light and bug-proof

I'm looking for input here: what do you think is the lightest 2-person shelter with good bug protection?

Six Moon Designs Reguge X.

http://www.sixmoondesigns.com/shop/shopexd.asp?id=58

http://www.tarptent.com/

I often hike with a friend with the Squall II Tarptent and if you use a half mil plastic tarp for the floor and wrap it up the (in) sides of the tent a bit it seems to have been mosquito proof. There is bug screen that covers the door built into the tent.
Try this:
http://www.tarptent.com/

I'm partial to the Tarptent Cloudburst (I have the Cloudburst-1 with sewn in floor.).

Pliny, it's pretty hard to find any brand of tarptent without a sewn-in floor and full netting these days; you have to special order. The exception is the pyramid-style tents made by Mountain Laurel Designs, Oware and a few others. My Tarptent Squall 2 is completely bug-proof without anything having to be done to it. It is the lightest 2-person tent from Tarptent.

The Six Moon Designs Refuge X is certainly the lightest 2 person tent right now, but it's not currently available because Ron Moak is tweaking the design. The silnylon version of the Refuge is available.

I'm still waiting for Gossamer Gear to get the Squall Classic (made by GG but designed by Henry Shires of Tarptent) back on the market. It's an ounce or two lighter than the SMD silnylon Refuge and has a bathtub floor.

AntiGravity Gear has the O2 tent which is an ounce heavier than the silnylon SMD Refuge.

To me, both the Refuge and the AGG O2 present a design problem for two people because of the side door. If the person at the back of the tent needs to get out, (s)he has to crawl over the person next to the door or shove that person out the door! If you're going to only one door (necessary to have the tent light), it would seem better to have it at the end so both occupants can access it. On the other hand, if the second occupant is a small child, having the parent next to the door might be a good thing!

(I deleted this post after re-reading the original post: poster was asking about 2-person tents; I have no experience with them. I had replied with a discussion of 1-person tents. Sorry.)

Mouse
quote"
it's pretty hard to find any brand of tarptent without a sewn-in floor and full netting these days; you have to special order. "
__________________________________________________________

Umm Ms Mouse could you set me straight please. I thought a shelter with a roof, and a sewn in floor and full netting aroound the sides was called a tent? I saw Bigfoots Henry Shire special tent last spring and it was just a two hoop tent, made of gossamer material. The fact is - tents have been around for so long that there is no such thing as a new design, only old designs made of lighter materials.

Somewhere there is a dividing line beween traditional tents made of rugged materials and which are heavier than the new tents made of very light materials. But the new tent rely a lot on hiking poles to complete "A" frame designs and then the hoops.

I made a ten foot long tent from my siltarp and I call it my sil tent. The entire tent, cords and stakes in a stuff sack weighs 16 ounces. Its is bugproof and has a sewn in floor, but it only fits one person, it is not roomy like a floorless tarp.

The summer I spent BPing in California I had an 8x10 piece of plastic that cost around $1.50 and a $6.00 blue foam pad. I called the plastic tarp my ground cloth and I slept on top of it and if it rained I pulled the loose side over me.
Jim

Here's my thinking on this. Feel free to disagree.

A Tarp Tent has a roof and (usually) a floor, but the two do not connect. There is netting in between, but it is possible to lie down and see out in all directions. Like a tarp -- which is why they are called "tarp tents." That is certainly the case with every Tarptent that I have tried.

A Tent has a roof and a floor and the two are connected. Sometimes there is a separate second roof (the fly or outer tent), sometimes not. But one cannot lie down and see outside in all directions. This makes Tents more useful when one requires complete protection from the weather (heavy snow, winter storms, etc.)

A Tarp is just the roof. One uses a separate floor and possibly some separate bug netting. Or one pulls the open side over ones prostrate form when it rains. (Try that in a one of our 3-day monsoons. Ha.)

kbennet

Thanks



What about screen tents?

or what about tarps when they have to be down on the ground?

The tarp tents that I have seen have continuous walls to the floor where they are sewn together.

I mean agree - a tarp is a flat sheet tied up over you some how and a tent is an enclosed space, in general.

But I see little difference between a tarp tent and a tent if each have continuous walls to the bath-tub floor, screen in the back and a door of some kind.

Jim

There are a number of backpacking terms that don't seem to lend themselves to a precise and universally agreed upon definition. I think of tarp tents as single-wall tents that evolved from tarps. There are versions without sewn-in floors, but my sense is that they're continuing to evolve such that versions with sewn-in floors are becoming more common.

Indeed, that makes it a "tent", and a better term --- at least for those with the sewn-in floors --- might be "single wall tent". It gets a little more tricky when some tent models have a sewn-in floor as an option.

I don't think many people worry about being precise with the terminology.

What is and isn't a tent or tarptent, and the various opinions about that, and the many variations ot tent out there, led me to ask about shelters in my original post. I figured that way I'll get the most ideas, as it is the broadest term. Personally, if I use the term Tarptent, I'm referring to a product made by the Tarptent company. Others use it more generically.

If we use the term "single-wall tent," which is more descriptive, we include the "breathable" single wall tents such as the Black Diamond Lighthouse and others of that ilk.

BPL recently did a "State of the Market" report on these tents, defining them as waterproof, non-breathable single-wall tents weighing less than 2 1/2 to 3 lbs. (the weight varying depending on how many persons it holds and whether or not there's a vestibule). That's a reasonable definition but awfully wordy!

I've been using the term "tarptent" with a small "t," but that's not accurate either and puts Henry Shires' tents in the same category as when we use "kleenex" with a small "k" to describe facial tissue. While I like the term "tarptent" for a tent that is a real tent but has the feel of a tarp, it isn't fair to Henry to use that term.

We need to invent a term that is short but isn't a brand name!

I don't think Henry minds the free advertising...

"I don't think Henry minds the free advertising..."

Xerox did.

So did Kleenex, Frigidaire (once used as the generic name for a refrigerator, but long since discarded) and Johnson & Johnson (Band-Aids). At least thinking about this thread has stopped me from using the "tarptent" term generically.

Added to the problem is that those unfamiliar with this category of lightweight single wall tents have no idea what a "tarptent" or a Tarptent is and think it's just a tarp....

Federal Express also cared. So far Google appears to accept and encourage the generic term as referring to internet searching. It is up to each trademark holder to defend their exclusive right to the term.

Interestingly "heroin" was a registered trademark of Bayer Corp at one time.

Xerox may have objected to competitors using the term in advertisements, but I seriously doubt they were concerned with its day to day use.

If my recollection is correct, xerox changed some of their own advertisements to use the term "photocopy" instead of "xerox" so as to limit the generic use of the term which would put their trademark at risk. Then again, this is based on my recollection, which I am told is increasing in inaccuracy each year.

So, to get back to my original subject - aside from the fine products from Six Moon, Henry Shires, Antigravitygear, and Gossamer Gear that folks have mentioned, does anybody else have any contenders for lightest two person shelter with good bug protection?

Look at Rayway.