Why I bought the weird tent

I just bought a new tent. My old one has served us well but it’s just too heavy. Weighing in at 11 pounds, it’s murder on my shoulders especially after you attach it to my backpack that already has about 40 to 50 pounds of dead weight. All hail, the new home away from home… only weighs 7 pounds. This will make all of the difference in the world. Here’s my dilemma. My old tent is a 3 man tent, 7 ft. by 7 ft., or about 49 square feet, which is perfect for 2 people plus gear (backpacks etc). The new tent is considered to be a 4 man tent; 8 ft. by 9 ft., which, one might think adds up to 72 square feet, which would be perfect for 3 people plus gear. (This is why I actually went out and bought it). I figured…Holy Crap I’m getting a bigger tent and it weighs less, not to mention that it was on a 70% off sale. Well I get this thing home and am really anxious to get it set up, so I brave the gale force winds and manage to figure out the pole placements. Next thing you know, it’s up, beautiful and life is grand again. It has this really unique design and I think that I like it a lot, but it doesn’t seem to have a lot of extra room. Well I figured that it’s just my imagination, so I got my old tent out and when Kim came over we set it up next to my new trendy model. Kim says “Dad it doesn’t look much bigger that our old tent.”


“Nooooo...It’s just your imagination Kim”

Well I got a tape measure and took a better look at it. Actually the tent is 6 ft wide at the door with 2 small compartment areas that stick out about 1 ft on each side…which are a little useless to say the least. So I guess that this is the 8 ft. wide dimension, (which is really only about 6 ft. and a bit… then it tapers down at the foot end of the tent). Now I measured the depth and it measured about 7 ft. 6 in. Now, there’s a mat that’s outside of the tent measuring about 1 ft. 6 in. I guess that they included this when they measured the (inside?) of the tent so there we go…that adds up to 9 ft. Just to add insult to injury, my old tent has more headroom than the new one. What the hell, man.



My new 9 ft by 8 ft tent is only 49 square feet. My old 7 ft. by 7 ft. tent is also 49 square feet.

My new tent is only 7 pounds My old tent is 11 pounds

My new tent has a small fly My old tent has a fly that goes to the ground

You can’t store anything under the fly There is a vestibule that can hold stuff

There’s only one door There is a door on each end

The further in you go you lose headroom The headroom is constant throughout



You’d think that it would be an easy decision. My old tent is more practical, but it weighs too much. I bought the new tent so that we’d be ok when Jeff and Kim and I are going together, but it will be too small. GRRRRR! To hell with it all. I’m keeping both and waiting for a slightly bigger tent, that’s feather-weight, to go on sale. I has spoken (Mammy Yokum).



Jim Bondy

Author of: Friday on the Trail

A book about our backpacking adventures in Ontario Canada

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