MLD Spirit tents

eVENT products from MLD, can you say SWEET!!!!!!. Hmm… I wonder what the shelters will weigh in eVENT?

I thought eVent couldn’t meet US fire retardent standards. Wasn’t that why other tent makers suddenly stopped using it? So how does MLD get around that?

I must admit, the prototype pictured on the website and the other up-coming items really got my attention.

I have read, don’t remember where, that their is a maximum height (26in?) between a bivy and a tent. So if a tent is built below that height it is still considered a bivy and thus ok. Maybe this is how ron is getting around the rule as the spirit does not seem like a huge shelter.

I thought that the reason was that the manufacturer no longer allows eVent to be used for tents.

Quoting from the website for Big Agnes (who is selling off their eVent tents for 50%):

“Note: Sarvis eVent tents may not be shipped to the following states due to fire retardancy laws: MA, NY, NJ, LA, MI, MN, CA or Canada. Please call our customer service department if you have questions.”

THe whole eVENT issue may be moot if Ron Bell of MLD markets the Spirit as something other than a tent. Maybe as some sort of bivy shelter. Or, to take a page from ULA and it’s infamous Helix “potty trowel”, it could be called a “latrine cover”. ;-)>

“latrine cover” . . . I like, I like.

Howabout . . . “Extraterrestrial signalling device” . . . “Man-portable navigational buoy” . . .”Waterproof 3-D low-altitude kite” . . . “Weather-resistant field artillery target”

Over a year ago I spoke with Evan Jones at Integral Designs. Basically, this is his take on his limitations in the use of eVENT fabric in shelters.

If you can reasonably cook in it, then it’s a tent and you can’t use eVENT. So he doesn’t use eVENT any longer in his tents. Having a vestibule, was NOT the issue.

If you can’t reasonably cook in it, like in a bivy sack, or a hooped bivy shelter, then eVENT is still ‘ok’ for use.

I’ve got to go with Mr. Jones understanding as he is intimately involved in the issue. I’m not familiar with Mr. Bell’s shelter, but if it’s more “bivy-ish”, then I bet we’ll see eVENT. Oh…and the line for them starts right behind me!!