Your tent is a key piece of kit while on D of E expedition and requires careful consideration, it will be your home and shelter while in the mountains.

Some D of E providers will supply the tent for you as this can be a considerable outlay but I cannot stress enough the importance of putting your tent up before embarking on expedition to make sure that you are familiar with the way it works, to make sure that it is a suitable size for the number of people sleeping in it and most importantly is complete with all poles and pegs, there is nothing worse than arriving at your first camping spot to discover that your tent is not usable.

How big should your tent be? That depends largely on how many people will be sleeping in it, there’s no point carrying around a three man tent on your own if there’s only you going to be sleeping in it, on the other hand, a two man tent will not fit three people comfortably, you will need to find a balance between the two.

There’s a large range of tents available that are suitable for D of E expeditions and Vango have long been a preferred provider, there are plenty of others available but if you are buying your own tent then don’t be tempted to buy the cheapest tent you can find, they generally won’t stand up to the harsher conditions on the mountains, a cheaper one may suffice for Bronze level as it only has to last one night.

Your tent will need to have two layers, the main tent, preferably with a sewn in ground sheet and a fly sheet over the top which has the waterproofing to protect you from the rain, when pitched correctly there will be a small gap between these two layers which will also help to insulate and keep you warmer through the cold nights. These two layers should not touch as the outer layer (fly sheet) will often be wet on both sides and if they touch then the inner layer will also get wet and drip on you.

There are a number of ‘festival’ and ‘pop up’ tents available and while these can be quite tempting they are not suitable for a D of E expedition, they will generally not pack down very well and will not withstand the rain in the same way as a better tent.