[at-l] How important was freestanding for you?

[Arthur Gaudet]

Very important to me. I'm just responding to give a balance to the discussion.
As an older hiker (can I claim this?), now 57, anything that makes the
repetitive tasks even a bit easier helps with getting through the day and
getting along the trail. Quick tear down & setup has become important to me. It
seems to me that taking down a non-free standing tent takes about the same time
as free-standing but setup time is improved with the free-standing tent.

Staking out a tarp tent, setting up a hammock, or even a non-free-standing tent
becomes more laborious than you might think at the end of long hiking days, over
many days. At the end of a tiring day my thinking can be fuzzy after the miles,
esp. if I haven't eaten enough during the day and I'm in the rush to cook, eat,
settle in quickly. My end-of-day judgement has been a bit suspect at times and
I've been guilty of setting up my freestanding tent on anthills, in gullies, on
slopes that I just didn't perceive in the dimming light, etc. One nice aspect of
the free-standing, aside from the benefit of platform setup, is the ability to
just lift it up & turn it around or slightly change it's position.

Imagine yourself setting up your tent at the end of the day: on a slope, in the
rain, after dark. I'm sure it's happened to a lot of us. The headlight only
shows some details, you work at setting up by feel & by memory. Add to this
being cold & wet and the setup time becomes an issue. Once inside you want
enough room to change clothes without lying down to do the job, or stepping
outside to change pants... I've even had my headlight fail under these
circumstances and setup my tent as a blind man would; feel for the parts, find
the loops, grommets, stakes etc. 

I know these tents are heavier than non-free-standing tents and that's an issue
for some long distance hikers. My current tent is the Eureka Zephyr, I've
carried it for about 2000 miles and I think it's pretty much worn out now. It
weighs 3 lbs 8 oz, perhaps a little less since I carry a homemade silnylon
groundcloth and only minimal stakes. It cost $99 back in 2000. The newest
version is $140 but it has grown to weigh over 4 lbs with improved rainfly &
added vestibule. One on craigslist is currently selling for $40.

If looking today I'd think about the MSR Hubba at 3 lbs. I don't like the pole
arrangments or the cost.

My philosophy about weight and cost relates to my own body weight and
conditioning. A tent that weighs 1 or even 2 lbs more than an expensive option
would only be attractive if my body weight was already optimized. I'm not so
heavy that an extra couple of lbs will hurt my trail performance and after 2
weeks on the trail I've lost that amount of weight anyway. By then I'm at the
same net weight as if I bought the more expensive/lighter (and less useful)
tent! But that's just my thinking.

--RockDancer (who's now passed 6000 AT miles this summer!)

-----Original Message-----
From: at-l-bounces at backcountry.net [mailto:at-l-bounces at backcountry.net] On
Behalf Of Amy Forinash
Sent: Tuesday, August 25, 2009 7:48 PM
To: at-l List
Subject: [at-l] How important was freestanding for you?

I'm pondering buying a smaller shelter than my Tarptent Squall 2 for my
thruhike.  In people's journals I keep reading about them setting up tents in
shelters for protection from bugs, or setting up on a platform where they
couldn't use stakes.

On your hikes, how often have you needed / used the freestanding feature of your
tent if you had one?  The only time I haven't been able to use stakes on my
section hikes, I used rocks to secure mine
(non-freestanding) tent.  But then again I've never been at a shelter where
there was plenty of room for a tent AND the bugs were bad AND I had a reason to
not want to set up on the ground (like mud).

-amy
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