While most everybody else is forced to withdraw eVENT tents from the market, Swiss company Exped has just released their new 2-person Polaris tent made from eVENT. The North American websites merely say that it is a 3-layer PTFE fabric, but if you go to the Exped website, you would see that it is in fact eVENT.
The design is novel, and patent pending. It is self-standing. Three poles: two at each end and one running across the top forming an integrated vestibule of silnylon at the head and a vent cover at the rear. In addition to the rear vent and the front door, it has two tunnel vents on each side, so it looks incredibly well-ventilated. Lots of guy out point, notably on the sides, where there is a lot of fabric between the poles (although there is an optional middle pole for extreme conditions available). The poles go in Exped’s flat sleeves, rather than inside the tent. There are several weights given for the tent depending on which website you look at. Looks like it must weigh around 5.5 lbs.
It’s not the absolute lightest tent, but if that’s what you’re looking for you probably don’t need eVENT anyway. For a bad weather tent, it looks like it has a lot of design advantages: excellent ventilation, built-in vestibule, plenty of space, incredibly easy set up, and considerable strength. Check it out! Altrec and Mountain Gear are selling them on line…slighlt lower price (given the vestibule) than a comparable set up from ID or Bibler might be.
