‘Mid vs TT Moment in psycho winds

Eric, if you GOOGLE "MLD trailstar" you'll see a YouTube video of the MLD pyramid in the wind.

Since I've experienced high winds (constant 35-45 mph) in my TT Moment in the Indian Peaks of Colorado. It was very stable and did not "flap" in the wind, however I did have it guyed out at the hoop guy points.

IMHO I'd prefer the Moment in high winds because of its aerodynamics and many other features. But… like the MLD pyramid it needs the tent edges to be touching the ground.

To lower the Moment you need to dig holes for each end of the hoop pole. The Moment's front side especially needs to be battened down.

BTW, the Moment, with it's available ventilation, would be a good tent for rainforest use, as would a good jungle hammock.

My hiking partner and I had just this test a couple of weeks ago — inadvertently. I had my TT Moment, he had an old BD Megalite pyramid. We set up on the lee side of Wilburn Ridge in Virginia, and still had 50+ mph gusts all night long.

His 'mid was staked with thin 6-inch aluminum stakes, one on each corner and one in the middle of each side. He used the heavy-duty pole that came with the tarp. The tarp blew around a LOT during the night — pushing into his face, etc., but it held. We were both surprised that none of the stakes failed overnight — they were in grassy soft soil, which I didn't think would have held very well. In any case. it was still standing in the morning.

The Moment was staked with 9-inch BD nail stakes, and a single guy line on the center hoop pole on the windward side, held with a 6-inch snow stake. The tent was pitched with the long side into the wind — not ideal, but the only way I could pitch it in that location. Watching the wind gusts hit the side of the tent and bend the hoop pole all the way down to my sleeping bag was, er, interesting. But it bounced back every time. One particularly strong gust loosened the guy line tighteners on one end, and that end started flapping around and might have taken the whole tent down, but I was able to reach out through the door and re-set the two short poles and re-tighten the guy lines. It would have been much more difficult had it been the other end, as I would have had to go out into the wind to fix it. In any case, the Moment was also still standing in the morning.

So I guess it was a tie — both tents were still in fine condition. If I had to choose one, I'd would probably have preferred to spend the night in the 'mid, but with much longer stakes just for peace of mind.

I've had my Trailstar in conditions like Ken's on two occasions now (both unsheltered campsites on the shore of big, mountain lakes). My conclusion it that the TS can provide very strong wind protection if you can anchor it well.

The first occasions was this past May on the shore of Yellowstone Lake. I was camped on a flat bench 70' above the (frozen) lake. The ground was very dense, firm grass; ideal terrain for holding stakes. I used my usual pitch, with the doorway tied to a tree at one of the panel mid points. The wind was coming from 7-9 o'clock (if the door was 12), and I guyed those midpoints out with large rocks, using MSR Groundhogs on all the main points. The TS held amazingly tight against serious winds.

The second occasion was last weekend on St Mary Lake in Glacier. I planned rather poorly, such that my camp (where I arrived at 9pm after 12 hours of hiking) was a rock beach taking the full force of the wind, with no other flat or not-brushy sites save the beach itself. I had to give up on my first location because, even though the shelter held (only after I had all guy points set and tensioned equally, without all of them my sticks buried deadman style in the rocks kept pulling out), my trekking pole was bowing most impressively under the worst gusts. I moved to a slightly more sheltered location, but was still getting swirling gusts battering both sides of the shelter. I gave up on deadmen and instead anchored the door to a bush, and the rest of the corner points to the largest rocks and logs I could move, typically with each corner getting about 150 pounds of anchor. I tied the forward midpoints to deadmen as well. Though the sides bowed in quite a bit, this rig held all night. The midpoint deadmen did pull out as I slept, which didn't help the flapping. I do think a lot of the flapping was necessary, as fabric stretch helped absorb the force of the more tarp-flattening gusts.

In summary, the TS was quite a handful in such conditions, though quite good if you can get a good pitch with solid anchors. The same can be said for any other shelter in such conditions. As it rained very little, I was actually wishing for my bivvy so I could've just crawled under the shadow of an especially large driftwood log.

"BTW, the Moment, with it's available ventilation, would be a good tent for rainforest use, as would a good jungle hammock."

Uh, no it wouldn't. The Moment lacks ventilation; one of it's main issues and why it has difficulty managing condensation. I had one in the rain forest on Vancouver Island and was soaked most of the time.

It is more of a dry air type shelter and would excel in those conditions.

I can't comment directly as I own neither (Trailstar is on order). A review of the Trailstar I saw ccompared it favourably in comparison to Atkos and Lasers for high wind performance.

Personally if I was worried that the Trailstar wasn't up to expected winds I would probably not be looking at the Moment, but instead at the Scarp or a four season Dome or Tunnel tent.

"As it rained very little, I was actually wishing for my bivvy so I could've just crawled under the shadow of an especially large driftwood log."

I guess if the tarp had flattened, you could have wrapped yourself in the remains and done just this.

I had something like that happen last summer in west Texas. Gatewood Cape–sort of a modified pyramid. Monahans Sandhills. Not raining, although it had rained earlier. But steady strong wind all night, blowing sand. Cape was set up as taut as I could get it, with buried deadmen (my sandals) for windward cords. It was not threatening to blow down, in fact was staying up quite well. But the fabric flapping was so loud I couldn't sleep. I finally gave up, pulled the pole down, and wrapped myself in the cape, which kept the wind off me, and slept fine after that. Is this typical in windy conditions? If it had also been raining or very cold I think my solution would have been unsatisfactory. (Yes Monahans is a car campground, but I *really* have a hard time sleeping in a minivan full of teenagers.)

Using a shelter as a bivy–it looks pretty sloppy, but works fine. Probably not great in rain, but for wind it works like a charm. Here's a Wild Oasis up in the Wayah Bald Lookout Tower (N. Carolina) last year. I was toasty and semi out of the wind.

alpinist just tested out a shangri la 2 mid style shelter on 60 mph rainier and it did fine

personally im going to get a mid myself hopefully … the basic design is as simple as can be and has been used everywhere including the antarctic

the only real disadvantage i can see is the setup space required, and the need for solid anchors

http://www.alpinist.com/doc/web10f/ms-jr-golite-shangri-la-shelter