Zpacks Pivot Solo Lite Review: The Most Livable Ultralight Shelter Yet?

For the past few years, innovation in the ultralight tent market has felt a little stagnant. Material improvements slowed, and the designs themselves started to feel typical.

Recently, though, the competition seems to have reignited — not with new materials, but with more innovative designs. The goal now is to maximize space and comfort while rivaling the ultralight weight of tarps and floorless shelters (without their compromises or steep learning curve).

As someone who has put several thousand miles on various Zpacks shelters, I was eager to see if the Pivot Solo Lite could provide enough space and comfort to tempt me into downsizing from their palatial Duplex. Perhaps more intriguingly, I wanted to find out how this tent would stack up to the Durston X-Mid Pro — another geometry-forward design that has taken the thru-hiking world by storm.

Let’s find out!

Zpacks Pivot Solo Lite At-a-Glance

MSRP: $649.00 USD
Weight: 13.5 oz (383 g), stakes not included
Floor Dimensions: 84″ (214 cm) length, width tapers from 28″ (71 cm) to 42″ (107 cm) at the widest point
Peak Height: 52″ (132 cm) at the front, 32″ (81 cm) at the rear
Other Features: Fully enclosed insect netting, peak vent, zippered and magnet-toggle storm doors, bathtub floor

Who Is This Tent For?

This tent is for ultralight hikers looking to shave down to the lowest possible shelter weight without making the full transition to a tarp or floorless tent. The Pivot Solo Lite is fully featured with a bathtub floor, mesh bug netting, and even a zippered storm door with magnetic toggles. Despite that, it still sits firmly at the lighter end of the weight spectrum.

For hikers who are willing to invest in ultralight gear but still want the comfort of a traditional tent, this is exactly what you’re looking for.

Testing Conditions

I used this tent in a mix of environments: dry December desert nights in Southern California, a paddleboarding trip to an island in Baja where I had to fit everything into a 10L dry bag, several nights of beach camping, and a setup test in an opportune wind and light rainstorm to see how it handled rough weather.

I tested the tent in generally warm conditions with light seaside humidity, sleeping in a 45-degree bag with a regular-length sleeping pad at lows around 50°F. I set it up with Zpacks-brand trekking poles and (almost all) Zpacks-brand tent stakes.

Features & Performance

Spacious Interior: The unique dual-pivoted trekking pole design maximizes head and foot room, with two different peak heights making the tent feel significantly roomier lengthwise than many other ultralight 1-person options. The layout easily accommodates a wide, long sleeping pad while still leaving space for gear.

Setup & Adjustability: The tent pitches with two trekking poles set at 52″ and 32″, respectively, and six to eight stakes. I attempted my first setup without consulting instructions and was able to do so with minimal trial and error.

Fine-tuning the perfect pitch takes a few adjustments. The LineLoc V adjusters make tensioning straightforward, but you need patience to get it just right at first.

Storm Doors & Entry: The storm and mesh doors both use magnetic toggles that let you roll the material out of the way, which is a great upgrade from Zpacks’ old looped plastic toggles. This design makes it easy to secure the doors, even in the dark or while wearing gloves. The mesh door features an L-shaped zipper, allowing for easy one-hand opening without requiring any awkward contortions or yoga poses to fully unzip.

Ventilation & Condensation Control: A peak vent and perimeter screen improve airflow and help manage condensation. The bathtub floor is designed to keep out splash-up during rain, with an adjustable system that allows you to raise it for splash protection or lower it to improve airflow.

Structural Reinforcement: A small standout feature is the reinforced fabric extension from the bathtub floor, designed to anchor the tip of a trekking pole. This extra bit of structure enhances stability and prevents the bathtub floor from billowing up in windy conditions.

Durability & Weather Resistance: Made from Dyneema Composite Fabric (DCF), the tent is inherently waterproof, stretch-free, and resistant to high wind forces. No additional seam sealing is needed, and it includes repair tape and spare zipper sliders for field repairs. No separate ground tarp is required with the durable DCF bathtub floor. 

Zpacks Pivot Solo Lite Pros

Functional length: This tent is deceptively roomy for its weight class. I’m six feet tall. In most UL one-person (and even some two-person) tents, I can usually expect sloping wall either in my face or soaking the foot of my sleeping bag with condensation. But in the Pivot Solo Lite, I found I had plenty of space at both ends.

Either end can be the head end: One of my absolute favorite things about this tent is how versatile the sleeping orientation is. You can sleep comfortably in either direction depending on the ground slope and preference.

