Best Semi-Freestanding Ultralight Tent of 2021

A perfect balance between weight and comfort, the Tiger Wall is proving ultralight backpacking doesn’t have to be a barebones, uncomfortable outing. The interior space is excellent, both in floor space and headroom, with nice design touches like the vertical toe box. The semi-freestanding design does create a dependence on the stakes, and Big Agnes could have included a couple extra with the tent. A footprint is highly recommended as well to add to the life of the tent and reduce wear on the silicone-coated nylon flooring. With a price tag of $399.95, the Tiger Wall isn’t cheap, but it delivers value in its lightweight design and considerable living space, making it our Best Semi-Freestanding Tent of 2021.

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See Our Best Backpacking Tent Review 2021 HERE!

Big Agnes is quickly becoming a backcountry staple for many outdoor enthusiasts. With a diverse selection of products and high-quality gear, they are always in the discussion for outdoor equipment. The Tiger Wall UL2 is their ultralight backcountry tent with two doors and two vestibules, creating comfort while staying light. This combination—and having more weather protection than the NEMO Hornet 2—made the Tiger Wall UL2 our Best Semi-Freestanding Tent of 2021.

Big Agnes offers a few iterations of the Tiger Wall including Solution Dye tents, which use solution dyes with higher resistance to UV fade and reduce energy consumption and water use during manufacturing. There are also mtnGLO® versions that include tent lights, offering ambient light throughout the tent. All of these tent variations come in 1- to 3-person sizing. For this review, we will be looking specifically at the Tiger Wall UL2, but it is nice to know there are a variety of options if you are looking for more specific features or sizes.

Comfort

For a tent that only weighs 2lbs 8oz (1.13kg), the Tiger Wall UL2 is spacious. With 28 square feet of interior space, 39 inches of headroom, and two 8-square-foot vestibules, there is room for everything and everyone. At the foot of the tent, the stakeout lines create a more vertical foot wall, offering more room for your feet when sleeping. The tent itself tapers from 52 inches at the top to 42 inches at the feet with plenty of room for two campers. The interior space of the Tiger Wall is 86 inches long, or 7.2 feet, allowing plenty of headroom for most campers. Dimensionally, this tent has it all—lots of space for two people with enough outdoor vestibule space to keep your gear covered.

Along the inside of the Tiger Wall UL2, you’ll find lots of little gear loops to hang towels or wet clothes. There are also two large sidewall pockets for valuables or quick-grab items. Above the heads of the sleepers, there is a neat ceiling pocket that has lots of room and cable holes for headphones or charging cables. The Tiger Wall UL2 has two large doors. The one drawback of the doors is that they have separate zippers for the bottom of the door and the vertical section of the door, so you will need to open both zippers to properly exit the tent. A single zipper on a D-shaped door would make everything a little more streamlined, which helps when the nights are dark and nature is urgently calling.

Ease of Setup

Similar to the NEMO Hornet 2P, the Big Agnes Tiger Wall uses a single hubbed pole that connects at 3 points along the tent. While the Big Agnes website states that it is freestanding, it really is only semi-freestanding, meaning that it still needs the stakes to properly erect the complete structure. The DAC Featherlite poles are durable and are easily clipped into the three gussets. From there, the tent easily clips onto the frame, and a crossbar opens up the sidewalls.

The tent only comes with 8 stakes, but it would be better off with 10—or in very windy situations with 13. The additional stakes would help to keep the fly properly tensioned and off the mesh tent body. As a single-pole tent, it is quite simple and straightforward for a camper to set up. The key is ensuring that the stakes are in a good position to optimize the overall space within the tent.

Weatherproofing

Weatherproofing has been taken very seriously with the Tiger Wall UL2. The fly and floor of the tent are silicone-treated nylon ripstop. The tent body is constructed with nylon ripstop and a polyester mesh for breathability and airflow. The rainfly doors can be opened from the top or the bottom for additional venting if needed.

The rainfly creates a full cover over the body of the tent, while the vestibules create space to store gear. The fly can also be held back in certain areas to open them up more and increase the ease of movement in and out of the tent as well as increase the venting on warmer nights.

Durability

The fly and floor material are only 15-denier nylon, which is a very light fabric. The ripstop design does help with the overall durability, but this is a tent that needs to be treated with great care. There is a separately sold footprint that we highly recommend you purchase with the tent, or you can use some sort of lightweight tarp to help protect the floor of the tent from the rough ground or pooling water.

One design flaw that was noted is along the fly zipper. The storm flap that goes over the zipper is stitched in very close to the zipper itself. The fly zipper will then get caught on the storm flap quite often, and to prevent that, it needs to be opened with two hands to keep the storm flap at bay. This is more of an inconvenience than a durability concern, but it can create wear and potential tears. The guy lines are also quite lightweight and can snap under heavy wind.

Weight

It is amazing to see companies squeezing so many features into such a lightweight package, proving that comfort does not need to be sacrificed for lightweight efficiency. The Big Agnes Tiger Wall UL2 weighs in at a packed weight of 2lbs 8oz, which is shockingly lightweight. This does not include the footprint that we highly recommend or the additional stakes that we recommend adding to this tent, but c’mon, that is still an impressive weight. The Tiger Wall is second on our list in terms of weight, only 2 ounces behind the NEMO Hornet 2P, and the Hornet has a smaller amount of floor space and vestibule space. The Hornet’s fly also doesn’t provide as much overall protection as the Tiger Wall’s.

The Bottom Line

A perfect balance between weight and comfort, the Tiger Wall is proving ultralight backpacking doesn’t have to be a barebones, uncomfortable outing. The interior space is excellent, both in floor space and headroom, with nice design touches like the vertical toe box. The door zipper design could use some work, and to have a fully laid-out tent, two to five more stakes would be ideal to really lock everything in place. A footprint is highly recommended to add to the life of the tent and reduce wear on the silicone-coated nylon flooring. While the price tag of $399.95 is $30 more than the NEMO Hornet 2P, the Tiger Wall offers more living space and, in our opinion, more weather protection. While it isn’t freestanding, we felt the Tiger Wall deserved an award, so we named it our Best Semi-Freestanding Tent of 2021.

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