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You know the n+1 thing...it happens with tents too.
About to order a 4 season mountain tent to add to the other 4 (the shame) perfectly serviceable hiking tents/bivvy options at my disposal already. Colour choice is Green or Red.
3 of the current crop are stealthy green/brown and one is red. The red one often does not get the gig because it's red.
But this bad boy will probably only get pulled out for bigger adventures where maybe a red tent is not going to ruin my stealth with quite the same consequence. Red tents are happy places to sit in. Red tents are quite a good place to be holed up dying in waiting for rescue. Red tents look great in (your own) photos even if they spoil other people's.
I should buy boring green shouldn't I?
Green = "I want to have minimal impact on the environment and be sympathetic to the surroundings whilst glamping two metres away from my car."
Red = "I'd like to be able to be readily spottable by helicopter when I get into trouble halfway up a mountain with a broken leg."
Which of these scenarios is closest to your use case?
Dark or light green? Dark absorbs heat too much. Inner tent presumably same on both?
I always pick brightly coloured tents because they look good in photos. Usually that’s the reason I’m there though, so I understand why you might want a stealthy tent.
Red. In the post-Brexit post-Covid, mid-climate change apocalyptic wasteland we will soon inhabit, in it will blend in much better.
Or just because I like red and a tent is a tent, unless you are partially sighted you can see green ones too.
Purple.
My nicest tent to be in was a purple Macpac with cream inner. Every day looked bright, warm and welcoming...until you opened the door.
For a winter / stormy tent i would go red - nicer to be inside in bad weather.
I would buy red though my favourite tent colour was the mad blue of my old Kiwi-made Macpac Minaret. As above, light-coloured inners make the world more cheerful. Green tents are a bit meh from the inside.
That said, when I had to choose between orange or green for my MSR Access 1, green got the nod for stealthy wild camping purposes.
Get the not green one
Green would look rubbish here
and we might not have found a green tent again here
Green = “I want to have minimal impact on the environment and be sympathetic to the surroundings whilst glamping two metres away from my car.”
Red = “I’d like to be able to be readily spottable by helicopter when I get into trouble halfway up a mountain with a broken leg.”
Which of these scenarios is closest to your use case?
In my head its all about the spottable with a broken leg (though I'm kind of hoping it won't be broken). It'll never get used near a car but it might end up doing more stealth easy life low land stuff than I currently envisage.
Dark or light green? Dark absorbs heat too much. Inner tent presumably same on both?
Very dark green which is what is putting me off. More the colour than the heat - this will be used in Scotland 95% of the time.
unless you are partially sighted you can see green ones too.
Not sure I agree - a green tent can blend in pretty well.
I think I'm going red, because I'm a tart at heart.
Tree line is key this tents, it’s very simple;
Below tree line = green
Above tree line = red
Trips covering both it is acceptable to use red in the green tree zone.
Canoe colour it’s all down to speed, red canoes are faster!
My nicest tent to be in was a purple Macpac with cream inner. Every day looked bright, warm and welcoming…until you opened the door.
Surely if you want to wake up to the illusion that every day is sun day, then the answer is yellow?.
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I'm sticking with Orange just now(F10 mk2)
Vango did orange and green, but they also did a shade of blue that was quite nice.
Not sure I agree – a green tent can blend in pretty well
I was half joking.. but I'm obviously not very funny.
I think red is the right choice though.
Red ones are faster.
As with most shiny things: If it's not available in orange, get red.
It's done.
The post covid world better be bloomin good because I've spent a fortune on toys since lockdown. Someone needs to take my keyboard away.
I’ve had more tents than hot dinners and still like ‘Vango orange’ inners best of all. It makes every waking-morning cheerful and warming, and when the sun is setting on a summer’s evening the whole thing glows like a lantern in a way that makes me smile a lot. (Unless I left the stove unnattended) ba-dum.
Flysheet-choice is
- forest-green or olive-green for low level, low-key/stealth
- red/orange for mountain-rescue purposes.
That’s about it.
Oh yeah, bell-tents etc - natural canvas colour.
I’ve had more tents than hot dinners and still like ‘Vango orange’ inners best of all.
To be fair if Vango Orange had be an option I'd have been all over it. I'm struggling to think of anything apart from US presidents that does not look best in orange.
Many moons ago when doing my MLT I expected my instructor to advocate bright colours for safety. He much preferred green as it wouldn't spoil the scenery. Being 20-odd I ignored him and got the yellow & grey Quasar because that's what featured in all the cool Terra Nova adverts.
Orange is the best.
