Sea to Summit, a 30-year-old global adventure equipment brand, is proud to introduce the company's most ambitious and innovative product launch to-date: the Telos TR2 Tent.

Sea to Summit set out three years ago to design the "best tent" in the category by focusing on delivering meaningful design improvements in areas of common customer pain points.

1) Maximizing Internal Space / Weight Ratio
2) Climate Control / Ventilation
3) Adaptability / Versatility

The innovative design behind Sea to Summit's Telos TR2 Tent is a new patent-pending pole architecture called Tension RidgeTM. The Tension Ridge™ architecture features an inverted brow-pole design that angles up, in reverse of other tents within the same class. By inverting the angle of the brow pole, Sea to Summit is able to achieve unrivaled internal height, high vertical walls, and a more accessible dry entry/exit. In short, the result is a roomy internal experience with a best-in-class space-to-weight ratio.

Also made possible by the Tension Ridge™ architecture, the Telos TR2 tent is outfitted with an adjustable cross-ventilation system consisting of a Baseline Vent and an Apex™ Vent. The construction and position of the Apex™ Vent allows for measurably improved airflow and more effective condensation mitigation.

Beyond the Tension Ridge, Sea to Summit placed a great deal of focus on channeling versatility and adaptability into every detail of the Telos TR2. The tents are packed with thoughtful features like the modular FairShare Storage System that allows for easy division of the tent amongst campers, a pole storage case that doubles as a LightBar™ for interior illumination at night in combination with a headlamp, and tent and fly stuff-sacks that clip into place as a storage pocket inside the tent.

For years, the lightweight backcountry tent market has seen, at best, incremental design innovations. Upon entering a completely new product category for the company, Sea to Summit sought out to design the BEST overall tent.

With a history of design excellence and delivering innovative solutions for outdoor adventure, Sea to Summit partnered with the world's foremost tent pole designers at DAC to collaborate on a novel tent pole architecture. After three years of R&D, the team settled upon the design that is now known as the "Tension Ridge™" — an inverted brow-pole design that angles up (e.g. the reverse of traditional tent architectures).

Motivated by their own backyard of Western Australia where daily temperatures can turn a tent into an oven and night temps can change by a factor of 50 degrees (F), Sea to Summit was very focused on solving for internal humidity and environmental adaptability. The 2021 tents by Sea to Summit materially move the needle within the lightweight tent category by delivering significant design improvement across three key categories: 1) Internal Space / Weight Ratio, 2) Humidity / Interior Climate, and 3) Environmental Adaptability.

Internal Space: The Tension Ridge™ pole construction is unique to the market, inverting the tent pole to angle up instead of down. This architecture achieves unrivaled internal height, higher vertical walls to accommodate thicker, modern sleeping mats and pillows, and a more accessible truly dry entry/exit. The result is a roomy experience with a superior space-to-weight ratio that outperforms any other tent in its class.

Climate Control: The unique Tension Ridge™ pole construction allows ventilation to be placed at the ceiling of the tent, allowing greater airflow and minimizing condensation that can build up inside the tent. The upper Apex VentsTM eliminate the need for traditional mesh panels, significantly improving airflow by 70% over other tents within its class. The result is a tent that can adapt to a wide range of climate conditions, temperatures, and humidity levels.

Adaptability: In true Sea to Summit fashion, genuine design lays in the details of the tent. You will notice that even the tent stuff sacks, pole storage case, rainfly, and more can be used for multi-purpose versatility in camping. From the FairShare Storage System allowing easy division of the tent amongst campers; to the adaptable rainfly converting to Hangout Mode, an open-air shelter for cooking, shade, and weather protection.

Sea to Summit set up controlled tests to benchmark the airflow and humidity benefits of the Tension Ridge™ technology against leading competitive products of similar footprint, weight, and price point.

- Telos TR2 provides 70% better airflow within the tent due to elimination in mesh panels on the Apex [top] Vents.

- Telos TR2 tested 31% less humid than the MSR Hubba Hubba and 17% less humid than the Big Agnes Copper Spur.

- Telos TR2 tested 60% better in temperature control (heat expulsion) than the MSR Hubba Hubba and 30% better than the Big Agnes Copper Spur.

- Telos TR2 has been tested in a wind tunnel with wind speeds in excess of 30MPH to verify the strength of the pole architecture and ability of the Apex Vents to cope in high wind.

- When measuring the internal "tent topographies" of the Sea to Summit Telos TR2, MSR Hubba Hubba, and Big Agnes Copper Spur, the Telos TR2 out-performs on headroom, sitting side-by-side shoulder space, and ease-of-entry (delivering more cubic feet above the same footprint).

By the time the project was completed, the company had decided to release just two tents: The Telos (nominated for this award) and the Alto (a lighter weight, smaller version).

The decision to release just two tents reflects the team's success in building a tent that raised the bar so significantly in adaptability; there was essentially no need to release additional models. By delivering a truly versatile tent, Sea to Summit achieved their goal of delivering products that enable more time in the outdoors with less.