{"id":41656,"date":"2024-01-16T10:23:08","date_gmt":"2024-01-16T10:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alananna.co.uk\/blog\/?p=41656"},"modified":"2024-01-09T11:24:43","modified_gmt":"2024-01-09T11:24:43","slug":"testing-my-tent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alananna.co.uk\/blog\/2024\/01\/testing-my-tent\/","title":{"rendered":"Testing my Tent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As noted in my previous post, I recently purchased a new lightweight tent and constructed a homemade footprint<\/a> for it. Since buying the tent I’d been dying to try it out, but time and mainly the weather had prevented me from doing so. I’m planning to do some backpacking later in the year – hopefully along the West Highland Way in Scotland – so testing my gear beforehand will be all part of the fun. The preparation and gear selection will be the most important part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, the weather finally looked to be a little more settled so I decided to try it out in the back garden. OK, this isn’t really backpacking and having and Indian Takeaway and beers with Dave in the house before heading out to the garden is kind of cheating, but the whole point was to see how comfortable things were.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weight vs Comfort<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As always, there’s a balance between weight and comfort and therefore compromises to be made. I’ll want to travel relatively light so that I don’t have a huge pack to carry, but I won’t be racing so can take a little more with me and hopefully have a little more comfort. That said, much of my kit was bought for the OMM<\/a>, so it tended to sacrifice comfort somewhat as the idea of that was to be as quick and lightweight as we could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tent<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

My tent is certainly lightweight, and even with the footprint it’s not heavy. Yes, I could go lighter with just a tarp and a bivvy bag, but a proper double-layer tent is probably more sensible in Scotland. I’ll need a decent amount of protection from both the weather and the midges! I could have saved some weight with a single-person tent rather than a two-person one as well, but I find that a two-person tent is about right for one-person and all their kit! At around 1.3 kg including the homemade footprint it’s about as light as you can get for such a tent.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Nordisk<\/a>
Nordisk Telemark 2.2 LW<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Sleep System<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What I really wanted to test was my ‘sleep system’. I knew it was fine in warmer conditions as I’d been too hot during thr OMM, but I wasn’t sure how comfortable it would be once the temperatures dropped. It consists of various bits of kit:<\/p>\n\n\n\n