Tarptent Aeon Li Review

In terms of weight savings alone, the Aeon blows the 2+ pound Gossomer One and the Nemo Hornet Elite away. When correctly set up and guy-ed out, the Aeon can take plenty of punches in a storm. This tent isn't freestanding like the Hornet and requires more a little bit more practice to set up. If you're willing to add 10 ounces to your kit, then the Tarptent Stratospire Li will provide space for you and a friend, or just you and a ton of gear.

Performance Comparison

Reservation for one? This tent has many of the features from the Starospire but paired down to a single pole support system with just enough room for you and your gear.

Livibility

Two tripod struts on either end plus an additional strut on the non-vestibule side of the tent effectively increase the height of the Aeon - without increasing the size of the footprint. This feature allows you to comfortably sit up while you change clothes or rummage around in the vestibule.

The floor space is a very cozy 18.3 square feet, but the vestibule is large enough to keep your pack and shoes out of the weather. In short, this is strictly a one-person tent, and limited space puts a ceiling on the livability factor. A better 1+ option for longer trips could be the Zpacks Duplex, which is tight for two but luxurious for one. Still, the Duplex can't touch the Aeon in terms of weight savings, and if you're quickly covering a lot of miles and need full bug or weather protection, the Aeon is the lightest, most comfortable option for those flying solo. On warm nights, you can take out the stake that holds the vestibule down and roll back both sides for a wide-open (but still bug-free) view of your surroundings. This arrangement makes the tent feel less stable, so save this configuration for windless nights.

Our 5'10" (with the hair standing up) tester has plenty of headroom in this small shelter. It's large in enough for people up to 7 feet tall.

Weight

At just under a pound, the Aeon is one of the lightest and most functional shelters available. It's also much lighter than our previous Top Pick for Solo Adventurers, the Gossamer Gear One.

The key elements are the pitchloc foldable corners that increase the tent's stability while also increasing its height - all while not requiring a larger footprint and additional material. The lightweight and durable Dyneema rain fly and carbon fiber struts also keep the weight to a minimum (though not the price). Most impressive is the fact that the light, flimsy thing you pull out of the box will set up into an incredibly sturdy weatherproof shelter.

This tent packs down smaller if you remove the struts. We found leaving the struts in helps to roll the tent up (better for storage) and leads to a quick and easy packing experience.

Weather Resistance

Weather resistance is why you buy a tent in the first place; looking at the low sided, bathtub style floor of the Aeon, we were a little skeptical if we'd stay dry in a real torrent. There is a small internal clip on the non-vestibuled side of the tent that allows you to raise the side a little. Turns out that's all it takes to keep the floor dry.

That said, you need to be careful with site selection (as you would with any tent) and avoid camping in low lying areas like arroyos and old stream beds. An inch of standing water, combined with some unconscious tossing and turning, could lead to a wet awakening. The Dyneema fly is entirely waterproof. Unlike Silnylon, it doesn't stretch and sag when it gets wet so you won't have to get up and tighten guy lines and readjust your tent, as we did with the Black Diamond Megamid.

Taught and secured (with some help from river rocks, the ground here was very soft), this tent is ready for wind and rain.

Adaptability

The main adaptability piece is the ability to adjust the height and angle of the trekking pole support. You can set the tent up at a lower, wider pitch for stability in windy conditions. This model isn't a free-standing tent, so your spot selection is limited to where you can get stakes in the ground, or find appropriately sized rocks.

Since this tent isn't free standing, site selection is key for a bombproof set up. The tripod structures at on the corners allow the tent to be pitched higher without widening the footprint.

Ease of Set Up

Initially, it took our testers about 10 minutes of finagling, adjusting, and re-adjusting to get this tent livable. Had we watched Tarptent's excellent instructional video on their website, our first attempt would have gone much smoother. Like with the Stratospire, the MegaMid, and other tarp style tents, the strategy is to stake out the corners, pop in the trekking poles support, and tension the guy lines (an easy task with the Aeon since there is a pitchloc adjuster on each line).

The one trekking pole set-up is not as easy to stabilize as the dual pole design employed by the Tarptent Stratospire Li. We had to re-adjust our stake placements and re-tension guy lines many times before the tent felt satisfyingly bombproof. We didn't encounter any rough weather during our testing period, but we suspect poor rigging would result in tent collapse, and this tent is less forgiving than its dual-poled cousin. You don't need a masters in tarpology to set-up this tent well, but practice makes perfect, and we'd recommend setting it up a few times if your first adventure out with the Aeon calls for grim weather.

Setting this tent up in the soft pine duff could be frustrating. We needed to use rocks to keep the stakes in place which made micro adjustments more difficult. This is an issue with any non-free standing tent, and Tarptent makes things easier with pitchloc adjusters on every guy line.

Best Applications

Solo backpacking, pack rafting, and bike touring can be just the right mix of suffering and breathtaking beauty to illicit valuable introspection and peace of mind. But if you can carry a sub-one-pound tent to keep the bugs and the rain off during your precious moments of solitude and suffer a whole lot less, you're smarter than everybody else - not any less tough. The Aeon Li is a great mix of light weight and weather resistance and our favorite solo ultralight tent.

Value

$535 hurts the wallet of the average backpacker. A night or two out a year in the Aeon means you'll be sleeping outside for the price of a decent hotel room. Following the logic of the ultralighters, a lighter kit means easier going, less weight in your pack, less pain on your back, thus more days of happy ambling out in the backcountry. The Gossamer Gear One is a wonderfully designed single-person tent for $200 less, but it weighs over half a pound more than the Aeon.

The magnetic tabs hold the door and bug netting out of the way for easy entry. they are much easier to use in the dark than traditional hook and loop closures.

Conclusion

"Boutique" comes to mind whenever we test these expensive high-end ultralight shelters. While magnetic closures and carbon fiber struts may make a few eyes roll amongst the crusties, our testers have found that the innovative design features (how the tent stays up) and problem-solving (how do we make it taller, but not wider) that go into a tent like the Aeon are exciting and fun to see. Also, most importantly, they lighten our loads. The Aeon Li is a solid investment for solo adventurers and our favorite ultralight shelter for one.