ALPS Helix Tent Review

Intended Use 

The Alps Helix 1P is designed to be the go-to backcountry tent for solo adventurers. The weight is competitive at 3 lbs 3 oz. and similar to other brands’ 1-person lightweight tents, while the interior offers decent storage with four pockets and good living space. Therefore, this tent isn’t a minimalist mummy tent that cuts significant space and features to lower the weight as much as humanely possible. Instead, this tent aims to maintain a comfortable living space and headroom with some basic amenities (such as a covered vestibule) while still trying to keep the overall weight low enough for high-mileage hiking so you can move light and fast.

ALPS MOUNTAINEERING Background 

ALPS Mountaineering established itself in 1993 as a purveyor of high-quality hiking and mountaineering gear. The brand collaborated with icons in that particular industry, including Sir Edmund Hillary, to develop innovative solutions to the classic problems faced in the backcountry centering around weight, durability, and weatherproofing. ALPS Mountaineering founder, Dennis Brune, also gained experience at Kelty – another well-respected outdoors brand – before moving on to his own aspirations of developing cutting-edge gear.

The Review

So, we’ve covered the basic details of the ALPS Helix 1P tent, some background information on ALPS Mountaineering, and the key features that set this particular tent apart in a very competitive field. That means it’s now time to dive into the full review. I’ll cover important tent characteristics below (durability, weight, and so on) and give each characteristic a score from 1 to 5. The key for these scores is below, and I’ll go into detail regarding why I assigned each particular score. Let’s get started!

Rating Key:

1/5 = Poor
2/5 = Tolerable
3/5 = Fair
4/5 = Good
5/5 = Excellent

Setup – 2/5

For me, the setup for the Helix is its Achilles heel. Honestly, I HATED setting this tent up. It has a 3-pole system comprised of 1 whole pole and 2 half poles. When fully set up, all the poles work with and against each other to keep the tent up, but actually getting all the poles correctly inserted is a pain. You insert the long pole first, then attach the first half pole, which makes the tent twist on itself (center picture below), and then you have to drop it all onto the ground to get the other half pole inserted. This, in turn, makes the mesh of the tent hit the dirt/mud/sand. Once the second half pole is inserted, the whole tent stands on its own. Overall, I MUCH prefer tents that have 2 whole poles – especially when those poles are connected all together so you can hook everything up, and the mesh never hits the ground.

Also, the color coding of the tents leaves much to be desired. Red is not a good color for the color blind. The silver tip on the one whole pole is not easily seen (especially in low light or while using a red headlamp). Also, finding the two small hooks that belong to those aforementioned 2 half poles is not easy because they are also red in a sea of red (I would suggest using a totally different color on those so that they are easily distinguished from the other hooks).

Lastly, The hooks that hold onto 2 poles at once (two of these hooks) need to be upgraded so they actually hold onto those 2 poles well since one pole kept falling out, which further disrupts the setup. This issue is pictured below in the lefthand picture.

Therefore, I had to assign a low score in this department since the setup doesn’t seem intuitive or straightforward.

Inside Living Space – 4/5

Overall, the Helix has a great interior. The headroom is impressive – I’m 5’10”, and could sit up with sufficient extra space to move around and change. Additionally, four interior storage pockets are a rare luxury in a lightweight tent, and I very much enjoyed the extra room to stash my gear.

Lastly, the rectangular shape is a simple but effective tool to make the inside extremely comfortable. Most ultralight tents opt for a tapered floor plan and narrow towards the foot of the tent. This tapering approach limits the overall living space, room to store gear, and space to move around. So, by maintaining a rectangular shape with no tapering, the Helix offers just a little bit more space than the competition, and I definitely noticed.

The subtracted point in this category is due to the tent length and vestibule size. In my opinion, the overall tent length was significantly short. My 5’10” self could sleep comfortably, but my feet grazed the mesh at the bottom of the tent, and there are definitely taller people in the world who would find this very constricting. Additionally, I found the vestibule area to be awkwardly shaped and small, barely … barely! … enough to protect my pack from the elements, and certainly not any additional gear I’d like to have out and accessible.

In conclusion, this is not a critique but an observation; I liked the hook at the apex but would like to see 3 or 4 more fabric loops at other points in the ceiling so I could rig up a small piece of cord to hang wet items inside the tent.

Overall Quality – 4/5 

Zooming out to examine the tent materials and construction as a whole, my testing yielded all good results. The 20D ripstop nylon used for the floor and fly handled the rough and rocky terrain very well yet didn’t weigh me down, and the mesh canopy held up well during testing.

As I mentioned earlier, the zipper mechanism seems robust and easy to use. But I’m still very wary of the door design and setup process as both can cause the mesh canopy to come into contact with the ground, which has the potential to cause premature wear and tear, along with being an added hassle (especially if you’re trying to set up quickly in the rain on damp ground).

Bringing It Together

We’ve talked about many aspects of the Helix 1P Tent from ALPS Mountaineering. So, let’s take a moment to compile and review all the characteristics and performance aspects that we’ve discussed up to this point. Below, I’ve summed up all the pros and cons of this tent for us to look over.

Pros: 

• Low weight
• Extremely packable
• Great quality
• Reasonably spacious interior with good stash pockets
• Good price

Cons: 

• Ponderous and non-intuitive setup process
• Door design allows the door flap to fall to the ground (possible mechanism for damage)

Final Thoughts

In short, I found the ALPS Mountaineering Helix 1P Tent to be sturdy, spacious, and lightweight, but it still needs a little fine-tuning to truly become a backcountry powerhouse.

Specifically, the materials proved to be durable and high quality, while the interior living space seemed extra spacious with good stash pockets while still managing to stay competitively lightweight. The whole tent also packs down super small for minimal bulk in my backpack and easy transportation. The price is also excellent and very competitive, making the Helix an accessible and reliable option for backpackers.

However, I found that the overall setup process needs some refining before it becomes effective. The three-pole design (1 full pole and 2 half poles) definitely helps trim weight and bulk, but the resulting setup process results in some higgledy-piggledy as the tent twists one way and then another as the poles are inserted, resulting in the mesh canopy inevitably falling into the dirt, which is an obvious method for damage. The door zipper is also in need of the same refining since the door simply collapses into the dirt (or inside the tent, if you’re careful) when unzipped.

So great bones, a good floorplan, and a competitive price all wrapped in a lightweight envelope, but it just needs some refining around the edges for setup, and then the Helix 1P will truly be an outstanding tent.