LightHeart Gear, 20% off through 12/31

[Seth R]

May sway me to get a Solo instead of a Notch. The lack of second door and hybrid design kind of turn me off.

[J R]

Do you feel you need a second door on a solo shelter?

[Seth R]

It would be handy and give me more site placement options.

[BlackHatGuy]

Love my Lightheart Solo with two doors. Extremely handy, especially when breaking down. If I were to buy one again, I'd get one with two doors again.

[Seth R]

Do you find you need eight guy lines to keep the fly pitched taught? Seems like a lot of pictures show that you need that many to get a good pitch.

[J R]

You can get by with 4 if there's no wind or rain and you just want the fly for privacy. That would be 2 on the ridgeline, which you have to stake out anyway, and 2 on the corners of the fly out from where the poles nest. These are the 4 that you want taut and will hold the fly's overall shape. But it definitely holds its shape better to stake out the other four guylines on the middle of each of the four flat panels. You don't want these pulled too tight, and they already have guylines attached with loops, so for me it adds only a few additional seconds to guy out these last 4.

You can't really see it, but in my avatar that's my LH Solo with only the 4 main corners guyed out. The fly panels might sag a little but that's all.

As for 2 doors, I understand the versatility, I've just found no issues with first figuring which side I want the door on and then setting it up that way. HYOH.

[Seth R]

Thanks JR, I appreciate your input. Seems like a great price for a good shelter.

[J R]

It is. I'm sure you've read the many positive comments from folks here and other sites.

It does not give you the versatility to mix-and-match components to leave some at home if not needed (such as tarp only, bug net only, etc). But if you're going to take all components most or all of the time anyway it's very convenient to have the fly stitched on yet still the ability to roll the fly up to sleep under the net only.

And I guess I do see the potential versatility of 2 doors. With only 1 door you can turn the shelter around so that the door is on the other side, but it also will have moved "front" to "back" as well. For example, if pitched aligned with the compass, you could have the single door either on the southeast panel or the northwest panel, but never on the SW or NE panels (without re-orienting the floor). With 2 doors you could set it up so the door you use could be on any of the 4 panels. But I haven't found site location to be limiting such that the 1 door is in a bad position.

I do know that LH will make the Solo with 2 doors, not sure if that would be on sale though.

Good luck.

[John S.]

"Please make sure to let us know in the comments section what brand/make of trekking poles you will be using in the tent. We can work with all brands, but need to make a slight modification to the ridge pole for some brands."

That is on their front page. It is a slight drawback to know a shelter structure for one brand of hiking pole may not work so well if moving to another brand of hiking pole. Maybe they should explain fully.

It may relate to pole tip differences since their poles are handle down in the shelters. Wonder if trekking pole baskets cause a problem, snow baskets?

[J R]

John, your comments are valid, but not much of a concern. The ridge pole is a piece of lightweight hi-grade PVC pipe, crimped on each end at a precise angle to form the top and side angles for the entire structure. The pole tips fit in the ends of the PVC pipe. Any brand pole tip should fit in, particularly since the tip and housing tend to taper, so they will fit into the PVC up to the size that wedges squarely in the PVC hole.

The issue is if your poles are fixed or adjustable. The shelter is most taut, and strongest, when the poles are 130-135. If you have adjustable poles then no worries. But if you have fixed-length poles then there is some sort of adapter. I haven't seen it but I imagine it is some sort of extension pole for each side so that the shelter still is taut. If you change brand of trekking pole and need the adapters you could get them.

I set up my shelter leaving the mud baskets on. Haven't tried the snow baskets, I share your concern and probably would want to remove those before setting up the shelter.

Also, I've found flip-locks much easier than twist-locks for setting up the LH. You have to pull up hard on a pole section and then tighten it to get the walls really taut, that's a PITA with a twist-lock.

[BlackHatGuy]

"It may relate to pole tip differences since their poles are handle down in the shelters. Wonder if trekking pole baskets cause a problem, snow baskets?"

I've never had regular baskets pose a problem, but I'd think that snow baskets would definitely create a minor issue. Still, it's best used with no baskets on your poles IMO.

[BlackHatGuy]

"Also, I've found flip-locks much easier than twist-locks for setting up the LH. You have to pull up hard on a pole section and then tighten it to get the walls really taut, that's a PITA with a twist-lock."

+1. It's why I bought the CP3s to use instead of the LT4s.

[Marc Penansky]

John S.,
The issue causing us to ask which hiking pole you use is that a number of brands of poles have fatter tips than others. Our patented support system uses a piece of half inch PEX (cross- linked polyethylene) tubing rather than PVC. The narrower tips fit into the ends of our Ridge Pole snugly but for the fatter tipped hiking poles, we flare the ends of the Ridge Pole slightly to make it a more secure fit. You can use a flared Ridge Pole for a narrow tipped hiking pole, it just won't be a snug fit. But it is securely held in place as long as you extend the poles appropriately.
Marc Penansky
LightHeart Gear

[J R]

Thanks for clarifying Marc, I stand corrected.

[Jeff Hollis]

I wanted to look again at LightHeart shelter but can't get on to their site this morning.

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