Any advice on ALPS Mountaineering Zephyr?

Hi Rory, welcome to BPL! The Zephyr 2 (the two-person version of the Zephyr) was actually my first backpacking tent. It is a little heavy overall but not too bad. It will pack much smaller if you pack the tent and the poles separately. I only used it 6 or 7 nights before switching to something lighter, but it was pretty stable once fully guyed out and did not leak after 16 hours of light rain. I shared it with my 60 lb dog and we had plenty of room. Quality seemed fine to me.

As another affordable option, take a look at the SMD Skyscape Scout: http://www.sixmoondesigns.com/tents/SkyscapeScout.html

I do not own one but they get favorable reviews.

I don't own this tent but have seen it. It looks good and from what I've seen simple enough to setup.

I found some reviews of it here – http://www.trailspace.com/gear/alps-mountaineering/zephyr-2.0/

Thanks for the info guys. I suppose it comes down to whether I want to spend the extra $200 to shave another pound or two off. I just found a handful of favorable views on Amazon as well, so I'm going to pull the trigger. I'll be in the Cascades for ten days with it in August giving it a bit of an extended field test. Will report my findings.

Just found this forum today, by the way, and I'm hooked already. Loads of great info being shared.

Cheers.

One of my backpacking buddies has this tent…actually both she and her son do. They both seem to love it, take it everywhere…and it does pack awfully small for what it is. Seems like a good purchase.

This tent is my pre-bpl tent, and now my extra loaner tent. Really great product, even if the price was twice as much it would still be a great tent. great ventilation, very weather proof. I had the tent at Mt. Washington in New Hampshire for some spring snowboarding a few years ago, it rained, snowed, and slushed on us all night, very high winds (typical of the Mt. Washington area). No problems with the tent at all. There is a decent amount of space inside for all of our additional warm clothing, and the vestibules are a really nice size on the tent.