Zpacks Pivot Solo 1P Tent Review | Tested and Rated

The Zpacks Pivot Solo 1P is a single person, ultralight backpacking tent made with Dyneema DCF that weighs 13.5 oz. It has a very spacious interior compared to Zpack’s other pyramid-style single person tents, with plenty of room above your head because its peak is at the end and not in the middle of the tent. It requires two trekking poles to set up and is surprisingly wind resistant when staked out.

• Weight: 13.5 oz / 383g
• Capacity: 1 person
• Type: Single Wall
• Structure: Requires two trekking poles to pitch
• Seam-taped: Yes
• Dimensions: Floor width: Left end 29″ (74 cm) / Right end 28″ (71 cm) /  42″ (107 cm) at deepest/ Length 84″
• Packed dimensions: Rolled Tight: about 4″ diameter by 11″ tall (10 cm x 28 cm),  138 cubic inches (2.3L).
• Materials: 0.55 oz/sqyd DCF canopy, 0.75 oz/sqyd DCF floor, and 1.3mm guy lines.
• Minimum number of stakes to pitch: 6. Recommended 8
• Pros: Spacious – easily fits large sleeping pad, good wind and weather resistance
• Cons: Can’t roll back/open both vestibule doors

The Zpacks Pivot is a single wall Dyneema DCF tent that’s seam taped and comes preconfigured with guy lines and loc line adjusters. It has a single high peak at one end with an extended sleeping area that stretches into the other as shown below.

The Pivot requires two trekking poles to pitch: one with 52″ of height and the other with 32″. Note: I had to try three sets of poles until I found a pair that could be set to the 32″ height. The top 2 sections of a Durston Iceline pole, fully extended, work. Both poles should be positioned hand-grips up.

The Zpacks Pivot has a floating bathtub floor connected to the side walls with mesh netting that provides cross ventilation.  The exterior fly overhangs the floor slightly, so that internal condensation, which single wall tents are prone to, rolls down the ceiling and drips on the mesh where it can drain to the ground.

The dimensions of the bathtub floor are hard to describe, so I’ve lifted Zpacks floor schematic (below) to explain them. If you’re familiar with Zpack’s Offset Duo and Offset Trio tents, the Pivot 1P is a one person adaption, that provides much more space above the feet than Zpack’s “Plex series” tents.

The innermost rectangle depicts an extra wide, extra long sleeping pad sleeping pad like a Therm-a-rest XLite NXT Max. The line that encloses it depicts the extent of the bathtub floor and the line enclosing it depicts the extent of the Dyneema fly. The blue dots depict the position of the poles, with the high peak pole at the bottom and the short pole in the upper left.

The result is a large sleeping area with a side entrance that provides good views, ventilation, and access. This is particularly noticeable at the lower end of the tent which has much more space over your feet than the Zpack’s tents that have a pole in the middle. The interior room above the higher peak is also excellent with plenty of room to sit up and change your clothes.

The walls of the bathtub floor are 6″ deep all around protecting you from the incursion of running water if you pick a less-than-optimal tent site. The bathtub floor walls can be further tensioned higher with line locs attached to the inside of the exterior fly.

As for storing fragile items in the tent, there is a small pocket adjacent to the L-shaped door zipper in the front mesh. However, I don’t trust it to hold my glasses since it’s not very deep and it is oriented vertically, so stuff falls out easily. I prefer to hang my glasses from the mesh door’s zipper pulls, since I’ll always reach for them first when I exit the tent and because I can position them way up and out of danger. Zpacks tents aren’t known for their internal storage pockets and the Pivot 1P is true to form in that respect.

When pitching the tent, you have to keep the narrower of the vestibule doors closed because there’s no way to stake out the top of the peak by itself. Zpacks has attached the cord supporting the peak to its vent, and the base of the door, so you only need one cord and stake to secure both. But there’s no place to secure a line at the top of the peak. This is a missed opportunity – if there were a loop at the top of the peak, you’d be able to stake it out and roll back the other vestibule door, open the entire side to ventilation and views.

In addition to its corner and peak guy lines, the Pivot has 2 panel tie-outs, both with line locs, that I recommend using when you pitch the tent. These help increase the space inside the tent and secures its large panels in windy conditions. I’ve had good luck with the Pivot in moderate 25 mph wind: the tent is solid and remains well anchored even when pitched at in the open (despite its somewhat odd shape).

Recommendation

The Zpacks Pivot is a one-person single-wall Dyneema DCF tent that weighs 13.5 ounces. It requires two trekking poles to set up, with one high peak and one low. The Pivot is quite spacious inside with plenty of room to use a large or wide inflatable sleeping pad or store your gear inside tent with you at night. The high peak creates a vestibule and one of the side doors can be rolled open and secured with a magnetic toggle for increase ventilation. The tent is surprisingly wind worthy although I’d recommend staking out all of its guyout points including its side panels. If you’ve been thinking about purchasing one of Zpack’s plex tents like the Plex Solo or the Altiplex, I’d recommend buying the Pivot 1P instead. It has much better interior comfort and space.

Disclosure: Zpacks donated a tent for review.