Re the being in your tent with a broken leg argument............while breaking a leg out on the hills is possible (though still unlikely), surely the chances of doing it while near where you have pitched your tent is pretty much minimal?
Re the being in your tent with a broken leg argument…………while breaking a leg out on the hills is possible (though still unlikely), surely the chances of doing it while near where you have pitched your tent is pretty much minimal?
Broken leg was I suspect a euphemism for being broken in general. I was leading a group once when one of the group developed Hypothermia. They ended up being taken off by helicopter. We popped a couple of tents up for her and the rest of the group. Not perfect pitching due to where we were but good enough and better than nowt. A bothy bag/kisu would have done the trick too however. I've also had a friend develop appendicitis out in the hills which got worse/critical overnight and needed rescuing from his tent.
Yep. My point was "do you want to be seen?" rather than meaning to fixate on a very specific example. It would apply equally if you were halfway up a hill with a broken arm, for instance. Or the less silly scenarios which Convert suggests.
All the best tents are either orange or yellow. Fact.
Yep, fair points I guess. Definitely worth carrying some sort of shelter though I still think the odds of your tent colour having any effect on the success or failure of a rescue operation is very, very slim. Am open to being proved wrong though.
Being Ray Mears - Green
Pissed coming back from the pub - Red
Might be children around - Red
Using your own kit in anything scouting - Red
Bike race, got to find your pit - Red
Got a snow valance? - Red
Looking very cool in your holiday pics - Red
Re the being in your tent with a broken leg argument…………while breaking a leg out on the hills is possible (though still unlikely), surely the chances of doing it while near where you have pitched your tent is pretty much minimal?
Last summer, end of Glen Tilt (so what, 16km from a road?) one of my DofE lot was mucking about on camp rolling on soft moss, 10pm as dusk was falling... And broke his collar bone, nearly making it through the skin.
He had choice of 5 tents set up...
My point was “do you want to be seen?”
It's almost as if that's what my bivvi bag was created for - bright orange and silver in colour. Easily drape over a tent.
While we're on tents.... Has anyone got a Macpac Nautilus?
Yellow will attract insects. Blue won't to such an extent.
Red for social meeeja points....
...but anti-social in use.
I did pay extra to have a tarp made up in "olive" DCF rather than the usual white.
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[url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/druidh2000/32567566473/ ]P1030748[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/22384952@N02/ ]Colin Cadden[/url] - [url= https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dariogf.flickr2BBcode ]Flickr2BBcode[/url]
aP
Member
Yellow will attract insects.
A bloody 'know it all', go on then yes, humpt! But obviously mine has only ever been in extreme environments where insects dare not venture. When I say 'only', I mean mostly.
I think red takes the prize.
Mesh or meat there's only two choices.
Green if hiding, if not then red.
Take a shufti at any recent aerial photo of Glastonbury and the basic colour of the camping areas is blue, so for that reason alone I’d go for red.
Having said that, my current tent is light grey with light blue bits.
But at least it isn’t green or blue.
Green tents evoke bad memories of turbulent nights in my teranova Jupiter.
Orange tents, many happy memories of Force Tens. I keep a mk5 in the back of the van if we ever pitch up somewhere and always smile once it's pitched. Orange just looks right.
Do tents need to be stealthy in Scotland? I thought we were sorted for that.
Orange or yellow for me - just a bit more sunny inside!
Anyone gone down that route? Having to peg it out is potentially issue laden sometimes!
Pitched my brand new green lightweight tent in the garden along with our family tent in a pathetic attempt to recreate the festival we would have been at this weekend and it might be more stealth but it is not as pleasent to be in as the purple/light grey one it just replaced..
Regards those Nature Hike tents - I've seen two, both were short in the sleeping length for me at 6', like many tents.
They may be lighter, but there's more robust options with a UK warranty I would use.
Do tents need to be stealthy in Scotland? I thought we were sorted for that
If it's DofE we still hide...
https://www.flickr.com/gp/matt_outandabout/08b3r9
Do tents need to be stealthy in Scotland? I thought we were sorted for that.
"need"? Depends how much of an eyesore you want to be. Two mates and I were camped at Carnmore causeway a few years back. We walked up A'Mhaidghean and you could see a blue tent from the summit - but not the two green tents alongside it.
both were short in the sleeping length for me
Useful info at my height. Much appreciated...!
Fair enough, I never really considered it to be an issue. FWIW when I did my DoE we were issued Vango's if we didn't have our own tents (and shouted at for wanting to stay dry in a survival bag whilst waiting for folk on a summit).