Zpacks Triplex (2014 version)

I’ve tried a couple of other backpacking tents (wrote about my experience here), but the Triplex is by far my favorite and for the most part, it worked well on the JMT. Although this tent is technically a three-person tent (I usually use it as a two-person tent, though), it is so light that it was perfectly fine for me to use it during my solo JMT hike. I would describe this as luxuriously spacious when used by just one person… it was so spacious that I could spread out my gear all over my tent and still have plenty of space to move around. It also performed well in rain, which I experienced a couple of nights on the JMT. I was in a particularly bad storm at Squaw Lake, and I was perhaps the only person at the lake who stayed dry.

There were some drawbacks to this tent, however. I lost all of my stakes sometime on day three of my JMT hike, and had to set up the tent with rocks for most of my trip (someone gave me his stakes on day 13 which was one of the highlights of my trip!). Due to having to use rocks, I sometimes had trouble getting the tent pitched correctly, particularly in areas that weren’t perfectly flat or didn’t have much space. There were some places that were quite rocky and I probably wouldn’t have been able to use stakes for all eight stake-points anyway, so this would have been an issue even if I hadn’t lost all of my stakes. It was also a bit troublesome to get the tent pitched in strong winds, and during a strong storm at Squaw Lake, my tent fell down while I was inside it (but like I said above, I stayed completely dry!). Overall, I’d say most of the problems I encountered with this tent stemmed from having no stakes, and all things considered, this tent performed well during my hike. If I ever did the JMT again, I would bring this tent.