The Nortent Vern 1 PC Review
In a world of ultralight and ultra-flimsy packable backpacking tents, the Nortent Vern 1 PC stands out as a unique and powerful shelter that makes easy work out of the worst conditions the UK could ever throw at it.
The Nortent Vern 1 PC
The Nortent Vern 1 PC is a fortress of a 1-person shelter, being made from a much more durable polycotton flysheet that makes easy work of the worst of the weather. Quiet, comfortable and a cinch to pitch, the tent makes old technology feel like the latest innovation — if you’re happy to carry the extra weight.
The Good
Unbeatable wind performance
Incredibly easy to pitch
Small footprint
Gorgeous design
The quietest tent we’ve ever tested
The Bad
Comparably heavy for a 1-person backpacking tent
The Nortent Vern 1 PC Review
Nortent’s Vern 1 is one of our highest-rated tents of 2023. Lightweight, super strong, easy to pitch and beautiful to look at, it delivers on so many markers of what makes a good tent that we’re still excited about it almost a year after first testing it here at the GBAC. But is there a way to make it better? The Vern 1 PC builds on the tried and tested design of the original Vern 1 by adding an extra crossing pole and a brand-new fly: A polycotton canvas that, when pitched, makes for the tightest and most durable tent fly we’ve ever seen. The trade-off, of course, comes in the form of weight and pack size, both of which are substantially bigger on the polycotton variant. But, considering that this thing performs like a brick house — giving you a cosy and (perhaps more importantly) quiet place to sleep while the weather rages around your tent outside — is the trade-off worth it?
The Nortent Vern 1 PC is a single-skin backpacking tent where the flysheet is made out of polycotton. And while this material has long been used in tents dating back decades, the fact that Nortent has been bold enough to add it to a backpacking tent — something the industry tells us needs to be super light and super packable — makes it one of the most innovative moves we’ve seen in recent years. Granted, it increases both the pack size and the weight when compared to the original Vern 1, but the result is a shelter that’s the closest thing we’ve ever seen to a portable brick house.
As mentioned, however, this additional strength and space does come at a cost: The Vern 1 PC is about twice as heavy and has a pack size about twice as large as the original Vern 1, coming in at 3.5 kg. Offering substantially better performance in truly horrendous weather, however, it could be argued that the Vern 1 PC is here for those trips when weight isn’t the most important factor. In that sense, we see the Vern 1 PC as more of a cousin of the original Vern 1, rather than a polycotton competitor of the same tent.
This brings us to cost: The Vern 1 PC comes in at almost exactly the same price as the original Vern 1, costing £489.99 when bought directly from Valley and Peak. Naturally, then, that puts it at the top end of the market for backpacking tents, so what’s the big deal and why all the hype?
A note on price
At the time of writing, the Nortent Vern 1 PC could be bought for $375 (£295) directly through Nortent.com. Shipping will set you back another $48 (£40) and you can expect to pay VAT on import, which will set you back about another £59. This brings the total cost up to £412, which is slightly cheaper than the price you’ll pay at Valley and Peak. Therefore, though this will certainly fluctuate, it is worth checking if you can get a better deal when purchased directly through Nortent.
Our experience using the Nortent Vern 1 PC
To test this tent, we took it out on a ton of adventures in autumn and winter conditions up and down the UK. We had it out on around half a dozen one-nighters up on Dartmoor National Park where we got to put it up against howling wind, driving rain and a deluge of snow, and we used it on a multi-day circular hike of Llyn y Fan Fach and Llyn y Fan Fawr in the western fringes of Bannau Brycheiniog National Park. This allowed us to properly experience what it feels like to carry the supposedly ‘heavy and bulky’ Vern 1 PC over 3 days in sub-zero conditions over high mountains and across steep valleys. So how did it perform?
As we are so familiar with the Vern 1, every time we used its polycotton cousin, we kept harking back to our experiences with the silnylon OG. And as that tent is such an impressive shelter — one that performs way better than it should considering its pack size and weight — it’s fair to say that the benchmark was high. Which is why, when the Vern 1 PC originally turned up at the GBAC offices back in September, we were a little perplexed and a tad disappointed. It was big, heavy and bulky. It felt like Nortent had ignored all of the industry’s latest R&D trends and had decided to build something little more than a better-looking version of something you could have bought in the 1970s.
The second we pitched the Vern 1 PC, however, it just felt special. Whereas the original Vern 1 comes with a central pole around the highest part of the dome and an optional crossing pole for added structural integrity in high winds, the Vern 1 PC has been better optimised for windy conditions. It comes with two crossing poles that sit over the top of the tent that — unlike the Vern 1 OG — need to be installed to hold up the heavy polycotton fly. Pitching it is therefore simply a matter of adding the poles to their respective sleeves, clipping the fly to the frame and pegging out the various corners. This can be done in a matter of minutes and is a welcome improvement on the original Vern 1 design, which can be a little finicky to set up correctly, especially in high winds.
What’s more, the Vern 1 PC immediately just pops into shape the second the fly is clipped to the poles. And as there’s no inner to concern yourself with, the shelter just opens up in minutes, ready for you to hunker down in. One thing we particularly enjoyed about pitching the Vern 1 PC is how quickly the tent instils confidence in you: You only need 4 pegs to anchor this thing to the ground, (though additional guy lines and peg out points are available in the worst weather) and everything feels incredibly tight even without any of the guy lines pegged out.
