Fire by hand drill

Fire by hand drill

Monday 16 May 2011

Gelert Solo one Man tent review

Hi all just a few thoughts,

Gelert Solo One Man Tent


Having wild wet weather and wind here at the minute which is normal for most months here in Northern Ireland ha ha. I was looking at a number of lightweight one man tents ranging from the Hilleberg Alto (£300+) to this little tent at £28 to use in an upcoming solo backpacking trip.

I had a good search through the internet as you do and came upon this tent on Amazon. There are a lot of reviews saying that it is far superior to what its price would suggest and it is quickly becoming a firm favourite with a large group of experience outdoorsmen.

I decided to bite the bullet and pay out the tiny £28 asking price. After all I have bought rounds of drinks that cost more than that in the local pub (not often cause I am a tight Irish man)

I slept out in it over the weekend in the local hills and have to say that for a £28 tent it is absolutely brilliant. On Saturday night the wind was fierce at 300m above sea level and it took a serious buffeting.
The fibreglass poles held up very well indeed. There is an outer and an inner and the inner has a midge/mosquito net to protect you from being something’s evening meal.

There is a slight downside In that you have to pitch the inner first making it troublesome in wet weather but this is compensated for by the fact that it can be pitched in 5 minutes or less once you have everything ready.

There is a small porch, enough to lie and cook a meal if your careful!! And room for your boots etc. I always like to stick my bag minus what I might need in the night in a big plastic bag and keep it outside to save room anyway.

There is plenty of room to stretch out and to sleep. I am just under 6foot which is average I suppose and there was extra room at the head an foot ends.

There were a few heavy rain showers in the night and no water got in at all. The tent is very close to the ground and thus offers little wind resistance.

I think the weight is around 1.5kg which you could lessen by adding a few aluminium pegs instead of the steel ones.

Overall an excellent buy surprising sturdy and weather resistant.

I got mine here.

Gelert Solo One Man Tent

Cheers

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Sounds like a good solo tent. Thanks for the review, I have been considering a one person for a while, it is nice to get a decent review of one.

Anonymous said...

I can say from experiance that the gelert solo is a great one man tent and i have had one for about 5 years and its been through storm,gail force winds,rain,snow etc etc.

Hope you enjoy yours as much as i have.

Garfield said...

I am always worried about backpacking with a one person tent, because they can be quite large and heavy. How does this one stack up? I need one that is pretty light and very small for my next big backpacking adventure.