If you had to choose between a sil Trailstar and Golite sl3

How airy you like your shelters would be the deciding factor for me. I like the ability to close off the outside when wanted. Doesn't the Trailstar take up more room on the ground also?

I'll bite…

I have both but have limited experience so far with my SL3. I mainly picked it up for family backpacking trips and the occasional snow camping trip where I might share a shelter with a partner. I anticipate it seeing more use in the future as our family grows, hence I scooped one up for a good deal to hang on to.

Anyway, for me personally, so far, I'd keep the Trailstar. I would condition this statement by acknowledging that the Trailstar works great for most, but not necessarily all, of MY trips. I use the trailstar as a solo shelter or with my lady and our dog. I like the flexibility in pitching options. I also find it to be super wind proof, which most of the time is of more critical importance to me than a good snow-shedding shelter, for the trips I take. It's also lighter, packs down smaller, and seems to be less prone to condensation.

The advantages to the SL3 are that it has arguably a little more usable space, easier to get in and out of, you can sit up inside of it easier and it's more "snow proof".

If I shared my shelter more often with a partner/family and needed an all around shelter that could handle a more serious snow load, then the SL3 might get the nod.

So, I guess that's a roundabout way of saying the decision is unique to each individual and their specific needs/wants.

Evening gents,

I am thinking the Trailstar may be better in the wind but the Sl3 better in the snow as Nico says

The reason I ask is I have had a Trailstar for a while and really like it for solo trips, but bought a used sl3 today for using on trips with my noobie buddy.

Not sure about how much space they take up but I will pitch both (once the sl3 arrives) and have a look, I do have a ookworks cuben door for the Trailstar which does well.

I suppose my question is more for sh*ts and giggles :-) as I have no intention of selling either.

Hey Stephen,
I used the GoLite Hex 3 way back in the day for a couple of trips. My memories are foggy but I do recall enjoying it, finding it roomy and tall inside, and stable enough when I pitched it near the ridgeline of the Crest Trail in the White Mountain Wilderness, NM.

I realize the above description might be a little vague, but bear with me.

I currently have a TrailStar in sil, have had it for the last 18 months or so. Only used it on a few trips but have certainly gotten the hang of how it behaves. I just got back from a trip in Colorado last week and had some thoughts about it and a lot of my other gear, detailed in this thread:
http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/xdpy/forum_thread/79500/index.html

… but if you don't feel like scrolling through all that brain-dump of mine, here's the relevant part of my write up:

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Shelter
Main shelter – MLD Trailstar
I seemed to have different feelings about my Trailstar each time I used it. On the one hand, the Trailstar was the most versatile, reliable, and useful shelter out of any that our crew brought on trail. That combined with generally better site selection than my friends meant that even when we got a rain and sleet storm at 2:30am on the last night, the covered area under my tarp stayed 98% dry, save for some spray which was shrugged off by my water resistant bivy. I had no fears that night or really any other about the ability of my shelter to keep me and my gear dry, protected, and warm. And, for one person, let’s be honest, the full size Trailstar is just freaking huge. But, the rest of my group averaged around 2.5lb/person for shelter, whereas I was humming along at about 15oz. To summarize, my Trailstar has so far lived up to the hype. It is light, big, and feels happy to be inside.
The downsides of the Trailstar are substantial, though. First, it requires a rather large footprint to pitch properly. If one wishes to reduce the size of the required footprint by staking the guyout points directly to the ground, then the geometry of the shelter dictates that the eyebrow door of the shelter be correspondingly lower and tighter. At least, this is my present understanding of how to use the tarp effectively, without compromising a tight hummer pitch. In that sense, the more that I shrink the footprint of the shelter, quite obviously, the smaller the interior living space and the more of a hassle it is to wiggle in and out through the door. That’s irritating to say the least.
For that reason I frequently pitched the tarp high, at least a few inches off the ground at the sidewalls. But, this necessitated a huge footprint, with guylines stretching all over the place. Sometimes this necessitated wrapping guylines or even tarp edges gently around rocks, roots, or branches, which is not something I’d like to make a habit of. I imagine that a tarp’s edges even moving gently along the side of a rock throughout the night could abrade the stitching or fabric in pretty short order. More than that, though, pitching a shelter with a huge footprint is, aside from being a potential hazard to the shelter itself, just sometimes a pain in the ass.
Finally, and most curiously for me — the matter of versatility, and how it relates to simplicity. The Trailstar is truly a versatile and highly effective shelter, in my mind straddling the gap between fiddly flat tarps, and dead-easy shaped tarps with only one proper geometric setup option. Being in the middle of this continuum, the Trailstar exhibits excellent stability and stormworthiness, while also being useful in a variety of settings — for instance, when we set it up as a high daytime lunch shelter when we had a few hours to kill at Pawnee Lake, about 6 feet tall at the apex.
This versatility, however, again means that sometimes it’s a pain in the butt to get it worked out just right. I find myself wanting to eliminate every slackened panel, wanting to every time get that perfect pitch. It is one part recreational and one part onerous chore, and more so the latter at the end of a very long day on trail. For that reason, some nights I found myself wishing for the simplicity of a more-shaped tarp such as a pyramid or hex. What one gives up in versatility with those types of shelters, one gains back in the sense of being dead easy to set up, set it and forget it.
This strikes at a question that is near to the heart of our ultralight community — should I get new gear that is easier to use, or should I just get better at using what I have? Surely with more experience, my skill with the Trailstar would grow, and in time I would either get used to these shortcomings or learn to work around them. But in the meantime, I would intermittently continue being frustrated and wishing I had something simpler and more compact to set up.
Concluding thoughts:
Unsure. If I replaced the Trailstar I’d do so with a pyramid-shaped tarp of some kind, likely with a zippered door. I am unsure of what candidates are on the market for a reasonable price that might be within the same weight class and in the same grade of reliability and stormworthiness as the Trailstar. Suggestions welcome.

