Camping newbies often get the idea that freestanding tents – the kind that stay up as soon as the poles are in place – are the only way to go for performance and safety. Tunnel tents, which have to be pegged out to achieve their shape, can seem a bit mysterious and intimidating.
But the term freestanding isn’t really accurate. In wind, any tent needs to be staked so it won’t go from freestanding to freewheeling. Even in calm air, you have to peg out a tent’s fly to use the vestibule, get the best venting and minimize interior condensation.
Since you’re going to stake your tent anyway, why not consider a tunnel design? With two or three hoops instead of an entire aluminum skeleton, it delivers more interior space for less weight and bulk. You can lower your pack load without lowering your standard of living.
How does a tunnel tent handle heavy weather? Properly rigged, awesomely well. On one sea kayak expedition, I was marooned on an islet for a week by the worst seasonal weather recorded in three decades. The wind seldom dropped below gale force. At times it roared so loudly that it seemed as though I was camped under an incoming 747. My tent was a Gothic Arch, an old tunnel model from MEC. During that week, I felt awed, frustrated and bored, but never unsafe. I’d run lines from the GA’s corner and centre guypoints to nearby trees and cinched them tight. The tent shivered and flapped – and held firm. It’s true that tunnel tents are noisier in a storm than freestanding models. But I like to think of that thrumming noise as the soundtrack of adventure.
In more usual conditions, a tunnel tent doesn’t need to be tied down like a hayroll on a flatbed trailer. As few as four pegs will do. Setting up a tunnel is pretty much performing magic: with the hoops in place and lying on the ground, you stake one end down, and then pull the other out tight. The flat shape lofts into a 3D home, like a little house sprouting from the pages of a pop-up book.
When you’re not camping on soil, some simple hacks let you anchor a tunnel securely. Instead of pegs, run guylines to trees, bushes, root arches, driftwood logs, or dry bags, waterbags or stuffsacks filled with sand or rocks. On bare rock, I’ve tied stopper knots into guyline ends before jamming them into crevices.
I had no gales on this voyage, but the spring weather did provide a couple of blustery nights. With the corners and end vents guyed out, the new tent was bomber. So where can you get your hands on this beautiful pairing of a time-proven profile and high-tech materials? The aptly named Hangar is available online and in stores. Check it out, and tell them I sent you.
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