TEHCC Rental Equipment:
HT-19 – North Face Lunar Light Tent

Submitted by Vic Hasler

HT-19 North Face Lunar Light is a free-standing tent, requiring just two stakes to extend the rain fly for a 6 sq. ft. vestibule area.  Ten aluminum stakes are needed to correctly hold down and expand the full ventilation system.  The tent handled well during a very windy outing on the AT near Big Bald.  HT-19 is one of the lighter weight backpacking tents that TEHCC has owned for a number of years. "Lighter" at 4 pounds, 4 ounces means there are even lower-weight tents (sub-2 pounds) now on the market.  The tradeoffs for the club's selection of tents are durability, ease of use, performance, and weight.  Some older reviews ('98-'05) have indicated it was an excellent choice.  North Face appears to have replaced this model with the Tadpole at a price in the $239 to $289 range.

While the tent is tall enough at door-end to sit up, the main drawback is that it is short.  My 12 year old son and I fit snugly, but I was touching both ends of the tent with bag and camp pillow, so would not recommend it for anyone 6' or over.  It would be great for one person on a short trip.

The set-up instructions describe a Quick Pitch system, which appears to be the ganging of sliding rings that quickly fit on the pre-bent poles.  The tent sets up reasonably well with the color coded rings.  One reviewer stated that set-up takes less than one minute (with experience).  The below pictures show the tent with and without the fly, plus the floor plan.  The 88" bag length does not translate to reality.