Gear Guide: MSR Hubba Tent

Backpacking on the west coast calls for a fairly specialized tent.  It has to be light -everything in backpacking has to be light, but also fairly sturdy.  Waterproofing is a must: the weather on the west coast is more often about fog, rain, drizzle and other damp words than it is about blue skies and sunny days.  Rounding out the equation is comfort.  This tent is going to be your sole consistent source of shelter while you are on a backpacking expedition, so it should be a place that you won't go crazy spending many waking hours in, in addition to the sleeping.

For this year, George and I have both chosen the MSR Hubba tent.  Actually George chose it first, and I liked it so much I bought one for myself to replace my aging and heavy 3-man dome.  (George and I both like our privacy, so we went with two single tents rather than a double, even though the double would have been lighter overall).

The Hubba is a fairly lightweight tent.  Weighing in at 1.36 kg (3 lbs), carrying a Hubba means that the tent is not the heaviest thing in your pack.  It comes in a sturdy, slightly oversized stuffsack, which I have not had difficulty getting the tent back into even when wet.  With MSR's single-pole system, the tent is very simple to put up and take down, as you can see here in an MSR video for the Hubba Hubba, which is basically a double-wide version of the Hubba:

While the tent is strong and well built, the fabrics, by the nature of their lightweight construction, do not stand up to abrasion well.  My fly was worn through by a few seconds of abrasion against bare, smooth rock when a gust of wind dragged the tent earlier this summer.  Some silicone patch goo fixed it right up, but it is something to be aware of.

The first thing you notice when you get into a Hubba tent is that it is very warm.  The screen and fly combination trap heat very effectively and I have not been cold once while using it.  A friend of mine actually took a hubba series tent winter camping (even though it is rated as a three season tent) and reported being quite comfortable.  However that same effect of trapping warm air has a side effect: condensation. I have yet to wake up to a fly that was not covered in condensation on the inside.  It hasn't affected my comfort at all, but it has meant putting the tent away wet most of the time. MSR's YouTube channel recommends opening the flaps on the fly for increased air flow, but I've found this to be of only limited help.  The flip side of this is that the Hubba is extremely waterproof.  With the fly on, I have trouble imagining the storm that could overcome the fly's waterproofing.

On the comfort side, the tent is actually quite roomy for a single-man tent.  The base is longer than my mattress, allowing some small storage at my feet or head, and it's slighly wider than the mattress as well.  The tent is designed to allow a person to sit comfortably, and my 5 foot 10 inch frame has plenty of clearance over its head when sitting up.  I have only turned around once in the tent without opening the screen and that did require yoga-like flexibility, but by opening up the screen and using the vestibule, it is much easier.  The inner tent is mainly screen, and that adds quite a bit to the impression of roominess.

At a $280 price-point, the Hubba is a bit expensive for anything other than a backpacker's tent.  You can definitely trade price for weight if you don't plan to carry the tent everywhere you go.  For a backpacker without a bunk-mate, however, I recommend the Hubba for the rugged rainforests of the North American west coast.