Coming Soon: Tarptent StratoSpire

David
I keep reminding Henry that we want solo shelters not those double things , but customers just to annoy me keep ordering doubles and even those 3 person and 4 person shelters..
People can be so unkind at times.

A mate had ordered a 10×12 tarp to erect during lunch breaks and in the evening , after we have been rained on a few times of late.
He uses a WW2 flame thrower to cook (melt/burn food) with in winter ( called an XGK) and I reckon that we can use that contraption inside the SS2 fly only without smelling melted nylon.
So the SS2 will be larger and lighter than using the Contrail plus that tarp. (I still like to sleep solo)

Franco
(BTW, he uses the HGK because it works, even at -40)

Franco, your videos are very descriptive, excellent marketing tools. Watched a bunch of your video. Anyway, I like this tent. Nice bit of engineering on Henry's part.

Henry or Franco
Any idea on when the price and ship dates will be available for the SS1?
Thanks for what looks like a winner.

It's looking like sometime around Dec 10 for ship start. I think we should be able to set the pricing in a week or so.

-H

Thanks Henry for the update.

My StratoSpire 2 arrived yesterday. Haven't even had a chance to pull it out of the bag yet, but with some luck will be able to at least get it out and look it over in the living room tomorrow. Carpeted floors won't accept the stakes too well, so no guarantees when I can get it set up for a true evaluation.

Dan
I just took mine for a spin in the Aussie Alps.(3 nights only)
After having used the Rainbow/Contrail and Moment it felt odd for me to have so much space (for myself only) but it was great to spend time under it in heavy rain during a full afternoon and not to need to wipe the walls down.
Due to my shoddy seam sealing (I hurriedly did that on a hot humid day outside…) I was able to follow the progress of some drips as they made their way down on the mesh to the corner…
(unfortunately too few to see where they were coming from so I will need to do a couple of seams again)
Anyway I was more than happy to carry the extra weight to be able to have so much rain protected space and get a good night sleep when the other campers got soaked with condensation in their fully sealed up shelters.
My mate was inside his Moment and slept well too, but he does that anytime the temp is below 60f or so.
Note that on the last day I placed the door to enjoy the view of the valley below :

Franco
franco@tarptent.com

Found a little bit of time to set up the new SS2 on Friday and snap a few photos.
Looking forward to trying it out properly, but it could be a while as I am getting booked up with the holidays approaching…

Shows width with a NeoAir Large (25" wide).

Dan, nice shots. So, tell us, how tall are you? I know the pad is 77" long and notice that it appears that you take up much of that. It looks like you have just a few inches on each end of the tent. I only ask because the person I hike with is 6' 7". Thanks for getting out and taking a few photos. Your new SS2 looks pretty awesome. And is a nice early Christmas present too.

Hi Warren,

I'm in the range of 6' to 6'1" tall. I believe that 6'7" would be a bit much in the inner tent if your hiking partner were stretched out on a thick inflatable pad, but it could be possible. If I'd had someone with me to measure when I did my test-pitch, I could have gotten more exact measurements for you, but the photos I included are the best I can provide right now. Sorry about that. On the plus side, there is some substantial space between the inner mesh tent and the outer tarp. The outer tarp would undoubtedly be large enough for someone 6'7" tall. Furthermore, my hope is that even with bad condensation buildup on the inside of the tarp, a sleeping bag rubbing along the insides of the inner mesh tent wouldn't get wet. There is probably at least 3 to 4 inches of space between the inner and outer tent on both ends. Hope this helps a bit.

It does. Thanks Dan. Can't wait to hear how it works in the field.

Finally got around to doing some test pitches of my StratoSpire 1 in each configuration. Minor complaint – the tent that was shipped to me had the inner mesh ridgeline supports clipped in to the opposite ends that they should have been. Once I figured that out and corrected, pitching went smoothly.

Hi David

> -double walled.
I will have to dissent: single-skin with internal mossie net. NOT double walled.
Double-walled in my book requires full fabric inner tent with no netting sections. But I am seriously biased.

Interesting design though.

Cheers

After deliberating for a couple months between the Easton Kilo 3P and the StratoSpire2, I ended up buying a StratoSpire 2. I like the Easton's PU fabric floor and freestanding design, but the non-exposed inner setup of the StratoSpire, dual doors, dual vestibules and lighter weight was enough to sway me in this direction. It arrived today.

I just did one quick setup in my (small) living room using chairs etc to set it up. I can't speak to the finer details of this tents setup since I couldn't even really tension the tent with the light chairs I was using, but I am really impressed with the overall design concept. It's brilliant. I like how it protects the inner during setup, how it only requires 6 stakes, and how there aren't guy lines all over the place, since all the stakes are around the perimeter of the tent fly. Hopefully sometime soon I'll be able to set it up properly and actually evaluate the pitch and internal space.

I definitely never thought I'd be back to having a silnylon tent again. I'm fine with it for the fly, but I really don't like silnylon floors (slippery, not that waterproof…I much prefer PU nylon). It speaks to the excellence of this design that I bought one anyway despite disliking silnylon floors. The stuff is indeed slippery and I'm going to have to dot the bottom of my sleeping pads with silicone. At least the bathtub floor of the tent is anchored at the 4 corners. My previous silnylon floored tent (SMD Refuge X) just had a hanging floor that loved to slide around on the ground, so the floor would slide into the vestibule even if my pad was securely stuck to the top side of the floor which I treated with silicone/mineral spirits.

