Montbell monoframe diamond or MSR Hubba HP

A friend of mine bought the Hubba a few years ago and hates it. She says it's only wide enough for her sleeping bag and doesn't have any arm-flopping room. She then bought a Contrail Tarptent.

I considered both tents before finally deciding on the Hubba. I'm very happy with my Hubba. You can save a lot of money by getting one of the non-HP versions at Backcountrygear.com for $159 right now.

Compared to the Montbell you get a vestibule and you don't need stakes if you trust that it won't fly away. I can't recommend that option… :)

As the previous post states, you don't have a ton of room but if you're going light that's almost a given if you want the full protection of a double wall tent with a floor. I've never been in a Montbell but I would imagine that the sloping floor and walls would make that tent feel considerably smaller. Feel free to message me if you have any detailed questions and good luck with your decision.

I have a Hubba and I love it. Incredible protection from the most relentless storms and incredible breathability when its nice out. freestanding and easy to set up. i never have a problem with room inside. its quite spacious if you ask me for a one person tent. can easily sit up and move around inside. highly recommend it.

ive never been inside the monoframe diamond but it seems from the picture like a lot of space is wasted coming to the points on the ends. either that or you head and feet are just crammed. also seems less storm-worthy to me.

i've tried the contrail and while it is a great, great product and very light for what it offers , its still not a double wall tent. meaning if you brush the sides you get wet. im not saying one is better than the other but they are in different categories. hope that helped.

I've no experience with the Hubba HP but quite a bit with the Monoframe Diamond. As you've guessed, with all that nylon on the inner, it's a toasty little tent. It's been my go to shelter for cool to cold windy weather for the past four years. With stake and guy substitution, my carry weight is right at 2.5 lbs. The center height is 39", so there's plenty of room for most people to sit up. There is also enough room to store all my gear beside me in the tent. I'm 5'9" tall and have enough room to lie down without touching the ends. If you're over six feet, this may not be the tent for you because you may find your head or feet wedged into the ends of the Diamond. This tent has weathered some ferocious storms with no trouble. I wouldn't use it if I was anticipating heavy snow loads but otherwise it does great.

IMO, the large vent on the rainfly is an integral part of the tent. Keep in mind that you're venting moisture as well as warm air. If you're concerned with conserving as much warmth as possible, you can always zip the nylon panel on the inner fully closed. In practice, I've never done this, preferring to keep a good size opening at the top of the tent for ventilation. On occasion, I'll get a face full of spindrift, but prefer this to sleeping in stagnant air all night.

If you're interested in this tent you may have to act quickly because it appears that Montbell has replaced it with the Crescent 1 this year. Outwardly, the two tents seem similar, but the Crescent 1 is a double/single wall hybrid that uses a lot of mesh.

Thanks for the feedback everybody. I'm glad the monoframe diamond has enough room in the center to sit up. I'm about 5'10" so it should fit me fine I'm thinking. The reason I ask is because I ordered one of the very last monoframe diamonds that an online store (only place I could find them domesticaly) had in stock and though it hasn't arrived yet, I think they wouldn't take a return on it if I opened it all up and set it up in my yard, got it dirty, etc. I have experience with an MSR Hubba, which I thought was a bit narrow but very cool due to its overall "bomber" and stormproof nature. I had thought that there weren't any Hubba HPs out there on sale until I found a seller on ebay the other day who was selling them for a reasonable price. So buying a Hubba HP would be a no brainer for me, except that I would need to return the Montbell without setting it up, which I wasn't sure I wanted to do.

I think, for now, I'll give the monoframe shelter a shot because I was able to get it for less than retail. There's not too much more cold and windy weather left this season where I live so I'm thinking it would be kind of stupid to drop a bunch of money into a cold weather tent.

Art,

I hope you like your Diamond as much as I like mine. The included instructions for set up are pretty minimal, so if you need help just post back. Here's a tip to get you started: To get good clearance between the inner tent and the fly, use separate stakes at both the head and tail of the tent.

Just got the monoframe diamond and set it up in my yard. I'm glad I decided on this tent. There's plenty of head and foot room for me when laying down, and unlike the Hubba, the gear storage space is on the inside, rather than in the vestibule (and there's more square footage total, I think). I'll definitely have to change out some of the chubby guylines for ultralight cordage. I don't really like the fixed loops on each end of the inner tent, but I have a couple leftover miro tensioners and some ultralight guyline which I think would work better. I didn't find that I had to stake out the fly and the inner tent separately to keep them apart, but I'll keep that tip in mind for future use.

Just curious, what stuffsack do you use for your tent? I'm having some issues getting this thing back into the provided stuffsack.

It's possible to get the tent into it's original stuff sack by careful folding and rolling. In the field, I've never bothered with that, preferring to stuff the tent into an oversized silnylon stuff sack.