Despite Zpacks officially labeling the sides as front and rear, I found that sleeping under the “rear” lower peak offered the most headroom and minimized sloping walls. The lower trekking pole kept the canopy nearly a foot above my face, creating a surprisingly open feeling without drape, while the higher peak at the opposite end provided a steep enough wall to prevent my sleeping bag from pressing against the fabric with room to spare.

Enough space for your pack: For such a lightweight design, it still feels as livable as a freestanding tent—there’s enough space to keep your pack inside (either next to you or at your feet) or even to do minor gear explosions inside.

Also: The tent holds up well in windy conditions and packs down ridiculously small, making it an ideal shelter for all ultralight adventures.

Zpacks Pivot Solo Lite Cons

Fiddly setup: There’s truly not much to complain about with this tent, but as with any trekking pole tent, fine-tuning the pitch takes practice. The shape is a little unconventional (and I still don’t fully understand some of the seams on the main walls), so at first you may not find the setup as intuitive as your typical A-Frame shelter. If you’re as picky as I am about how your tent looks when pitched, expect to spend a little extra time getting everything just right.

Mid-panel tie-out placement: It also seemed to me that the mid-panel tie-outs, usually meant to prevent sagging and improve tent stability in wind and bad weather, were placed a bit too high, causing an awkward downward fold in the tent wall, even when the guy lines were extended fully. Fortunately, these didn’t seem all that important for set up in reasonably calm weather and could be skipped entirely until needed.

Less structured bathtub: I also found that the bathtub floor at the door sagged a bit. This admittedly made sliding out of the tent without snagging pretty easy, but it also meant dirt and dust could sneak in easily when the door was left open.

Unlike other Zpacks tents I’ve used, the bathtub floor here doesn’t have the same structured, cube-like shape. Instead, it feels a bit more open, relying on adjustable tension rather than rigid shaping, so its long side along the back wall slopes up more than stands on its own, meaning you do start to limit your floor space when you adjust for a higher floor to protect from splash during rainstorms.

Zpacks Pivot Solo Lite vs. the Competition

So, is this Zpacks’ official response to the Durston X-Mid Pro 1‘s popularity? Both tents weigh less than a pound, and the X-Mid series also features a unique offset trekking pole structure that has earned it a strong thru-hiker following for the spacious interior and excellent storm resistance it provides.

One advantage the Pivot Solo has over the Durston X-Mid Pro 1, for those who might be comparing the two, is that the Pivot Solo’s smaller footprint means it fits in smaller campsites compared with the larger X-Mid.

Compared to Zpacks’ other one-person tents, the Pivot Solo Lite isn’t the absolute lightest — that award goes to the Plex Solo Lite at 11.8 oz (334 g) and the Altaplex Lite at 13.2 oz (374 g), both of which are variations of the same single trekking pole design, with the Altaplex Lite offering more interior space for taller hikers. But for just 0.3 to 1.7 ounces (and +$50) more, the Pivot Solo Lite provides noticeably more head and foot room.

Zpacks tents have been a thru-hiker staple for years, proving themselves over thousands of miles in all kinds of weather and terrain. The Pivot Solo Lite makes a well-executed entry to the market with an innovative shape that prioritizes livability without compromising on weight. 

Final Thoughts

Would I take the Pivot Solo Lite on a thru-hike? Absolutely. In fact, I intend to. It’s compact, fully featured, and surprisingly livable for a one-person ultralight shelter. 

At $649, the Pivot Solo Lite isn’t cheap, but for an ultralight tent made of high-end DCF, it’s a solid investment for serious backpackers and thru-hikers. It is absolutely worth it if you’re looking for one of the lightest possible shelters that still provides real livability.

Not only has it convinced me to downsize from the Zpacks Duplex for solo hikes, but I also rank it highest on the list of one-person tents I’ve used, especially for taller hikers or anyone who has faced issues with tent designs draping into their head and foot space.

Shop the Zpacks Pivot Solo Lite

Alternative Options

If you’re considering the Pivot Solo Lite, here are a few other options to check out:

Gossamer Gear The One

Weight: 17.7 oz / 503 g
MSRP: $255.00

Tarptent Aeon Li 

Weight: 19.15 oz / 543 g 
MSRP: $569.00

Durston X-Mid Pro 1P 

Weight: 15.5 oz / 440 g
MSRP: $549.00

Hyperlite Mountain Gear Mid 1

Weight: 16.8 oz / 476 g
MSRP: $599.00

Zpacks Plex Solo Lite

Weight: 11.8 oz / 334.0 g
MSRP: $599.00 

Zpacks Altaplex Lite

Weight: 13.2 oz / 374 g
MSRP: $669.00

The Zpacks Pivot Solo Lite was donated for purpose of review