Once I get this seam sealed and get some silicone on the bottom of my pads, I think my wife and I are going to really like this one. It's going to be a lot more livable in the rain than my previous tent, which required the inner set up before the fly and it had a door way that let rain fall in.

EDIT: I nearly forgot the weights. Pre-seam sealing, the tent (fly + inner) weighs 38.57oz. The six stake kit from TT weighs 2.4oz, but I'll likely use lighter ones. The Easton poles for setting this up weigh 5.6oz. So using trekking poles and lighter stakes, this tent will likely come in around 41oz after seam sealing plus another 0.7oz for the stuff sack. 2.6 lbs is pretty sweet for a double wall tent of this size.

Cool. Nice weight as well. Can't wait to see photo's and hear about your impressions in the field.

I received an SS2 for Christmas. I set it up in the yard a few nights ago. I LOVE the design. It took quite a while for me to get the hang of setting it up the right way. I suspect using trekking poles, instead of the optional easton poles may make the setup process a little easier, allowing a little less stress to be placed on the poles… I can't wait to get this thing seam sealed and outside where it belongs.

Slick looking shelter for fair weather camping, sure wouldn't want to pitch that thing in a pinch somewhere up high or exposed when real weather hits.

"sure wouldn't want to pitch that thing in a pinch somewhere up high or exposed when real weather hits"
depends what you mean by up high or real weather.
They are three season tents with (my opinion) a bit better support/tensioning options than most mids.

(before the rain)

On the third night of the first trip I used it , we happen to be at a popular spot in the Victorian Alps, Mt Feathertop.
It is a bit of a hill (about 5700') but the weather can get nasty at any time of the year.
We arrived just after lunch when it started to rain and kept raining , hard on and off, till lunch the next day.
It was a bit windy during the night, not that much but enough to send a couple of tarp guys inside the refuge.
In the morning, chatting inside the nearby refuge, it sounded like my mate in his Moment and myself in the SS2 were the only guys out of the occupants of another 8 or 9 tents, that remained dry and slept all night.
From that, after having our shelters "inspected" three Tarptents orders were placed, two Moments (the tarp guys…) and one SS2 to an experienced couple .
But as it already has been obvious to the ones that have it, the SS2 is not necessarily the pup tent some think it is…
Franco

Hey Franco. I'm curious about the purpose/functionality of the optional guy outs on the fly. In the picture below you've got the tent set up using them.

Since the fly doesn't connect to the mesh inner underneath this guy out area, it seems using these guy outs wouldn't increase the living space while using the inner. So I'm curious which of these are the correct reason(s) for deploying these guy outs:

1) Increased strength for winds/minor snow loads (seems true)
2) Increased interior space when not using the mesh inner (perhaps true)
3) Increases the gap between the fly and inner, which prevents a condensation covered fly from contacting the inner.

That last point is really what I'm wondering. Assuming #1 and #2 are true, I would still use a 6 stake setup for most trips, but if #3 is true then I'd want to bump up my stake count to 8 and it would add a bit more hassle to the setup. How does the SS2 fare with regards to keeping a wet fly from sticking to the inner? My last tent (Big Agnes Fly Creek UL3) was pretty bad for this. I had to bump the stake count from the minimum of 6 up to 9, to get the fly as tight as possible, but it would still often stick to the inner in a few unsupported areas.

The SS2 seems like a great tent for rainy areas with the protected inner setup, and the protected doors, so I'm hoping it doesn't have significant issues with a wet, saggy fly getting stuck to the inner, as that kinda kills the whole point of a double wall tent.

Franco is still upside down and asleep so I'll answer for him. Those extra pullouts are intended for snow load and high winds. They are not needed just to keep the fly off the mesh. If you want to increase the mesh distance from fly, unclip the two apex points and reconnect to the attached elastic loops (which is also the procedure for allowing the interior to widen for 3 sleeping pads).

-H

Henry, any plans to offer the SS2 with a solid inner like the Scarp?

Thanks for chiming in Henry. I appreciate the answer.

The weather is finally a bit nicer here in Whistler, so hopefully later today or tomorrow I'll be able to get outside for a proper test pitch.

Don't know yet, honestly. It's an easy thing to do but I'm trying to give my sewers some time to absorb all the new models before throwing even more stuff at them. Feel free to check with us directly in a month or two.

-H

Ok, so this tent seems pretty much perfect, but what are the drawbacks?

Just skimming the thread they seem to be
-Silinylon floor (possible water issues?)
-Not free-standing (I've always used stakes though)

Anything else?

Here's something I've been wondering for a while now. Most tents that use small poles to raise the corner only use one pole per corner. The Stratospire (and I think other TT models as well) use two small poles per corner. Why is this? It would be lighter to just use one and I don't really see advantages to using more.

One of the reasons I'm asking is because I plan on making my own tent later this year and it will have raised corners.