A 1000g two-person, twin-skin, lightweight tent for around £150? Scoop first look.
We popped down to see the guys at Alpkit yesterday and along with a plate of rather nice cakes and a slap-up Alplunch, we got a sneak preview of their new prototype two-person lightweight tent.
It's a relatively simple design complete with vestibule, that may look like a semi-geodesic at first glance but actually uses a single, main lengthways hooped DAC alloy pole with two truncated satellite stubs to give the tent width and shape.
It's still a prototype, but in weight terms, it should be bang on the money for lightweight shelters at around 1000 grammes all in. The proto uses an all-mesh inner, but for production, you can expect to see a mix of fabric and mesh panels in the inner tent to save weight – mesh, counter intuitively, is actually heavier than lightweight tent fabric.
The plan is to offer different fly-sheet options, so you can opt to pay more for a really tough, durable fly or economise and opt for a slightly lower specced version. You'll also be able to select pegs from Alpkit's range to suit your preferences rather than being tied to a standard design.
The lightweight tent is just one of the mooted range, you can also expect to see a two-person mountain tent, probably a geodesic, and a whopping great, big but tough, basecamp tent for extreme family outings to the mountains.
Up close we can tell you that the tent feels reasonably stable, possibly needs some vents, but has a decent amount of room inside with plenty of face/inner clearance at either end. Price is up in the air right now, but an informed guess would be somewhere around £150 or so depending on final spec, which looks like amazing value for money.
Before you get too excited, bear in mind that it'll be a while before the production tents appear, but it looks like they should be worth waiting for. More immediately, Alpkit has just updated and uprated its entire sleeping mat range, full lowdown on that shortly.
More Alpkitism at www.alpkit.com
