Trekker Solo Tent 1V (Review)

Basics

This One Person Tent from River Country Products is a clever hybrid of single and double layer designs. The head of the tent has generous mesh panels for ventilation. The foot is completely enclosed in waterproofed nylon, allowing the rainfly to be much smaller (saving weight and volume). This is a unique design I have not seen elsewhere.

The overall shape is a classic pup tent using inverted trekking poles for support on both ends. The basic setup requires eight stakes. The sides are pulled out to near vertical at the midpoint. The length (7 feet) and door height (42 inches) are adequate for a tall adult. The central pole obstructs the door, but since it is free standing it can be moved to the side temporarily if needed.

The optional fly shares the front stake and fits over the front pole. The rest of the fly clips on to existing straps at five points. This design allows air to enter under the eaves while shedding rain. As mentioned above, the foot of the tent is already waterproofed and is not covered by the fly.

The tent, fly, and stakes roll into a compact stuff sack that weighs 2lb, 10oz. The materials are good quality but not ultra-light. The workmanship is good, however there is a non-critical sewing irregularity in the fly I was sent.

Issues

1) The inverted-T door zippers are harder to deal with than they need to be. I found unzipping the vertical zipper took two hands, since there is no counter tension from the floor at that point. Inconvenient when one is already on hands and knees! The entrance might be better if the zippers were reduced to two (orange arrows in the image below), and placed along the bottom and right side. (You can't really approach the door from the left with the fly on anyway.)

2) Adding a 6-8 inch sidewall (purple in the image below) to the bottom of the door (matching the top of the mesh on the sides perhaps?) might make the tent less drafty in cold weather. We were camping with temps near freezing and I made a little wall there with my clothes. The bottom of the fly does not stop drafts along the ground by design, which is a good thing. I found myself wanting to close the inner door that wasn't there.

3) With the fly on, water tends to pool next to the tent on the little triangular side pullouts (red arrow). These might be better with some mesh drains, or even be replaced entirely by mesh to let the water thru. In my single heavy rain test the seam sealing kept the water out, but why tempt fate? 😉

4) The official setup video mentions that when the fly is installed you might have to reposition the front stake, or eliminate the front rope altogether. This is because the front of the fly (the vestibule) requires very precise stake placement. An inch or two front-to-back makes a big difference (slack vestibule vs slack inner tent vs over-extended fly).

The variable length almost guarantees that the front stake will require repositioning. This may not be easy to do on hard surfaces or when you need to use a rock instead of a stake. I've experimented with a fixed length rope, and had some success. But I continue to be unhappy with fine tuning the tension/position of the fly. Ideally I should be able to go to bed with the fly off, and be confident I can pitch it quickly—in the dark—if rain threatens.

5) The placement of the fly over the entrance hiking pole seemed imprecise to me (see above). To help my aim and provide a bit of reinforcement, I added a small piece of red duct tape to the pocket.

But this was not the final word. It turns out my fly was missing a little hook near the peak. I discovered this on a recent trip when helping my friend pitch his identical tent.

I contacted the company and they sent me a replacement fly with the little hook. 🙂 I have not yet had an opportunity to try it out. I will continue to work on a better way to quickly and correctly pitch the fly.