MSR - Elixir™ 1-Person Backpacking Tent

I love the elixir 1. The weight is a little high for a one man tent but this is due to the thicker fabric on the inner. Great if you’re somewhere with the climate to camp inner only! If you pack the poles separately it can compress pretty small. I use it for bikepacking so the slightly higher weight is okay for me. I’ve always been a me +1 person for tent size, and thought 1 person tents would be too small to use on my own. But with such steep walls and high head height you can sit up comfortably and it doesn’t feel cramped at all!

The Elixir is a great tent - is pretty tough while still being on the lighter side compared to standard or cheap tents. I’ve had one for 5+ years and taken it on portage trips and car camping trips and it holds up well. The 2 is a good size for one person and some gear, and I bought a 3 to camp with my gf. My only reason for changing tents was weight. I recently sold both of them and upgraded to a Big Agnes Tiger Wall UL 3, a much lighter tent to make portaging and backpacking easier. They are a bit more delicate feeling than the elixir, so I am more gentle with them. The Elixir is the kind of tent people live in while tree planting for many seasons in a row. The single zipper door design on the Elixir is nicer / smoother to operate than the Tiger Wall. The fly also opens closer to the door, so it’s easier to get in and out, whereas the Tiger Wall you have to lean out pretty far to close or open the fly. My friend who is also a gear head bought the nature hike tent - he’s had it many years and it’s worked well. Basically an MSR quality tent without the brand name. Just make sure it’s not “used” and being sold as “new” - hold the fly up to the sky and loom through it to check the waterproof coating / pour water on it before your first trip to make sure. Use your footprint and it will last many years! TLDR; the Elixir is a great tent - buy it!

MSR Elixir is superior

Seems we have an elitist over here? I did multi day (5 till 10 days) hikes for years with an MSR Elixer to no problem whatsoever.

I really love my Mormot Tungsten. It is a little heavier than some of the other Recs but is roomy and has withstood some intense PNW rain. It also comes in an ultra light version (I don’t think it’s actually ultralight, but it is lighter than the OG version). Don’t pay full price for it though, Marmot tents are on sale all the time. I don’t like the zipper geometry on the MSR elixir and hubba for heavy rain and damp/dew- it’s meant so you don’t have to reach so far out into the vestibule to open your fly, but i find it means the zipper can drip into your tent through the open door.

Ok let me pitch on the list then: This is an incoherent list: contains tents with different sizes and persons count, so it is creating more confusion than being helpful. Apart from that several of the tents there have well known problems: \- Hilleberg is a winter tent; if you rely on this list and buy it for a summer holiday you will die. \- Elixir does not use seam sealing and instead use a sealing technique mostly seen in cotton fabric tents, and it is known that it leaks. So late autumn it is a dangerous tent. \- North Face Stormbreak is a very old, reliable tent, but uses polyester, so it weighs around 3 kilos. You can easily find a tent with the same specs, much better material for half the price and would weigh around 2 kilos. \- Rei and Nemo tents in the list are all dome tents, which are literally replicas of each other (i would even say knock offs of Big Agnes there with inferior build quality). Many of them are half covered with fabric instead of mesh in their inners, which is terrible for summer. Always go for as much mesh as possible for summer. For early autumn, late spring they are probably good. But definitely master of none. I dont know how they are in a "best" list \- Kelty again is an old reliable tent, but has pole sleeves, so setting it up is a chore. It is covered with fabric again, so not so good for summer, would be good for mountain weather in the summer though. Still, material is outdated and setting it up is much slower than current lines of tents. \- Hillebergs are top of the top, and big agnes clearly earns its place in the list. \- MSR tents there are both very light options, but nothing special there. Personally i would carry 500 grams more instead of paying premium to a tent design that is so common. It is a very good alternative for ultralighters. \- There are other tent types, such as inflatables, such as popup tents, such as summer tents. The list contains none. So, if you are trying to find a tent to buy .. ditch this list and check out other sources. It is incoherent, it misses out a lot of different alternatives and it doesnt factor in criteria such as who? how? where? when? how many people? duration? conditions? It is basically the sunday paper of tent recommendations. A potpourri of cool images.

I am very fond of my MSR Elixir

My only comment on Big Agnes in my experience is that the tents are fragile because they are so ultralight. I’ve had my Copper Spur poles snap twice. BA is great with repairing stuff but it’s not great when you’re in the back country and you’ve got to hold everything together with duck tape just to make it through the rest of the trip. My MSR on the other hand, while a little heavier, seems a lot more substantial while still being a light weight backpacking tent.