Once up, the Vern 1 PC gives you access to a large vestibule and a cavernous sleeping space, similar to that provided by the original Vern 1. Due to the lack of an inner tent, however, you’ve more space to move around in here, ideal for spreading out bits of kit that you might need at night. To keep things tidy, there are several handy pockets stitched inside, including one parallel to your head, which we always ended up using to store phones, head torches and headphones, i.e. the stuff you may need through the night.
Again, due to the thickness of the materials, there’s also no flapping – anywhere. The door on the inner can easily be opened with one hand (something which is nigh-on impossible on a standard nylon inner), and the vestibule stays rigid through the night, allowing you to make maximum use of the space inside without any of your kit touching the underside of the polycotton flysheet.
While we’re on the subject of the polycotton flysheet, one of the main advantages manufacturers tout about the material is the fact that it’s comparably much more breathable than standard silnylon or polyester constructions. And in our experience, this seemed to be valid on the Vern 1 PC. Naturally, on the coldest nights – such as when the mercury hit -7 degrees C on a chilly wild camp in West Wales – there was still some considerable moisture on the underside of the tent. But in comparison to normal flysheets, this felt like less of a burden. If you sleep in sub-zero conditions in a normal single-skin tent (i.e. one with a polyester or silnylon fly), the moisture forms on the flysheet and then drips back down onto you. What we found with the polycotton fly on the Vern 1 PC, however, was that the moisture would just sit there: It wouldn’t drip or run, even when you tapped the material. It was almost like it had partially absorbed into the polycotton, which made for the most comfortable night’s sleep we’ve ever had in a single-skin tent.
That being said, on night one of our 3-dayer around Llyn y Fan Fach and Fawr, the temperature dropped so much that the entire underside of the polycotton fly completely froze over. Again, this is to be expected in a single-skin tent, so we won’t deduct any points from Nortent for that. But it did mean that the temperature inside the Vern 1 PC remained bitingly cold all night. It was truly like sleeping inside a refrigerator. When you compare that with the average temperature we were able to maintain on the same chilly night in the Nortent Vern 2 (and in the original Vern 1 while camping in similar conditions), it would make us think twice about camping in it in conditions substantially below zero again. To us, we just felt warmer in the original Vern 1, with the nylon inner doing a better job at forming a barrier between the freezing cold on the outside and the body-heated climate on the inside.
During our rigorous testing of the Vern 1 PC, we were also happy to see that the tent is as simple to pack away as it is to pitch. Again, due to the thickness of the fly, we were expecting it to be difficult to pack this thing back in the small stuff sack the morning after – especially considering it seemed like it might have absorbed some water. This turned out to be completely unfounded, however, with it going down almost as quickly as it went up, and easily packing back down into its carry case. Did the tent feel slightly heavier the morning after? Sure. But no more than you’d expect on any other backpacking tent that had sat through a night of rain – which speaks for the hydrophobic qualities of the polycotton Nortent use.
Finally, it’s worth noting that in comparison to the original Vern 1, the Vern 1 PC does take a little longer to air out. Presumably due to the thickness of the materials used, it took us about 24 hours to dry and air it out the mornings after we’d used it.
Nortent Vern 1 PC FAQs
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The Nortent Vern 1 PC performs well in summer conditions. The polycotton flysheet is comparably more breathable than its silnylon and polyester counterparts, which makes it a comfortable place to spend warm summer evenings.
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The Nortent Vern 1 PC makes easy work of the British winter, easily dealing with howling wind, deluges of snow and driving rain. As the tent is a single-skin shelter, however, we found that it can get very cold inside when the temperature outside drops substantially below zero, at least when compared with the original Vern 1.
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The Nortent Vern 1 PC is the best-performing tent we’ve ever tested in the wind. Not only does it stand like a brick house against it, barely budging even in the strongest gusts, but it doesn’t make a sound when the wind hits the flysheet, which makes for a peaceful night irrespective of the weather.
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The Nortent Vern 1 PC is incredibly easy to Pitch. It goes up in a matter of seconds and only requires a handful of pegs.
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Yes, we think the Nortent Vern 1 PC is fully worth the money. If you’re happy to carry the extra weight, the tent promises you a reliable sanctuary whatever the weather, easily coping with howling winds, driving rain and deluges of snow.
Overall, we think the Vern 1 PC is an excellent tent. Coming with a chocolate brown fly and being the tightest tent we’ve ever pitched, it simply looks beautiful out in the hills. What’s more, due to the thickness and durability of the materials this thing is made out of, there’s simply nowhere where we wouldn’t pitch it. If you can get pegs in the ground, you can have a comfortable night in the Vern 1 PC — whether it’s raining, snowing or galeforce winds are driving into your tent. In our opinion, the confidence this gives you as a user is unrivalled in the one-person backpacking tent space right now, which makes it worth the extra weight and the comparably larger pack size.
Granted, carrying 3.5 kg isn’t for everyone, and it’s probably overkill in any situation where the weather is predictably calm. But if you want a shelter that can put up with everything you can throw at it; that you can pitch anywhere and be confident you’ll have a safe and comfortable night’s sleep – we think you’d struggle to find anything better than the Nortent Vern 1 PC on the market right now.
