arrange a dry shelter within the rain are the chief promoting factors of hammock-based shelter methods.
- When 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 neglect that you’ve the choice to hike the Appalachian Path in hotter climate, deferring thru-hikes or part hikes to a later date when it’s good to carry much less insulation (clothes and sleeping) and lighter-weight shelters.
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