Gossamer Gear The One Review

The Gossamer Gear The One is the lightest silnylon trekking pole tent on the market. This is one of the best values in an ultralight tent. It’s significantly more affordable than Dyneema and only a few ounces heavier. It uses two trekking poles to set up, has plenty of room for one, and packs down very small.

Product Overview

Gossamer Gear The One

Price: $299.25

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Pros

✅ Ultralight

✅ Very packable

✅ Inexpensive

Cons

❌ Requires two trekking poles

❌ Airflow could be better

KEY SPECS

• Capacity: 1 Person
• Packed Weight: 17.7 ounces (1.11 lbs)
• Type: Single Wall
• Materials: 10D Nylon Ripstop SIL/PU fabric for tent body and floor
• Floor Denier: 10D
• Seam: Factory-taped seams
• Guylines Included?: Yes
• Stakes Included?: Yes
• Number of Stakes Required: 6
• Dimensions: Length: 84 inches (7 feet); Head End Width: 33 inches; Foot End Width: 21 inches; Height (at ridgeline): 45 inches; Floor: 15 ¾ square feet.

The Gossamer Gear The One is a one-person trekking pole tent that is lighter and more packable than most comparable tents. It sets up quickly, and has catenary cut sides, so getting a good pitch is easy. Plus, this tent is quite roomy for a one-person tent. It provides plenty of room for the feet and head while lying down. This tent is an excellent deal for anyone looking for a durable, storm-worthy tent for ultralight backpacking or thru-hiking.

I tested the Nylon Ripstop SIL/PU fabric version of this tent, which I loved for its packability. There is also a Dyneema Composite Fiber (DCF) version of this tent. The DCF One is almost twice as expensive as the Ripstop version of The One. It is about 2 ounces lighter, though.

There isn’t a widely available, fully-enclosed silnylon (or similar material) trekking pole tent that is lighter than this. This is one of the most ultralight trekking pole tents available. The only trekking pole tents lighter than this are made with DCF. A DCF trekking pole tent will be about 2-4 ounces lighter than this tent.

To see how the other ultralight tents performed in our tests, read our post on the best ultralight tents.

Performance Test Results

Weight: 9/10

The One's trail weight, or packed weight, is 17.7 ounces. This weight does not include stakes, a tent footprint, or tent poles. It comes with aluminum Y-stakes that are 11 grams (.38 ounces) each. The tent stuff sack weighs 9.7 grams, and the stake bag weighs 4 grams (0.14 ounces).

This tent is surprisingly lightweight. Gossamer Gear managed to shave something like 4 ounces off the weight of this tent from a previous version. Comparable nylon (usually silicone impregnated nylon or silnylon) trekking pole tents weigh anywhere from 20 to 32 ounces. Somehow, The One is substantially lighter than this. The ripstop nylon doesn’t seem as thin as I would expect for a fabric with such a low weight.

There is not much more you could remove from this tent to save weight. It’s just big enough for one person, only has one door, and has no extra guylines, pockets, or accessories.

The weight of the DCF One is 15.3 oz. For almost twice the price of the ripstop nylon version of this tent, you can save 2.4 ounces. DCF (Dyneema Composite Fiber) is an incredibly light and very waterproof material. It is lighter than ripstop nylon, but as you can see, not by much. It does have a higher hydrostatic head than ripstop nylon and also doesn’t stretch as much, though.

Price: 8/10

I found this tent to be an excellent value for an ultralight trekking pole tent. You won’t find a better deal for a tent that is this light. You can pay slightly less for another trekking pole tent, but it won’t be as light. You can pay much more for a tent that weighs a comparable amount and takes months longer to arrive.

This tent does not lack any features you would want in an ultralight, single-wall trekking pole tent. It has everything you would want in a single-wall shelter. This tent is very well made, too. It doesn’t feel cheap, nor has it shown any signs of wear during testing.

This tent performs as well as any other ultralight trekking pole tent. Single wall shelters like this one could be more bomb-proof, but they're not intended to be bomb-proof. This tent will hold its own in high winds or during a storm, but it isn’t designed for mountaineering. And it would weigh at least twice as much if designed for that.

This is a well-designed single-walled ultralight tent. It uses ripstop nylon impregnated with silicone and polyurethane for the tent body and floor. This material is lightweight, inexpensive, durable, and very packable. This tent also is made with a catenary cut rainfly, and the gentle U-shape of the edges makes the tent easy to pitch well. Many trekking pole tents take a lot of tensioning and re-tensioning to get a taught pitch. This isn’t the case with The One. After one time pitching this tent to figure out how to set it up correctly, this tent is easy to get a great pitch.

It's impressive that Gossamer Gear can manufacture a tent this light for such a low price. The only reason this tent did not score higher here is because it is not the lightest tent available, but it is the lightest non-DCF tent available. But, when you compare The One to other similar silnylon shelters, this tent weighs less and performs just as well, if not better.

Packability: 10/10

This is not a bulky tent. For a single-person tent, this packs down very small. It packs down almost as small as a Nalgene water bottle and will take up little space in your pack. You will not find a more packable, fully enclosed tent with a bathtub floor anywhere.

