Ordinarily when you're pitching a tent, you have to look for a flat, smooth, dry area in which to do so. That isn't the case with the Treeline System, however, which lets you suspend a tent above the ground via a set of slack lines.
A variation on the tree-suspended tents we've seen before, the system was invented by Park City, Utah-based brothers Sean, Brady and Joel Robertson. It incorporates several components: the single-person tent, a base, four slack lines, a custom sleeping bag and sleeping pad, plus a padded backpack that everything packs into.
First of all, the tent can simply be staked to the ground and used on its own. Among its features are large zippered doors on either side for easy access, a roof vent, a hubbed pole frame and an all-weather rain fly. It has a peak interior height of 42 inches (1,077 mm), and its floor measures 88 by 36 in (2,235 by 914 mm).
The 3-inch-thick (76-mm) self-inflating sleeping pad and the sleeping bag are both custom-designed to fit the floor of the tent, plus they can be fastened to it, thus holding everything in place.
Should you wish to set up over sloping, rocky, rooty, wet or otherwise unsavoury ground … you start by zippering the tent onto its webbing-reinforced base, attaching the slack lines to each corner of that base, then ratcheting those lines around the trunks of four nearby trees (which do not have to be evenly spaced apart).
Each line is 30 ft long (9 m) and can support up to 300 lb (136 kg). The combined weight of the tent, rain fly and base is a claimed 7 lb, 13 oz (3.5 kg), so that leaves quite a bit of wiggle room.
The Treeline System is being manufactured by the Robertson brothers' company SLOUSI, which is an acronym for "sleep outside." It's also the subject of a Kickstarter campaign, where a pledge of US$299 will get you a basic tent/base/lines package – assuming it reaches production, that is.
You can see the system in use, in the video below.
Source: Kickstarter
