Camping gear review: The set-up-in-four-minutes Sierra Designs Lightning XT 1™ tent

June 19, 10:41 AMMinneapolis Outdoor Recreation ExaminerMarie Malinowski

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Sierra Designs Lightning XT 1 (it's so cuuuute!)

Imagine yourself on a solo trek in the backcountry. The only sounds you hear are that of your hiking boots scuffing along the trail, the steady rise and fall of your own breathing, and the sudden, ominous roar of thunder.

You stop in your tracks and consider your options. A large drop of rain hits your nose. A chill runs down your spine.

You look up to a blackened sky, do a little rain dance, and croon, “Bring on the deluge, baby! I’ll be inside my Sierra Designs Lightning XT 1 tent in four minutes! Didja hear that? Four minutes!”

If it’s just you and you want a three-season tent that you can literally set up in four* minutes, the Sierra Designs Lightning XT 1 should be in your backpack—or at least secured to the outside. And why not? This free-standing tent weights in at just under three pounds.

With nine square feet of vestibule for storing your pack and hiking boots, and nearly twenty square feet of sleeping space, I promise that you will not feel like you’re in a bivvy. Honestly, I can’t think of a better solo tent. Plenty of room to both stretch out and curl up.

Setting up the tent is simplicity in its most natural, rawest form. I’ve never been one for reading directions so I didn’t. Everything you need to know is blatantly obvious from the picture card on the label. The one color-coded pole with two Swivel Hubs™ with H-Clips ™ and two antenna poles that protrude from the main one is where it all starts.

Clip the little clips onto the pole, insert pole end Ball Connectors™ into the Jake’s Foot™ attachments, connect the side H-Clips™ to their corresponding Swivel Hubs™, and then attach the Ball Cap Assembly™ to the antenna poles. Work your way around the tent to secure the remaining clips to the tent pole. Throw on the rain fly and secure it with the five stakes and guy lines.

This might sound like a tedius, thirty-minute process but I’m not kidding here. It’s four minutes. Pretty practical when a cloudburst is upon you and thousands of acres of remote backcountry is what separates you from your car. 

If you’re base camping, or even on a trek with a partner and a two-person tent, the Lightning XT 1 is still small enough to bring along as a gear tent to store your packs and food, or, a safe haven from a snoring tent partner.

For the ultimate backcountry solo experience, pair this tent up with the Primus TiLite.

*For the record, I practiced setting this up in my living room so I could achieve the four-minute mark.
 

For more info: Visit Sierra Designs and check out their entire line of high-performance trail tents.

The Lightning XT 1 at Levis-Trow last weekend (rear view):

ECU #1:

ECU #2:

ECU #3: