Fly Creek UL2: Not for Giants

When I said I'm rubbing the inner "at the top" I meant "at the head end while lying down." However, in realizing my written error, it reminded me that I can't sit up in this tent without my head being placed directly into the pocket that the peak creates. When I'm positioned precisely in that peak pocket…..my head touches the top of the inner. Sigh.

Exiting the tent is actually fairly easy once I realized the steps one has to undertake to do so smoothly: unzip door, turn around and enter butt-first sitting on head-end of pad to remove shoes if you haven't already, push yourself backwards on your butt into the tent, lift feet over threshold of doorway and rotate your feet (sit n spin!) to point feet towards narrow end of tent, recline (because there's no way to sit up, see above). To exit, repeat steps in reverse to emerge from the tent like a baby giraffe being born.

The way the fly hooks to the tent inner about half way down the length in order to expand the tent width-wise is pretty clever. However I wonder if the tethers from the fly to the loops on the inner are too long at about 3-4" depending on top or bottom "tugger" respectively. I may experiment with a bit of cord and my own clip to decrease this gap although it may affect what ventilation exists.

Oh I almost forgot, this tent needs a LOT of stakes. As far as I can tell, at least 13 to guy it out fully. And you'll want to guy it out fully. I'm also curious if in breezy conditions double-guying the sail-like sides off the one guy loop (extending the guy lines away at a 90* angle from one another) would help at all with stability.

Lastly, while the clips to the inner are clever, Big Agnes totally blew it by not including any way for the fly to actually connect to the poles. All of my tents have had at least a velcro strap that you could connect to the poles behind each guy-point, and I definitely think it was a mistake on the two doorway (arching pole) guy points to omit this. Moreover, I suspect in a cross-wind or swirling wind the center ridge pole will shift out of center pretty easily since there's also no way to anchor the fly to the ridge pole. Fail.

I had a ul1 and its very stable when staked out well. I had it in some crazy storms + hail with high wind and I never felt like it would blow away.

I'm 6'2" and I initially was going to go with FCUL2, but after trying it out at REI, I found that my feet touched the tent walls which tilt in and I knew I'd have a wet soggy bag by the end of a long hike. I was expecting the issue with touching the tent walls to be especially problematic b/c the fly creek's fly has no vents unlike most of the other BA tents.

Instead, I went with the Copper Spur 2. This tent is plenty long. This is a one person palace. The 3 pounds 4oz. is a pleasure for me b/c this was replacing an 8 year old 6.5 pound REI half dome that I carried for buddy and solo trips. Plus, the copper Spur weathered storms at altitude very nicely while I saw a Cuben fiber tent get torn to pieces in a 45mph storm….barely any noise and no drafts.

U could squeeze a 2nd person in it, but it would be a squeeze.

Funny post, I warned you on the other thread about UL2 being too small for your height :)

Admittedly I was warned by several people that the tent would be too small. However, being the bargain hound that I am, I couldn't resist the opportunity to give it a try at < 25% the retail cost. And who knows, maybe it'll work in the field….and maybe I'll win the lottery too! Both seem about as likely.

Worst case scenario is that I have a great tent for all my more appropriately average-sized friends. Maybe I can even play the "oh hey look at that, I put the Fly Creek in my pack! Sorry about that! Here you go" game a few times before they figure out it's because my Quarter Dome T2+ is 2.5 pounds heavier. ;-D

In terms of condensation,yeah, I wondered why my sl1 didn't have a vent. Turns out that I have to stake out the tent in all conditions, and then usually I leave a little bit of the fly unzipped at the top for ventilation. This works surprisingly well; I've never had condensation that penetrated the inner mesh and into the tent, even in the worst situations. In rain, I zip up and still haven't had any problems, probably because of the extra wind that usually comes with the weather. Oh, and I use a polycryo ground sheet that weighs -2 ozs I think. But my tent is different than yours!–fly creek sl1.

My sl1 is very robust despite it's appearance. Except for the zippers.

Have you looked at the old BA Ul 2's–if that's their name. The previous iteration of the Fly Creek. They're a little bit bigger, more robust, and somewhat heavier. Probably still not long enough for you though.

…and you were warned! Aside from the well-written and hilarious points about how narrow the tent is, it's plain that you just don't fit in it at all, lengthwise. You have to plan for "full extension" of your bag and your legs at some point when you're asleep or just want to stretch out. The FCUL2 is light, but it's too small for you.

Go heavy. Get the Copper Spur UL2 when it goes on sale and you will find much more length, two side doors, two very useable vestibules and a tent that's not only wide enough to accommodate any combination of: two narrow, petite types, one narrow petite type and a big heavy guy she's married to (or reverse the roles, Jack Spratt), an adult and youth, or one happy, luxuriant, 6'5", 250lb man with room to stretch out, lay gear out and even to stash one of them cute UL backpacks in one vestibule while using the other for ingress/egress. You do still have to get your knees in the mud to get in and out, but this is the nature of low tents.

Enjoying a zero day's 4-hour rains by napping, reading, reviewing maps, tying lures and staring at my fully-extended legs in the CSUL2.

Like one above me, this tent seems a feather compared to the old-reliable it replaces for 3-season backpacking and camping. The 6 lb. Bibler comes back out for snow and does have more room, but the 3.5 lb CS is an absolute joy for me as a large solo. My next project is to build a Tyvek ground cloth with grommets, so I can do the "fly only" thing for warm weather without mosquitos.

I had a fly creek myself, took it to patagonia and for the most part really liked it. Of course, it was more than three pounds lighter than my REI tent, it fit the puppy and myself rather nicely (but not the 220' boyfriend, myself, AND the puppy. Now that was funny…)

CharlieDog liked it too, but after a while he, too, started not appreciating his lack of space and encroaching on mine:

And as a woman of a certain age, I also find I needed to do some gymnastics to actually reach the fly zipper to open or close it…and in the morning, when those joints are a-creakin', it was mighty tough to reach the zipper to get out.

So I used that as my excuse to buy a cuben hexamid. Which, so far, I adore. Plenty of space, CharlieDog loves the view (and I think overall he is happier with the tarp set up anyway…lots more to see and less reason to bark), and come spring I'm taking someone else's advice from this forum to make a nice tyvek or polychro sheet to make a porch ground sheet. I can see the race-car-like entry to the hexamid as something to get old at some point…but so far this shelter is sweet!!

By the way, Erik, methinks your fly is down…….

LOL @ "Puttin' a man in a midget's tent"

I was so stoked at REI when I managed to grab both a Fly Creek UL2 and a Copper Spur UL2 before the horde of bargain hunters realized all the good tents have specific stuff-sack colors that bely their cost (everything UL is yellow, and SL is orange, it seems). Very very sadly, when I unpacked the Copper Spur which said "bent poles" on the damage tag I discovered that the body of the tent was absolutely shredded as if attached by a bear…with Wolverine's adamantium claws…weilding a gas-powered weedwacker. I was so sad because yes, I definitely would have preferred the CS UL2.

But hey, it should be said the Fly Creek is plenty nice for the low low price I paid and who knows, maybe it'll work or at least be fun to try out. I'll definitely keep my eyes open for a Copper Spur though as it seems like the best option. The only thing keeping me from paying near-full price for a CSUL2 is that it's only 1.5 pounds lighter than my Quarter Dome T2+. I dunno, maybe at my size this means I need to stop being a bit of a nancy and just carry it to be comfortable in a true doublewall tent? Who knows.

Like I said, fun to try out! Hopefully if for no other purpose my post was funny and might shed a little more first-hand insight into a popular tent.

Oh and seriously, BA seem to use the crappiest zippers. I only know that from other people consistently saying it, not any of the trusted review sources.

Yes, from our 4-person Big House to both our Copper Spurs, the weak link in the BA system are the zippers. Ours hold up as zippers themselves, but the rain shield/flap on all three tents is highly likely to wind up jammed in the zipper, and "badly so". The result is that zipping becomes a two-handed operation with one leading the pull to clear the flap from fouling.

@Jen… you caught me, ha ha!!

By the way, Erik, methinks your fly is down…….
I think that Erik was practicing using the zip before attempting doing the one on the tent.

Sometime those zero days are long and boring. …Gotta come up with something to pass the time…

If a man can't sit in his tent in the woods with his pants open and unzipped for comfort, then the terrorists have won.