There is a sufficient number of caves in the lower Berg to allow backpackers to hike there without a tent if they choose to, but if you plan to spend a night or more on the escarpment then a hiking tent becomes an essential survival item. Either way, a tent allows you to function independently of caves, giving you a greater degree of freedom.

Hiking tents differ from camping tents because they are made of lightweight materials and provide sleeping space for only one to three people. A hiking tent is always a compromise between weight, stability and spaciousness:

• Weight is the most critical factor when selecting a tent, but it also needs to be stable in windy and snow conditions. The more poles and guy ropes a tent has, the heavier but more stable it will be.
• A lack of space can be claustrophobic – you will be forced to cook outside in the weather, and you may have to leave some kit outside when you retire. Most hiking tents have at least one “bell” or “vestibule”, formed by an extension of the flysheet beyond the floor area of the inner tent. A bell is useful for storing gear and cooking in, if it is large enough.
• The geometry of the tent design greatly affects its weight, stability and spaciousness:
  • The old-fashioned A-frame design offered little head and shoulder room, especially if it only used two upright poles. Wind and snow reduced this even further. This design was also difficult to stabilise against wind, although the addition of a ridge pole did improve its performance.

• • Most tents are now based on a 4-cornered dome. It is held up by two diagonal, bowed poles and offers much more head and shoulder room than the A-frame design. This shape is also easier to stabilise in wind if it is provided with a sufficient number of guy ropes. An additional pole is usually included in the design to create a vestibule.
  • An early variation of the dome configuration was the 6-cornered geodesic dome – a design which required four poles for the dome, making it significantly heavier but offering the very best stability.

• • A tunnel tent is just that – an upside-down, U-shaped tunnel supported by two or more poles bowed perpendicular to the length of the tent. Head and shoulder room are optimal. Equipped with sufficient guy ropes, they can also be very stable in windy conditions. They suffer under a snow load because the ridge of the tent is almost a flat surface.
  • Ultralight 1- or 2-person tent designs often use just a single bowed pole. The problem with a single pole is that it is held up via tension on the tent fabric, requiring good, firm ground in which to insert the anchor pegs.

A hiking tent generally consists of the following:

• The inner tent, with a floor and low-walled “tub” made of heavier, stronger, waterproofed fabric or sometimes even plastic. Stitched to this base is the rest of the inner tent, consisting of a mix of lightweight synthetic fabric and mesh panels, with one or more zipped entry doors and often some pockets to stow quick-access items such as headlamps and toiletries.
• The outer tent, also named the flysheet or “fly”. This is waterproofed, usually on the inner side and sometimes with a heat-reflective silver coating. Stitched seams are covered in seam tape, but alas, these tapes never last and their demise is the most common reason for having to replace a tent. The fly will have at least one entry door, whose zip is covered by a storm flap. The guy ropes are usually permanently attached to the flysheet.
• Shock-corded, collapsible poles. These should be made of aluminium. Fibre poles break too easily. The poles are normally inserted through sleeves in the inner tent to give the tent its basic shape.
• Pegs. Hiking tents are usually sold with aluminium wire pegs to save some weight. These are about twice the diameter of steel wire pegs, but even so, they bend far too easily when being pushed into firm ground. It is often better to exchange them for steel pegs because these are stronger and take up far less space so you can carry more spares for an insignificant increase in weight. Instead of wire, some pegs are made of flat plate which is formed into a “V” shape. Titanium pegs are the best – if you can afford them!
• Separate drawstring bags for the poles, the pegs, and the remainder of the tent. Unfortunately, very few manufacturers provide separate bags for the inner and outer tents. This should be an absolute must for any 2- or 3-person tent, because it facilitates the sharing of the load. To keep the total weight down, the main tent bag is usually made of very light material and is often missing loops to secure it to the outside of a backpack. Ideally, the main bag/s should be made of an abrasion-resistant material and have strong, nylon webbing loops. 

There are variations on this standard layout:

• To achieve greater lightness, some designs dispense with a separate inner, so the tub and fly are a single piece. A separate inner helps prevent condensation from dripping from the underside of the flysheet onto the occupants, so a tent without one is usually inundated with water droplets.
• A minority of tent designs, usually tunnel tents, run the poles through sleeves in the flysheet. The inner is then simply hung from the outer once the outer is up. In the standard design where the poles go through sleeves on the inner, the inner gets totally drenched when pitching and taking down the tent in the rain.
• A recent innovation replaces the tent poles with integral, inflatable tubes. These require that you have enough hot air left in you at the end of the day to get your house up. As the temperature drops, you will have to do still more huffing and puffing so it doesn’t collapse around you!

When buying a hiking tent, take the following into consideration:

• Most manufacturers offer the same design model in one, two and even three-person versions. If you are going solo, a 1-person tent is probably all you need, but if there is not too much difference in weight, rather go for a 2-person. This will give you more space to store gear and cook in. It could also become a refuge for someone else in your party if circumstances change. You can use a similar argument for a two versus three-person tent.
• Hiking tents are often advertised as 3- or 4-season. Don’t waste your money on a tent which even the manufacturers say cannot be used all year round. An expedition (4-season) tent often has snow flaps stitched around the base of the fly to prevent drift snow from building up underneath it. Packing rocks or snow on top of the snow flaps can help secure the tent further in a blizzard, especially on sand and gravel.
• Do your homework and buy a reputable make. Differences in quality will show later in the durability of the waterproofing, stitching, seam tapes and zips.
• Zips should be made by YKK.
• Tents, unfortunately, are consumables like your hiking boots and a lot of your other gear. Don’t buy the most expensive tent you can afford in the hope that it will last you a lifetime, because it won’t.

When using your tent, note the following:

• You will get optimum comfort and performance from it only when it is pitched on perfectly flat, level ground, which is seldom the case in the wilderness.
• Never skimp on the use of the guy ropes and other tie-down points for your tent. Always pitch it in the expectation that a wind will come up during the night.
• Know how many pegs your tent requires and write this number on the tent bag. Always carry some extras, and always count the pegs after taking down your tent. Gather the pegs on a rock or other contrasting surface as you pull them out of the ground so that you don’t lose them.
• Although the tub material is more robust than that of the fly, it is still very vulnerable to puncturing. Always pitch your tent on top of a separate ground sheet, and remember to peg the groundsheet down so it does not blow away.
• When erecting a tent in windy conditions, peg down whichever part (inner or fly) has to be pitched first, then insert the poles. If they are not anchored, dome tents blow away easily once the poles are in place. Similarly, keep the pegs in place while removing the poles during the take-down.
• The fabrics of which hiking tents are made shrink in the heat and expand in the cold. A nicely-rigged tent in the early afternoon sunshine can become very floppy when the sun goes down, so you will need to tighten the guy ropes accordingly.
• Avoid over-tensioning your tent by doing the guy ropes up too tightly or by tripping over them. These forces can stretch the seams and cause the seam tapes to start peeling away. Unfortunately, wind, hail and snow will do this anyway, which is why a tent has a limited lifespan.
• Do not shake the fly vigorously to get water and ice off it, but don’t pack it away with ice on it either, because ice will puncture it. You can pour lukewarm  water over the flysheet to get rid of the ice, or even roll it around gently in a stream.
• To avoid mildew, always clean and dry your tent before storing it again after a hike.