Nylon is a very packable material. It’s thin, flexible, and has just enough stretch to make stuffing it into tight spaces easy. This tent packs down small because it’s made of nylon.

If this were DCF, it would be less packable. DCF does not pack down as small as silnylon does. The DCF One is 14 inches by 4.5 inches, while The standard silnylon The One is 10 inches by 5 inches. That’s 4 inches longer, which likely means you’d have to pack the DCF One vertically in your pack. With the ripstop nylon version of this tent, you can pack it however you want. I previously used a DCF tent that I loved everything about except for its packability. I’ve since stopped using that tent because I didn’t want to have to pack my tent vertically in my pack anymore.

The stakes and guylines are small and do not take up much space. You can pack the stakes separately from the tent, but they will also easily fit inside the stuff sack.

You definitely need the stakes and guyline to set up this tent. Under no circumstances would you want to not bring the stakes with you when packing this tent. If you don’t want to carry stakes, you might as well not bring the tent. You don’t need all eight stakes with you, though. This tent only requires six stakes to set up.

The One also comes with extra guylines for using as a clothesline and on additional stakeout points on the rainfly. You don’t need to bring these guylines, though.

This tent comes in a silnylon stuff sack. I recommend using the stuff sack because it gives you more options when packing your tent and protects the tent from other items in your pack. If you need to strap this tent to the top of your bag, having the stuff sack will make this much more convenient. Also, the stuff sack prevents the tent from getting twisted around other things in your pack, which could become a mess when you’re trying to pull something out of there.

The One is comparable in packability compared to other silnylon trekking pole tents on the market.

I suggest packing this tent in its stuff sack near the bottom of your pack, above your sleeping bag. Place it horizontally along your pack’s back panel. I usually keep the stakes in the stuff sack along with the tent and guylines, but many people like to keep their tent stakes separate. Keeping stakes separate can help protect your tent from abrasions, but I’ve never had a problem with this over 1000+ nights sleeping outside with ultralight tents.

Design: 9/10

Ease of Set Up: 9/10

I found this tent easy to set up alone. The only challenging part of setting this up on your own is putting the trekking pole in place while pulling the ridge guyline taught simultaneously. The guyline doesn’t have to be particularly tight; it just needs to have some tension to keep the trekking pole from falling over. This requires some getting used to, but you can set this up yourself. This tent is no more difficult to set up alone than other trekking pole tents. In many regards, I found it easier to set up than other tents.

This tent could be easier to set up if it only used one trekking pole. Since this tent uses two trekking poles, you have to put one pole in place and then quickly move to put the other in place and secure the ridgeline. This isn’t difficult and doesn’t require any extreme speed, but it would be more straightforward with one pole. However, the two-pole design that The One uses gives the tent twice as much headroom, so I’ll take that extra step.

This tent uses the minimal number of stakes and guylines needed to be highly functional without having too many stakes and guylines.

Compared to some non-freestanding trekking poles like The One, this tent uses an average number of stakes. The basic A-frame tent design that this tent uses would be difficult to support with less than six stakes. However, some trekking pole tents need up to 10 stakes to pitch properly. Compared to these tents, The One uses four fewer stakes.

There aren’t any unnecessary guylines on this tent, either. This tent has a ridge guyline, which is needed to support the tent’s ridgeline. And, it has short guylines on the corners to tension the rainfly. It comes with two extra guylines to tension out a spot in the center of the tent body on both sides, but these haven’t been necessary for us since there is plenty of headroom in this tent.

This tent is easier to set up than many freestanding trekking pole tents. Most trekking pole tents use a similar design, so they’re all about the same to set up. The One seems less finicky to get a tight pitch than some trekking pole tents.

Setup Instructions:

1. Stake the four corners of the tent
2. Put a stake through the loop of one of the main ridgeline guylines, then put a trekking pole in place on that side. Start with the trekking pole adjusted to 125 centimeters (49 inches).
3. Hold the ridgeline guyline taught while you fit the handle of the trekking pole into the tent's roof and the tip into the grommet attached to the tent’s bathtub. Now pull the guyline out, perpendicular to the side of the tent with the door.
4. Stake the guyline and tension it loosely.
5. Repeat steps 2-4 on the other side of the tent.
6. Depending on the weather, you can raise or lower your trekking poles to get a higher pitch (more airflow, not as good in high winds) or lower pitch (less airflow but better in high winds).
7. If you need the rainfly doors closed, zip it shut and attach it to the guyline with the clip.
8. Starting at the four corners, tension the rainfly until it is taught.
9. Tension the ridgeline guylines until the ridgeline is tight.
10. In high winds, you can place rocks on top of your stakes to help hold them in place.

Ease of Entry & Exit: 8/10

This tent is relatively easy to enter and exit. The door is on the head side of the tent, the zipper to the bug mesh and rainfly zip and unzip easily, and there is nothing (like a trekking pole) necessary to hold the tent up blocking the door. Compared to other trekking pole tents with one entryway, it is about average in terms of ease of entry and exit.

