Guest kit reviewer: Two ‘very different’ tents

Totally Cool Christine (who I first met at The Mighty Deerstalker) was looking to borrow a couple of tents for two very different occasions. I happened to have two tents for her to try. Here is her review of a Halfords pop-up tent and a Go-Lite two-man Eden tent.

In fact, with the summer at an end, now seems to be a very good time to snap up a bargain in the world of tent buying.

TC Christine writes: The Halfords pop up tent, (double layer, two man tent) does what it says: It pops up. This is fantastic after a long drive to the excellent Scottish festival of Rockness. I simply turned up, popped up the tent and then cracked open the first beverage!

The weekend turned a little wet but the pop up, with a double layer detailing, sustained the rain and kept me nice and dry.

But it was on a soggy Monday morning that I then faced a bit of a problem: HOw to “un-pop” the tent. Admittedly I attempted this after a heavy few days of festival but I couldn’t pop down the pop up. Between myself, a nurse, and two engineers it was not happening.

I had thought the best way to test the tent would be blind, but at this point I was regretting this concept. Panic set in when I realised that a two-man pop-up tent folded in half and a Yaris with 3 bodies and a weekend’s worth of camping equipment would perhaps not co-exist on the drive back from Inverness to Glasgow. But after much squeezing everything was forced into the car.

Four days later the pop-up was still popped up in the garden of my home “drying out”.  A few more attempts, an engineer with a Phd and youtube later, it was getting frustrating! But finally, after a moment of clarity, it popped down. Amazing! My advice is to try to pop down the pop up before you need to. Once you learn the mastery it’s fantastic.

Overall the tent was good, kept me dry and was perfect for the average festival goer, and this was the opinion of a fair few festival goers. It’s also a good idea to have distinguishing mark on your tent so that you don’t accidentally pop into someone else’s tent!

The Halfords pop up tent is currently selling at £19.99 (RRP £34.99) so if you’re planning a few festivals next year this could be the time to buy a tent.

Go-Lite two-man Eden tent review

On test: Go-Lite two-man Eden 2 tent

Amazingly light and also very easy to put up. I wonder if it’s a bit bulky to carry any great distance in a backpack but since I wasn’t going far this didn’t matter too much. It is very light, though.

According to the label the Eden tents:

Eden 1 Go-lite one-man tent weighs 3 lbs. 6 oz. | 1.55 kg

Eden 2 Go-lite two-man tent weighs 5 lbs. 2 oz. | 2.35 kg

Technical details: 15 Denier Ripstop Nylon; Silicone/PU 1200mm Waterproof Fire Retardant Coating; 20 Denier Polyester No-See-Um Mesh; 70 Denier 190T Nylon Taffeta; 3000mm Waterproof, Fire Retardant Coating.

This time I was going for more remote camping,  at a small and basic campsite near the Munro Schiehallion. Like FionaOutdoors I planned a solo ascent of this Munro.

My walking/camping day was very wet but the G-Lite tent was up in just five minutes. Again I went for the blind technique and hoped that the poles given were the correct poles for the tent. Once up, the tent kept the torrential rain of Perthshire out and unfortunately a lot of the midgies in. The double-layer, two man tent and a the not-so-efficient tent putter upper left some gaps between the ground and the tent so midgie one turned into midgie 1,000!

Taking down this tent again was easy and re-packing was no problem even with all the dead midgies.

I was very sad to give this tent back. It’s good-looking, lightweight and easy for the novice!

The cheapest we’ve seen this tent is £162.50 (RRP £325) at The Climbers Shop.

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