Lightwave T10 Trek – Tent Review

Our review today is the Lightwave T10 Trek, an Ultralight 4 season tent which weighs in at 1.7 kg. The T10 is a 1 person 2 pole tunnel tent with an aero dynamic shape to enable it to comfortably deal with bad weather conditions. The interior is a wedge shape, which gives more room at the head and shoulders for extra comfort.

Erecting the T10 Trek

The T10 Trek is a tent that is fairly easy to set up, but only once you have had a practice. Pitching inner first is simply a case of feeding the colour coded poles through the mesh sleeving and placing each end into a grommet. Once this is done for both poles, it is a case of staking out the inner and the mesh support at the head end. Next comes the fly sheet which attaches to the poles via velcro straps, which we found quite fiddly. Connecting the fly to the grommets is straight forward, and adds extra strength and rigidity to the tent. Then again stake out the fly and guy points.

You can also pitch it “all in one” though we found this a little trickier, which again is probably just a matter of practice. MSR tents, which pitch in a similar manner, have grommets in the groundsheet protector which allow for a fly only pitch, we think the T10 Trek groundsheet protector (sold separately) could be improved with this additional feature.

The tent comes with 3 types of stakes; 2 sizes of “twisted” stakes and square needle stakes (as seen in the photograph, right). These collectively weigh in at around 200g, so if you really wanted ultralight you may want to change these for something a little lighter. The total number of pegs is 14, though we found you would need 18 to fully stake out everything, including all the guylines. This selection of tent pegs and guyline configuration provide the tent with secure anchoring for 4 season camping.

Great Build Quality

The build quality of the Lightwave T10 trek tent is fantastic. The groundsheet felt quite thick, the seams were all sealed very well and the stitching was pretty much spot on. The fly door has a double zip, this means extra ventilation and / or the ability to cook in the vestibule. Speaking of which, the vestibule is not huge but it is a decent size for an ultralight tent where you may not be carrying to much anyway.

The flysheet is a 40 denier 5000mm HH ripstop nylon which is silicon coated on both sides, this makes it really hard wearing and at 70 g/m it’s also really lightweight. The grommet attachments are well sewn into the inner’s groundsheet and felt very secure. The mesh used for the poles and two vestibule support pockets is of a high quality and felt like it would last and last. Our one fault in build quality was that the outer and inner zips didn’t feel smooth, and you could see daylight through them.

The fly of course has a storm flap covering the zip, which is held down by velcro, but we would still question whether water could come through. The zip isn’t going to be a huge factor in buying this tent, simply because the rest of the build quality is super.

Is Size An Issue?

The T10 Trek is an “ok” size, but it is a bit too short for someone over 6 foot, as Gareth found out. It has a nice height and felt roomy inside for those of us who are shorter than 6ft! The tent inner length is 2.25m, at is maximum point, and 90cm in width at the head and shoulder end. The feet end tapers in quite a bit, meaning that you would need a mummy shaped Therm-a-rest. We feel the T10 Trek probably isn’t the best tent for the taller campers.

The vestibule, as we’ve said above, is a decent size. You could cook inside if you wanted, should it be raining, and you could fit a medium sized (55-65L) rucksack in there at night. The vestibule also has two mesh pockets built into the supports for the inner tent, these we felt were a nice feature but we think there was more than enough pocket real estate inside.

There is a giant pocket on the right-hand side of the inner tent which is super useful, though we did find that if you put things with weight such as a phone or a wallet in there it did pull the inner down a little bit.

Conclusion

Overall, at £250 RRP the Lightwave T10 Trek tent is a bargain 4 season ultralight tent. Due to its thick, durable fabric and multiple guying points, this really is a hardy tent. The T10 Trek offers enough room to sit up in and the porch is large enough to cook in or store a medium sized rucksack. Our only issue really is that it’s not quite long enough for taller campers.

All in all the Lightwave T10 Trek is a nice tent and gets a 4 stars review from us.