May 10

May 10 Good Design: The Ozark Trail 1-Person Backpacking Tent

I went backpacking to Havasupai a few days ago. It was one of those planned events in 2020 that was delayed for years, from what else, but the Covid-19 pandemic. Since the trip was three years in the making, the anticipation was doubly intense. Fortunately, the waterfalls along Havasu Creek were breathtakingly beautiful, and the whole experience including great weather, a visit to the confluence with the Colorado River, 5-star locations for hammocking, and some other day excursions, met and even exceeded my expectations.

I traveled with a friend from graduate school and we decided that we would each be self-contained so that if either of us missed our flight, fell ill, or had to bail for some other reason, the other fellow could continue this once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Usually I share a 2- or 3-person tent when backpacking with others to split up the weight, but as mentioned we each needed to be self-contained so I brought my 1-person tent from Ozark Trail.

The Ozark Trail 1-Person Backpacking Tent is on the cheaper end of the spectrum. A variety of websites have it currently priced for less than $50. Many higher quality tents could cost 3 or 4 times that amount. One should reasonably expect increased water-proofing, increased stability in wind, or reduced weight for the same square footage at a higher price, but the Ozark Trail 1-Person Backpacking Tent offers a decent experience for an affordable price in most of our budgets.

In the following paragraphs I share just a few design features that, in my opinion, make this a well-designed product. Admittedly, other tents will have the same or similar features, so it’s more important to focus on these features than the actual make and model of the tent, but, of course, my recent experience is with the Ozark Trail tent.

Side Door Access

The first good design feature is the placement of the door on the side, and more specifically on the long side of the tent. I’ve tried tents with the door on one end and it is cumbersome. For the end-door variants, one has to toss their sleeping bag down the tent when getting ready for bed. Other items that you may want to keep at the foot of the sleeping area are also hard to access or reach if your head is near the door. For these styles, it seems most people want their head at the door side and so they have a constraint for which way the tent is set up if the ground is not flat. On the other hand, accessing the tent from the middle, or on the long side, gives one more degree of freedom. How so? Assuming a symmetrical tent, like the Ozark Trail, my head could be placed at either end and both options would feel equally comfortable. Not so with an end-door tent. In fact, my particular tent spot wasn’t completely flat so I quickly rotated my sleeping bag so that my feet weren’t above my head all night. It was pretty easy to make adjustments from the side door access. End-door access would have made it more difficult.

I also liked how my head wasn’t directly beside the door, which often occurs for an end-door tent. If something crawled through the zipper door it wouldn’t immediately be inches from my face but instead would have to work its way a few more feet to my head. At the same time, my head wasn’t zero or six feet from the door, but about two or three feet at all times.

Integrated Rain Fly

Having a separate rain fly for a 2- or 3- person tent makes sense because multiple people can split up the weight a little easier on longer hikes. With a 1-person tent, that doesn’t really make as much sense. After all, I was carrying the whole thing and so it might as well be connected. Essentially, the rain fly for the Ozark Trail was integrated into the tent directly. In my situation, I really liked this. It was another good design feature.

The set-up was understandably a few steps shorter, which is always nice when setting up in the dark. It also removes more possibilities of error. More than once in the dark I’ve attached a rain fly upside down and we had to restart that particular step. This tent was close to foolproof when it came to the rain fly because it was already connected.

The one downside with integrated rain flies is the lack of ventilation and temperature control. We had great weather – not too hot and not too cold – but it did rain for about 5 minutes. My friend chose to not put up his rain fly betting on the perfect weather to continue while enjoying the stars at night. During those five minutes of rain, he was a little more stressed as the risk of a wet sleeping bag had not been completely mitigated and he rushed back to the campground. I, on the other hand, could have stayed out longer. True, I wasn’t able to remove the rain fly to watch the stars or let the wind ventilate my tent, but I was able to enjoy the day hikes without any sort of worry. In essence, I had committed to the permanent rainfly option by default and there was a certain contentedness that came with that.

Lastly, I haven’t yet had a chance to test its waterproofing in a huge down-pouring of rain, but it did hold up in some strong winds surprisingly well. Future users may want to seal or waterproof the seams a little better.

Geometry to Support a Tall Person Perfectly

Since I stand at 6 feet and 2 inches, I was initially concerned that in order to fit inside, my head would be right up against the inner walls of the tent while sleeping, or that I’d have to sleep diagonally, both of which are less than desirable. With the added height of an inflatable pillow and sleeping pad my head height was indeed close to the curvature of the tent ceiling but there was still enough room. I didn’t find it a problem. There was also enough space for rolling around (since I will sometimes sleep on my side) and when changing clothes or sitting up, as long as I sat up in the middle of the tent with the highest ceiling dimension, I had enough space — not extra space, but enough space. I did have a few inches along the edge for some clothes, a water bottle, and a headlamp, but that could have been made wider with a narrower sleeping pad. I do like my wide sleeping pad.

Some 1-person tents will have two major spars or spines that cross for the main support structure. In the Ozark Trail tent, it has only one spar traveling down the center lengthwise with a single rib to open up the area in the middle. The four or six tent pegs hold the structure down but are crucial for the tent to stand by itself. The Ozark does need those pegs in the ground to be self-standing so setting up on rocks would be infeasible (at least without applying some clever tenting skills).

Overall, it could have been roomier, but the weight savings were attractive to me with only one spar instead of two. Furthermore, I didn’t plan on being in the tent other than during the nights, so a roomier but heavier 1-person tent wasn’t desirable. The weather was going to be great and the hammock was where I wanted to be during the restful moments of the day.

Ultimately, the good design for this product was that it was sized right for what I needed, both in dimensions and weight. Not too small, but not too large (and thus wasteful) – a Goldilocks design. After all, I had to be sensitive to weight as we were required to carry our own water for 10 miles as there were no options for filtering during that stretch.

Conclusion

As mentioned, other tents will have the above three design features that I believe are required for a good 1-person tent design: side door access, integrated rain fly, and a geometry matched to the user’s height. Of course, the needs of a different customer might not demand this exact product (i.e. a shorter, wider, or taller person may want something different) but the features listed above are ones they should evaluate among the common attributes like price, weight, and durability.

For a low cost, 1-person tent, the Ozark Trail tent is a pretty good design.