Giant tipi

Cool Kevin!

What are the dimensions?

It looks pretty cool—and around 14 feet in diameter, plenty big enough for several sleepers. Do you have enough guyline attachments around the bottom? How about mid-level guyouts, say about five feet high?

You have been making some pretty neat stuff! Always interesting.

Walter: good to hear from you! Sure would like it if you would entertain us with your adventure stories sometime!

Size is closer to 17.5 ft by 15.5 ft.

There are 20 tie outs around the bottom and guyout points at various locations one to three feet of the ground. In addition you can do a faux strcture from a sub cone to the tie outs to add extra stability.

Nice!

How tall is it?

What's the diameter of the pole? How many sections? I believe you said it's carbon fiber.

Let's see, you could put two people end to end in 15.5 feet. Maybe 3 feet wide per person. So you could fit 10 people. If you did 6 people it would be 1 pound per person – not bad.

I wonder how it does in the wind.

9 ft tall

I had another one, I tested over the winter and in high winds , it handled it well. The pole is 24" sections, ~1" diameter. We made some improvements from the test one in shaping, venting and tie outs. The test one was highly experimental. Moderate snow loads should be ok, but it should not be left unattended and expected to handle whatever dumping takes place.

How many yards of fabric does something like that use up? Is it ordinary 1.3oz silnylon? I have wondered how big of a shelter you can make from silnylon before the material becomes too weak.

Are you going to offer it for sale? How about in inner net tent?

Thanks,
BM

So it looks like it's about the size of a Kifaru 8 man and a little higher.

It is 1.3 / 1.4 oz silnylon. It's nylon 6.6 so it has less stretch. You can get a pretty big shelter out of it, it uses a fair amount of fabric.

We do plan on selling them. Available options will be
– Full DWR liner , great for wet climates and winter usage for those that prefer going floorless
– Half nest for those that want full protection. The half nest can sleep 4 adults + or probably 4 adults plus two mid sized kids. This gives the option of using the other half for dogs, gear, heating , etc.

My guess is the total weight with liner will be a bit over 8 lbs and with the nest the total combined weight will be closer to 9 lbs.

Thanks David, for saying hello. It looks like you come from Tipi Country, so you know how beautiful these simple structures can be—I never get tired of looking at tipis set up, even these nylon ones have that same glimmer of beauty. I do have some stories of camping in South Dakota during a Sundance at the Rosebud but they will have to wait.