The North Face Trail Lite 2 Review

The North Face Trail Lite 2 is a comfortable, spacious and easy-to-pitch 2-person shelter that performs well in a range of conditions.

The North Face Trail Lite 2

Light, easy to carry and an absolute doddle to erect, The North Face Trail Lite 2 is a spacious 2-person shelter than comes with some excellent features, including smart storage options and two roomy vestibules — and it performs much better than you’d expect in various types of bad weather.

The North Face Trail Lite 2

The Trail Lite 2 is a cavernous 2-person dome tent designed by one of the biggest brands in the business, The North Face. A thoughtfully designed shelter, it packs down small, weighs only 2 kg, and is a doddle to throw up, even in windy conditions. Unlike most 2-person shelters that are only suitable for one person and kit, however, The North Face Trail Lite 2 is a true 2-person palace. It offers oodles of space — more than enough for two people and gear — and it comes with lots of smart storage pockets built in to the inner that help you keep the inside nice and tidy.

Out of the box, The North Face Trail Lite 2 comes with 10 pegs, 2 crossing poles and a singular additional pole that’s mounted just off-centre to maximise space. A great feature, this extra pole stretches the ceiling of the inner, allowing for increased head space inside the tent. What’s more, The North Face has fitted a wide mesh pocket to this part of the ceiling, maximising the utility of this extra space, turning into more than just welcome head room. It serves a handy grab pocket for any bits and bobs you might need during the night or — as is our favourite way to use the pocket — for making a head torch work like a lantern.

Now, weighing in at a touch over 2 kg (2.01 kg), the Trail Lite 2 isn’t necessarily lightweight for what it is. In fact, if you compare it with other similar two-person backpacking tents out there, such as the Hubba Hubba NX 2 or the Forclaz MT900 Trekking Dome Tent from Decathlon, the Trail Lite 2 loses out every time. Where it loses points for its weight, it makes them back in practicality, however: It’s a cinch to erect, goes up in under 5 minutes, offers more space than any comparable 2-person dome tent out there, comes with two roomy vestibules, and performs excellently in both the rain and the wind. So, if you’re looking for the most comfortable 2-person tent out there, we think the Trail Lite 2 is an excellent choice, despite the weight. After all, as 2 people can actually comfortably sleep in the Trail Lite 2, you can just share the load with your bedmate to get your pack weight back into the realm of ultralight.

The North Face Trail Lite 2 costs £315 when purchased directly from The North Face. That definitely puts it at the top end price-wise for a 2-person dome-style backpacking tent. And while there are numerous options out there that cost less and will do a comparable job (such as the Natuehike Cloud Peak 2), we think you get a solid all-rounder for your money in The North Face Trail Lite 2. That being said, at over £300, we do think the Trail Lite 2 is a tad overpriced for what it is, but it would be a good buy if you’re able to pick it up on sale at 10 or 20% off.

Our experience using The North Face Trail Lite 2

To test this tent, we used it on a handful of summer trips out on Dartmoor National Park. The first time we used it, the weather was very hot, dry and still. On the two subsequent occasions it was substantially cooler, rainy and reasonably windy. And on our final test, we were delighted to have some truly miserable weather: We faced strong winds and sustained rain, all while the temperature hovered between a cool 8 - 14 degrees Celsius. We performed each test solo, erecting and packing away the Trail Lite 2 entirely on our own, and despite the less than ideal British summer conditions we forced it to contend with, we always found the tent to be nothing less than user-friendly and comfortable.

The pack size of the Trail Lite 2 is the first thing of note. For a 2-person tent as versatile as this, it packs down small. Now, it’s not market-leading in its pack size, being easily beaten by the likes of the Big Agnes Fly Creek 2 or the Nemo Hornet 2P. But it’s by no means large either. And the same concept applies to its weight: coming in at a gram over 2 kg, there are many lighter tents on the market, especially at this £300-plus price point. So, if weight and pack size are the two most important factors to you, The North Face Trail Lite 2 probably isn’t for you.

When it comes to comfort, however, we think The North Face nailed it. Space-wise, this is one of the most cavernous 2-person backpacking shelters out there, and the various storage pockets inside let you pack everything away nicely, which — for us — has a huge impact on sleep quality. A clean space equals a clean mind, after all. Additionally, the way it performs in the wind and driving rain is also impressive for a packable backpacking tent, easily beating any of the lighter competitors out there, and smashing the likes of the Big Agnes Fly Creek and the Nemo Hornet 2P out of the water.