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As you'll see if you look at that thread I linked, the suggestion was to replace it with a 'mid. The ideal substitute for a TrailStar, at least in my initial research, is probably an MLD Duomid. But a Speedmid or Supermid, I'm sure, would also be excellent.

In summary here are the reasons that I'm presently considering selling my TrailStar and replacing it with a 'mid (and I am lumping the GoLite SL3 / Hex 3 into the category of "mid"):

1) Mids have a smaller overall footprint and thus can be pitched in more places.
2) Mids have a simple, static geometry, which means there's no great chore of tuning and re-tuning guylines and stakes in order to get all the slack out and create a perfect pitch.
3) Mids (at least the ones I'm aware of) have a zippered door, which means a very quick and non-cramped exit, even while the overall pitch of the shelter is very protective. By contrast, with a TrailStar one usually sets up what's called an "eyebrow" door, which is fairly low, and the more protective you want your pitch, the lower the door has to be. That means the more you have to crouch or crawl in order to get into and out of the shelter. If the TrailStar happens to have interior condensation, then you'll likely brush your back against the top the eyebrow door, and halfway soak the back of your thermals or down jacket, or whatever you're wearing.

In conclusion, I have been led to believe that 'mids offer a comparable amount of stormworthiness, but are overall just a bit simpler and more convenient to use, at the expense of being a little less flexible and versatile.

Finally to speak to your specific question, here's what I know:
1) The TrailStar has been rumored by some to be among the best shelters in the world for wind stability. You can pitch it quite low, it's very tough, and the geometry is very clever, which are all a credit to its design(er). So if you regularly camp in high winds, you might want to favor the TrailStar.
2) Mids of all kinds are generally taller and leaner than the TrailStar. That means they will shed more snow, but they will also catch more wind. However, you may need to be in an insane gale force storm before you surpass the wind-shedding capacity of *either* a good Mid or a TrailStar.
3) The GoLite SL3, if it is the same as the old Hex 3 (and I believe it is) is probably not exactly a fair comparison to a TrailStar. It's larger and heavier, and since it's six-sided rather than the usual four (of a typical mid) it will be a bit more fumbly to get pitched in a perfect geometry. I do remember that about it. Measuring out a perfect hexagon on the ground is roughly as fumbly as measuring out a semi-perfect pentagon for the TrailStar.

Thanks for reading, sorry for the brain dump, hope this was helpful :-)

Heh, looks like while I was writing my small novel, several others already said most of what I was saying :-)

Ian,

All good info there,

Here is a photo from my first night out with the Trailstar. I see both the Trailstar and the Sl3 getting a lot of use this winter.

They're both good enough.

wow Ian thank you very much for that! i have been going back and forth between a hexamid and trailstar. you really helped me with that decision.

Unna sans inner. Huge in there!

The Unna without an inner is very spacious indeed Mr Thompson.

I am always frugal about what I spend on gear but when I added it up the Trailstar and sl3 bought used cost the same as what my wife and spent last Saturday night on the theatre and a mediocre meal in New York.

Oh forgot to mention a lot of folk back in Europe are rather annoyed that Golite kit can no longer be purchased outside the Us.

Seems like GoLite gave up the EU market for Eureka WickiUp SUL 3 & 4 http://www.eurekaeurope.com/c/tents_ultra-light

Apparently both designs are identical.

I see the Trailstar as a highly refined tool – a “smart tarp”, if you may. If this “tool” fits more of your specific needs in the foreseeable future, then it’s a great fit.

However, given that it’s more “tent-like” in it’s design, the SL3 (imo) will have greater versatility in relation to the type of trips one might to use it for. For example; I am sure it has been done before, but I seriously doubt many of us would feel comfortable pitching a Trailstar and leaving it unattended at the local state park campground, next to the RV’s and party tents, and trusting that it and all our belongings underneath it will actually be there at the end of the day.

In other words: an SL3 is kind of like a hammer, whereas the Trailstar is like a finish nail gun.

Great reply Matt.

The SL3 came in the post yesterday and I setup the outer straight away.

I can see it seing a lot of use as 2 person shelter for 3 season use with the inner and by itlsef in winter :-)

The outer is only 100g heavier than the Trailstar so I wil have to see which gets more use.