Kelty Discovery Trail 1 Backpacking Tent

I have now been out and about with my Kelty Discovery Trail 1 backpacking tent and I want to give you my impressions.

It is interesting that my two main reasons for buying this tent do not feature in any of the reviews I have read so far online.

Firstly, I bought this tent because it does not have reflective tape or guy lines. I will use it mainly for cycle touring and stealth camping where I want the green colour to blend in with the surrounding vegetation and I don't want any reflective material to catch the headlights of vehicles on a nearby road, or worse still, the spotlights of farmers hunting at night! It could be a darker green but it does blend in quite well.

The images are from wild camping on a recent cycle tour. And what it looked like from the road side.

Secondly, I bought this tent because it is made with polyester fabric rather than nylon. I previously used a tent with a nylon fly but bemoaned the fact that it sagged so badly when wet with dew or rain, even to the extent that the fly touched the mesh interior and channeled drops of condensation inside the tent onto my gear.

I have subsequently learnt that this is not a fault of the tent per se, but a property of the material. Nylon expands by up to 3.5% when it gets wet. The following article explains just how much of a difference this can make and it has some interesting images comparing polyester and nylon tents when dry and then wet.

https://thetentlab.com/MoonLightTents/PolyNyl.html

So it's polyester for me, even though it is a bit heavier and more expensive. Now when rain starts beating on my tent in the middle of the night, I can relax, knowing that I won't have to go out in the wet and tighten everything - or remember to loosen it again before it dries.

Otherwise, it is definitely a one-person tent, but it is long enough for me (I'm 1.82m) and there is enough room in the porch area for my panniers if they need to be under cover. I think it is a great tent for bikepacking!