Eureka! Solitaire AL

This was a great one-man tent and a big upgrade from my claustrophobic bivy sack. Super lightweight, watertight, and no frills. This is a great value for the money.

This is a well designed inexpensive lightweight one-person tent. This tent has many of the good attributes of a bivy sack, without the bad. Some bivy sacks are way too claustrophobic for me. This has plenty of elbow room and length for one person.

This tent was watertight in a heavy rain in the Pacific Northwest. The only part of the tent that got wet was my feet, because I had not staked out the rain fly correctly. Had this been done it would have been just fine.

I do wish it came with a vestibule, even a small one for boots. (Had to tuck my boots into a garbage bag to keep them out of the rain.) This would also make ingress and egress easier in the rain, because it would allow you to keep the rain off of the front part of the tent floor a little easier. The additional weight of that fabric and the additional utility in storage it would provide would be a no-brainer.

Background

Experienced backpacker and Scout leader for 20 plus years.

The most important thing would be it's not free-standing. The model from Canada has better poles that are made of aluminum not fiberglass.

I have used this tent at least twenty times in sun, rain, and snow! I sealed it once when I first picked it up and never had a problem with leaks!

Its entrees are at one end and through the top, which takes a bit of getting used to. Lots of ventilation so never had any condensation issues at all. Weighs in at less then 3 pounds and cost less then $100.

I really recommend this tent if you're new to going lighter. Great tent to start with. I purchased the Canadian model due to the fact the poles are aluminum, whereas the USA model has fiberglass (not as strong). It's pretty much a bivy style tent so it's not free standing. For the price you can't go wrong!!

It ain't a tent and it ain't a bivi! It is small, lightweight, but does the job.

Bought one of these 3 years ago and  had a good run with it in alpine three-season travel. It has a flimsy tray ground sheet and had to have a sturdy footprint made from Tyvek for my purposes.

It is waterproof, storm proof pitched tail to the wind, the space inside is low, you can't sit up, but worst of all in bad weather there is no possibility to cook inside without having rain inside the entrance on the ground sheet.

I have swapped this for a medium size tarp and bug net with great success, more room and so versatile!

Background

Many years of back country travel

Great, affordable one-person, three-season backpacking tent.

I purchased this recently (summer 2020), so it came with the aluminum poles. I wanted a small, lightweight backpacking tent. The dimensions are what they are: this is a one-person (two adults could squeeze in in an emergency) low-profile tent.

It goes up easily. However the stake positioning can be somewhat confusing at first. I love the roof zipper that allows standing access and egress, and the attached fly. Two triangular internal pockets are a nice feature. I have not had it in the rain yet, so I can’t speak of its waterproofing qualities.

Quality seems top-notch.

Background

backpacking and bike camping

I have one with aluminum poles.

My tent came with aluminum poles and they have held up well. I don't know if this is a change to try to fix the pole breakage problems or if that's just what Eureka chose to sell in Canada, but it's lighter and stronger and seems to do the job.