Kristina M.
In this video, we’re going to compare two popular tents, the Nemo Aurora Highrise and the North Face Wawona.
Comparison Criteria
We compare features like internal space, trail weight, fabric, vestibule area, poles, ventilation, and price, starting with internal space.
Tent Features Comparison
Design
- Both freestanding and double wall tents.
- Freestanding means that the tents are fully supported and don’t need to be staked out. They’re fully supported by their pole system, and these tents are much more durable in terms of their structural design.
- Double wall tent means that there’s two layers of fabric between the interior and the exterior, which helps with insulation and weather protection and ventilation.
Dimensions
- Nemo Aurora High Rise is about 6. 2 feet tall. The floor dimensions are 8. 3 by 7. 5 feet. It’s a nice spacious tent with vertical sidewalls, which contributes to the overall headroom in the tent. What’s really nice about that is most people will be able to stand fully upright in a tent.
- North Face Wawona is 5. 8 feet tall, with floor dimensions of 8 feet by 7. 5 feet. It has about 0. 4 less 0. 4 inches less headroom and 0. 3 inches less floor space than the Nemo Aurora.
Weight
- Nemo Aurora Highrise is 13 pounds 12 ounces.
- The North Face Volona is 12 pounds.
- North Face Wawona is about 1 lb 12 oz lighter than the Nemo Aurora High Rise.
- These are heavier tents than you would want for backpacking, but these are good car camping tents.
- Both these tents come with their duffel bag style stuff sacks.
Tent Fabric
- Nemo Aurora Highrise has a polyester canopy rainfly and 150 dernier polyester tent floor. The fabric is made without toxic flame retardant chemicals. The fabric is not waterproof rated.
- North Face Wawona has 75 Dernier polyester canopy and rainfly, 150 Dernier polyester tent floor and is rated as 1200 mm waterproof. This is the amount of water that can collect on top of the tent fabric before the water starts to seep in.
Doors and vestibules
- Nemo Aurora has two doors and two vestibules, and a vestibule area of 39 square feet. Vestibules are really handy for storing gear that you don’t want to bring out, bring inside of the tent, but you also don’t want them just sitting outside, like your hiking gear or boots.
- The North Face Wawona has two doors and one vestibule, so it has one less vestibule than the Nemo Aurora and a bit overall smaller vestibule area of 29. 6 square feet.
Poles
- Nemo Aurora has four aluminum poles with a diameter of about 13 millimeters, and
- The North Face Wawona has three DAC MX poles, and it’s not clear what the diameter of these poles are.
- DAC are superior to aluminum because they’re stronger, but they’re also more lightweight. So they’re easier to carry.
Ventilation
- Nemo Aurora has a large rain protected windows on all four sides of the tent, which is great. You can keep those open and you can keep those open even with the rain fly on. And also the steep side walls make it make the airflow even better inside of the tent. However, there are no vents on this tent, which is one of the downsides.
- North Face Wawona has large top vents in the tent rainfly. Even with the rainfly on, you can keep these strutted vents open. In addition, it also has a mesh body and it has large mesh doors and windows. So this tent definitely has the superior ventilation because of this rainfly. You can keep the tent, the airflow circulating nicely, even with the rainfly on.
Price
The Nemo is $400, and the Wawona is also $400. They’re equal in terms of price.
How do these two tents compare?
So the NEMO, the pros are you get more floor space, you get more headroom, and you get two vestibules. And the cons are you have smaller vestibules, it’s a heavier tent, it’s less weather resistant, and the poles are a bit weaker. But this is definitely a solid choice if you’re looking for more internal space and more storage space in the vestibules.
The North Face, on the other hand, is more weather resistant, you can have more durable fabric, has better ventilation, and has stronger, superior poles. The cons are it’s a bit less internal space. And you only have one vestibule. So, if you need a tent that is more weather resistant, and overall more durable, maybe you’re going to be in some bad weather, I think you’d want to go with the North Face Wawona.
