Tents

Six Moon Designs Lunar Solo Tent | Review

An ultralight shelter for ultralight backpacking adventures

Why We Chose The Six Moon Designs Lunar Solo: Super light, stable and lots of quirky innovation on show

Six Moon Designs are a massively popular brand amongst the ultralight hiking community and this, the Lunar Solo, has to be one of the favoured models across their impressive collection of shelters. This single skin tarp/tent has been around for a good few years now, at least in name anyway, with the design being tweaked – or perhaps you could say refined – many times now. Have they finally perfected it then? Considering it picked up one of the biggest outdoor industry awards last year, maybe they have…

Who Is The Six Moon Designs Lunar Solo For?

At just 740g this one-person design is very much an option for when keeping your pack weight down is key. It actually seems to be made with U.S. thru hiking in mind. We’d bet you see a lot of people using it on something like the Pacific Crest Trail or Appalachian Trail.

“Every effort has been made to maximise ventilation here.”

What about for use in our muggy and mild climate here in the UK then? Well, we’d say it’s not quite as at home but it still makes for a great option for any three-season adventures where a low pack weight is important, like a springtime fast pack along the West Highland Way or a long walk along the Pennines.

Pictured without all the trekking pole or specialised pole that SMD offer. Photo: Mike Brindley

Design

As we alluded to, it’s hard to say whether this is a tarp or a tent but rather a blending of the two concepts. It features a single skin silicon coated polyester upper that’s suspended off a trekking pole (or the bespoke pole that SMD make) and pegged down at the edges and corners to form a hexagonal shape around its base, the floor then hangs down from the upper, suspended around the edges by ‘noseeum’ mesh – the idea being maximum ventilation but also a bug-free sleep. The sleeping area is large, with a 1.2m height (ideal sitting up height) and 2.4 square metres of sleeping space. There’s then also a 0.8 square metres of porch space, so all in all, a lot of room to cook and faff about with your kit in. With single skin tents, you definitely want that, as it makes it far easier to avoid touching the normally damp sides.

We should also add that the porch and sleeping area are separated by a big mesh door that covers almost the entire length of the tent. This means that when you unzip the flysheet and roll each side back fully, you’ll be able to really enjoy any views you might be lucky enough to have – right from the comfort of your sleeping bag. You also have the option to only partially open up the front of the tent or even raise it with the use of a second trekking pole.

The mesh door that separates the inner from the porch. Photo: Mike Brindley

One of the many ventilation points. Photo: Mike Brindley

Six Moon Designs are popular with thru hikers in the States. Photo: Mike Brindley

Pitching

Pitching is easy once you’ve figured out the knack to it. This is to peg the back corner, stick your trekking pole in place and then pull out the long guyline on the peak to peg down the front, followed by all the other corners and edges. Expect the sides to be quite high off the ground, particularly at the front – again, every effort has been made to maximise ventilation here.

One of our test trips in the South Downs. Photo: Will Haines

Features

Other details that the Six Moon Designs Lunar Solo has include a small internal mesh pocket for stashing something like your headtorch, an internal tensioning system for the flysheet. It comes with a stuff sack and reflective guylines but bear in mind that no pegs are provided and the given weight doesn’t factor them in.