Setting Up The Tent

This is a set of pictures of me setting up my Sierra Designs Lightning Model Tent. It's an ultra-lightweight tent that is great for the long haul hiker or backpacker. This is no Walmart brand tent, it's a mid to high range tent that will run you over $300 Canadian. It's a two person tent, though it makes a great tent for one + backpack. It's extremely simple to setup and takes under 10 minutes.

This is my tent. It is a in the packed bag form right now and will in the next 5-8 minutes be setup and ready to live in.

Packed Weight 4 lbs 2 oz
Packed Size 25" x 7"
Interior Area 31 sq. ft.
Peak Height 40"

This picture is just of the components of the bag dumped out. The rain tarp is on the right, with the poles wrapped inside. The body of the tent in the centre and ground spikes on the left.




This is a picture of the tent just thrown on the ground with the collapsed poles next to it. There are only two poles for this unit and they break down in to roughly 2 foot bends. It's very important not to let the pole pieces snap hard together, put them in carefully so you don't mess up your clips. Long trips and broken tent poles = not fun. Additionally, there is something in the warranty about the poles and snapping them together, so you won't be able to blame "factory defect" if the problem happens.

This is a picture of the tent after laying out the body on the ground and running the poles across the tent. The easiest thing to do in order to clip in the ends is to peg half the tent in the ground and clip only the centre of the tent. This will stop the pole from slipping out as you try to get the other end in. This is the "hardest" part of setting up this tent, but only because the clips slide out from time to time. It'll still only take you a couple of minutes to do, the wind makes it a little annoying too.

This is the completed tent without the rain cover over top. It's great because the wind or breeze will keep you cool in the warm weather, but as you can see there is no privacy to speak of. If there is any chance of rain or inclement weather, put the rain cover on, the last thing you want to do is get up in the middle of the night soaking wet and trying to put the cover on.

I've added the rain cover to the tent which simply gets thrown over the top of the tent. There are four buckles on the tent, one at each corner which the cover clips in to. As you can see the front is very floppy and needs to be tightened up. This is done by a few more pegs pulling the flap away from the door of the tent. This helps to keep the ground immediately outside the door of the tent dry too. No one likes to crawl in to mud first thing in the morning. Well... Most people.

This is the final complete setup picture with the rain cover closed. This tent is very well made and all the seams are specially designed to be extra strong to keep water and creepy crawlies out of the tent.



This is the final complete setup picture with the rain cover door open, but the bug screen cover closed within. Doesn't it look inviting?