Therefore, while this tent might not excel in any one particular area, we think that it’s one of the best all-rounders on the market right now. This makes it a solid choice for people who will use it in a vast range of conditions — and makes it a good go-to when you weigh up the all-important factors of weight, pack size, comfort, performance and price.

Pitching The North Face Trail Lite 2 is decidedly simple. They’ve not necessarily reinvented the wheel here, with a standard dome-style crossing pole system comprising poles that you slot into the tent’s four corners. But somehow, the quality of the materials and the ease of the poles means the tent goes up in minutes, even in windy conditions.

That being said, The North Face Trail Lite 2 is still an inner-pitch tent. That means that you’re still going to run the gauntlet when you put this thing up in the rain — even though it’s super simple to erect. A problem with all inner-pitch first tents, it’s practically impossible to keep the inner dry if you pitch these types of tent in the rain, which is why we tend to always opt for a shelter that comes with the inner and outer attached, such as the Nortent Vern 2, the Robens Starlight 2 or the Robens Chaser 2. Rain is always a threat in the UK, after all. But for a few nights of 3-season camping, you can usually mitigate this problem by checking weather forecasts and consciously putting it up before any heavy rains or storms come in. 0

When it comes to drawbacks, we only really had one gripe with the Trail Lite 2: The number of pegs the tent comes with as standard. Really, to peg out every point on this tent, including all the guy lines, you need 14 pegs. But The North Face Trail Lite 2 only comes with 10. This is a little annoying, especially if you realise this after hiking 16 miles from the car and the weather starts to turn. The 10 that the tent is supplied with allow you to get a good pitch, but you can’t peg out any of the guy lines, making its out-of-the-box configuration unsuitable in bad weather. Obviously, it’s always a good idea to test-pitch tents before you hike 16 miles from your car, but at this price point, we’d expect an ample number of pegs to come with it as standard.

The North Face Trail Lite 2 FAQs

The North Face Trail Lite 2 performs very well in poorer 3-season UK weather. Despite its broad walls and dome-style design, it does a great job at repelling high winds and heavy rain.
The North Face Trail Lite 2 is very easy to pitch. One of our favourite things about this tent, it goes up in minutes thanks to the high-quality manufacturing, and you can pull the fasteners on each corner to get the fly remarkably tight.
The North Face Trail Lite 2 is one of the roomiest lightweight 2-person backpacking tents we’ve ever tested. A true 2-person shelter, there’s plenty of space for two bodies and gear. And the numerous pockets built into the inner allow you to keep everything nice and tidy inside.
Despite being one of the pricier options for a 2-person lightweight backpacking tent, The North Face Trail Lite 2 is so well put together and thought out that we consider the value for money to be OK. Now, that’s not to say this shelter is a bargain: It’s definitely pricey for what is it, especially when there are so many cheaper alternatives on the market. Therefore, we’d consider it a fair price for people who are going to use it very regularly. If you’re the type of camper who is only going to be out in it for a few nights a year, it might be worth sacrificing some of the weight or size and going with a cheaper option, like the Naturehike Cloud Peak 2 (which is quite a bit heavier), or the 2-Man Forclaz MT900 Minimal Edition from Decathlon (which is quite a bit smaller).

Conclusion

The North Face Trail Lite 2 is a super comfortable shelter from a big name brand. Performing excellently in a range of conditions — especially for a lightweight 2-person backpacking shelter — we’d confidently take this thing out on a huge variety of trips, ranging from spring wild camping trips in the Lake District through to wet and windy weekend backpacking trips in the autumn. Being a true 3-season tent, we wouldn’t use it in British winter conditions, but those are not what it was built for.

All things considered, we think The North Face Trail Lite 2 is one of the most comfortable backpacking tents for couples on the market right now. It’s more versatile than most equivalent shelters in this category, and it offers a ton of great features that we loved using.

What other people say

The North Face Trail Lite 2-Person Tent is an impressive lightweight backpacking tent. It's plenty roomy for two people, easy to assemble and dismantle, weatherproof and also quick to dry. If you like the outdoors and prefer to travel light, buying this tent isn't an expense – it's an investment. And a good one at that.