Gossamer Gear The One

“You're simply not thinking with the UL mindset. Ultralighters are trying to get their base weights as low as possible, so that life on-trail is comfortable, efficient, and as enjoyable as possible. Comfort and convenience at camp be damned! I think you're thinking in a mode that all of us do when we first leave our homes to start backpacking; we want our shelters to be comfortable, spacious, robust, and enclosed structures, that we can enter to escape the environment. In other words, we imagine that our tent is a little "house" that we carry around, and we try to emulate the experience of our own bedroom as much as possible, with big inflatable pads, plushy pillows, and probably a very heavy tent. Some people will backpack for a lifetime in this mode happily, and never feel the need to change. That's all well and good. But UL involves radically changing this mindset. You stop trying to emulate your bedroom, but rather try to identify the least amount you can carry to get good sufficient sleep. You stop conceiving of your shelter as a structure that you can enter to escape the environment, but rather accept that you're *in* the environment until you return home at the end of a trip. It's that kind of mindset that can allow you to comfortably and happily sleep on torso-length foam, cowboy camp, and sleep under simple tarps or floorless tents. Once you do that, you find that so much of what you thought you needed was, in fact, unnecessary. How all of this applies to your question: give the ultralight thing an honest go. Don't let your uncertainty and hesitations get you stuck on an in between solution. 2 lbs is *a lot*, and it's so worth it. You can always go back to a more substantial shelter if you determine that that's what you need. But give it an honest go. I don't think you'll miss all of these things that you fear you might. As for specific recommendations, the XMid 1 has two doors and two vestibules, and is double-wall. That all puts it on the very edge of what would be considered UL. I would encourage you to consider the Gossamer Gear The One, the TarpTent Preamble, or a Borah Gear tarp+bivy system”