After our Oberon Bay overnight hike, I scoured the web for lighter variants of virtually every item we took. Obviously most exist if you throw more money at them, but some simply don't.
Our "2-person" tents were $10 from BigW or Kmart, don't remember. They weigh 1.3kg and cannot be beaten at any level for size vs weight or price. They're simply superior by many, many, many orders of magnitude. They are NOT capable of certain conditions, there is no separate fly, and no internal fly-screen. It's just a single-wall frame, fly-screen inner door, tiny screen back window, and screen vent at the top covered by a tiny "cap" fly. You will melt in the heat with doors closed, and get wet in a serious rain. Anything in between is just fine. ...they are however...small... 1.9m long x 1.2m wide base (in theory...keep in mind sloping-inwards walls) means I touch both ends when laying down, and my gear is against the sides unless I scrunch up. This is actually luxury by comparison to most dedicated hiking tents.
The cheap 2 person tents we own have no floor-space-per-weight equivalent even at the high end hikers tent market except for some far outliers by the MSR brand which are sub thousand dollar tents. I'm talking 1-3 person tents. 4-person+ don't really exist.
Yet again, department store to the rescue. $49 gets a 2.6kg tent with an inner-mesh-frame, a 2/3rd fly, more floor space than two of the tiny versions combined (2.4 x 2.1m), and comes in at the same total weight of 1.3kg for a tent each. This includes an additional bonus of increased height. This is classed as a 4 person tent by any tent definition. Shut-up and take my money! 2.6kg is unattainable by any branded hiking tent for 4p.
So here it is, basking in the sun after I gave it a wipe down with some water sealant treatment. It's super unimpressive to look at, and looks just like every other cheap tent you see at every drive-in camp ground. Yet you'll NEVER see this thing out on the hiking trail!! ...that's until Jana and I rock up. (I actually heard a dude mock our $10 tents while we were in camp. Too bad when I looked up his tent he failed at weight and size, let alone cost. Black-Wolf tents are amongst the worst by every metric.) Half of the elite hiking tents require pegging down and ropes in a vain attempts to save weight, yet simply do not achieve that goal. This thing is the standard dome tent. Pegs not required. Tie-downs optional. Will not blow over (with contents inside), cannot be uprooted etc..etc... Stop wasting my time "hiking tent" retailers! Yeah sure, this cheap tent "could" be a problem with high-winds and a wind-scooping 2/3 style fly, but even Everest hikers only go at the PREMIUM times of the year.
I can drop the weight of this thing by an additional 140 grams if I swap out the poles from the small tent and install it in this one. They're a lighter gauge and the pole section lengths match perfectly if I use spares from any of the three smaller tents I bought. Not too shabby.
(fly pulled back to see the standard inner mesh design)