The door is located on the head side of the tent, which makes it easy to access. And, there isn’t a pole blocking the door, either.

Some trekking pole tents require you to squeeze past a trekking pole while climbing through a zipper door sewn into the lightweight mesh. This is not the case with The One.

Headspace: 9/10

This tent is long enough to give me ample headspace when lying down. I’m 5’9,” and had plenty of headspace, no matter how I laid in this tent. The overall length of the tent is 84 inches. The sides of the tent come up from the ground at about a 40-degree angle, which means there isn't very much unusable floor space near the head of the tent, only about 4 inches.

When sitting up, I have plenty of headspace in this tent, too. But, I found you have to sit right below the high point to get maximum headspace. The tent's height at the ridgeline (the highest point) is 45 inches.

The sloped walls of the tent make the area with maximum headspace feel small. And the tent’s door is not positioned below the ridgeline area either. This makes the tent feel like there is not a lot of headspace when sitting up if you are trying to lean out into the vestibule area as you would during a storm. However, this problem is common with all ultralight single-person trekking pole tents.

This tent has better headspace when lying down than most other trekking pole tents on the market. It also has more headspace when sitting up than most other single-person trekking pole tents on the market. Since this tent uses two trekking poles to set up, it essentially doubles the amount of headspace when sitting up compared to single-pole trekking pole tents. Most other single-person trekking pole tents on the market only use one trekking pole to set up.

Footspace: 9/10

There are no comparably priced trekking pole tents on the market with more foot space than this tent. When sleeping, I found there is plenty of footpace in this tent. I have enough room to move my feet around, and my sleeping bag’s foot box does not rub against the tent walls, either.

The 84-inch long floor of this tent makes for plenty of room for your feet in this tent. The width of the tent at the foot end is narrower than at the head end. In a sense, this means you have less room for your feet, but only laterally. In practice, this only means you can’t do a jumping jack motion with your legs while lying down, which isn’t a big deal.

Vestibules: 9/10

This tent has one vestibule, big enough to store all the gear of a single ultralight hiker. Most single-person tents only have one vestibule. Generally, if a tent has two vestibules it has two doors, then it’s probably a two-person tent.

Other Features: 9/10

• The rainfly doors clip to the guyline for the tent’s ridge with a standard plastic (polymer) clip. This makes replacing this essential piece of hardware in any town relatively easy. You won’t have to get a specific piece of hardware from Gossamer Gear to replace this if it fails.
• Main guylines for tent ridgeline are separate from tent doors and run below them. This ensures you’ll get a stable pitch even without the rainfly doors closed, and it makes closing the rainfly doors easier.
• It uses two trekking poles to set up. Many single-person tents only use one trekking pole to set up, which is more ideal if you only hike with one pole. However, using two trekking poles creates double the head space when sitting up.

Materials & DCF: 9/10

This tent is made with a 10-denier Nylon Ripstop treated with silicone and polyurethane. It uses the same material for the tent body and the floor.

This tent is very waterproof and comes with factory-taped seams. These taped seams ensure the holes created by the thread while sewing this tent are covered with a waterproof strip of material.

Though you don’t need to use a tent footprint, it will prolong the life of your tent if you do.

Durability & Weather Resistance: 8/10

Weather Resistance: 8/10

I found this tent performs very well in bad weather. It is very waterproof and does quite well in high winds if you pitch one of the sides of the tent in the direction of the wind. The material is very waterproof, and the taped seams help keep out wet weather. The angled shape of the sides doesn’t catch the wind, making this tent do well in windy weather. The One resists the weather better than most comparable trekking pole tents.

The material used on this tent’s hydrostatic head is 1800 millimeters, which is better than many backpacking tents. The hydrostatic head is the amount of water pressure a material can withstand before the water pushes through. In the case of this tent, the force of 1800 millimeters of water stacked in a one-centimeter tube would have to be pressed onto the fabric before it would start to seep through.

I think this tent could be better at avoiding condensation if it had a larger mesh section on the side without the door. But, if you pitch this tent far enough from water and in other places less prone to condensation, this isn’t an issue. And, this tent isn’t any more prone to condensation than other single-walled tents.

In bad weather, you can reduce the amount of air blowing into the tent or under the front vestibule by shortening the length of your trekking poles to pitch the tent closer to the ground.

Durability: 9/10

This tent is very durable. It would last for multiple thru-hikes if used with a ground sheet and properly cared for. The Nylon Ripstop SIL/PU fabric used in this tent is very durable. It will stretch before it tears. And if it does begin to tear, the ripstop weave will prevent the tear from getting too large. This tent is more durable than many ultralight tents on the market.

To improve the durability of the tent's life, keep the zippers clean and lubricated using this zipper cleaner and lubricant. The small zippers on this tent are the most common thing to fail on this tent. However, this is the case with all ultralight tents. And, zippers can be replaced if they fail.

What's included in the package on purchase:

• Stakes
• Extra guylines
• Tent stuffsack
• Stake bag

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