Changing gear and need tent help. ( loooong)

Bill, I can speak to three options you might consider.

1. Hilleberg Unna or Soulo. Bombproof, easy to pitch, very compact. The Unna is my go-to shelter for bad weather. The Soulo is the same tent with some living area made into a vestibule. I use this for packrafting and winter camping.

2. Tarptent Scarp 2. Sold mine but have used the similar but larger Hogback quite a bit. Windproof and very stout, and easy to pitch.

3. Warmlite 2R (or 2C if you prefer). Lightweight, spacious. No vestibule. Not freestanding but completely windproof and waterproof. Some condensation issues.

I've reviewed the Unna, Hogback, and 2C for BackpackGearTest.org if you'd like more detail. I'm a big guy and mildly claustrophobic, so I tend to favor more room at a cost of a pound or two.

Richard

Hi Bill and welcome to BPL! I've never owned a Tarptent so please take what I have to say here with a grain of salt.

It sounds like you are primarily interested in a free-standing shelter but have mentioned shelters like the Akto which aren't.

As far as free standing tarptents go, you may want to consider the Moment DW too. The scarp specs out at 48oz plus an additional 12oz pole set if you want to pitch it free-standing. The Moment DW is advertised at 34oz with an optional 7oz pole for free-standing and snow load.

Hopefully Eric and Franco will weigh in here as they have quite a bit of experience with these shelters.

Bill,

I have a Scarp 2 BUT I modded it for winter winds and snow load.

Go to "Winter Hiking" here in BPL and look for my Scarp 2 mod photos.
You CAN make a Scarp 2 extremely wind worthy with my mods and they are not difficult to do. Plus, I've done the homework and proven the mods to work very well.

Don't get me wrong, with the optional crossing poles and guy lines on each side and at each end you can have a stable tent without my mods.
BUT… by putting the X-ing poles INSIDE the fly makes the tent much better in high winds. I've tested it in 65 mph gusts and it was solid with no flapping. I have the ripstop inner tent for 4 season use. My internal X-ing poles do not interfere with attatching the inner tent.

The Scarp 2 can even sleep 3 people head-to-toe. Two doors and vestibules and a fly that goes all the way to the ground for good wind resistance. You can (for a small charge) have Tarptent sew 4 stake loops on the bottom edge of the fly to have "belt-and-suspenders" wind security.

So far no one has suggested that silnylon tents are anything more than waterproof in steady hard extended rain.

I like the Unna but the lack of vestibule is a big issue for me. It's also at the top of the weight range I would like to carry. The floor space and simplicity are nice though. I don't like the arrangement of the door on warmlite for rainy environments. The inner of the tent must be covered by the door when it's open.

I forgot about the second pole option on the Moment DW.. That makes it more appealing.

Any thought on the construction quality differences between Big Sky and Tarptent?

Bill

Hi Bill,

I just bought a Soulo in December and I love it. I've been using Black Diamond Bibler tents for about 14 years and this is my first double wall tent since then. I use it primarily in the North Cascades and Coast Mtns of BC.

The Soulo is on the heavier side for a solo tent, but it pitches VERY fast, it's robust, has a vestibule and is quite spacious inside. It's full of nice little design features. It's a well thought-out tent and the materials/workmanship is the best I've seen. If I were to critique it at all, I'd say it's a bit fiddly compared to say a Bibler I-Tent – there's a lot going on with the Soulo.

I would recommend without question. Let me know if you have any questions.

I have no doubt that a Soulo would be a choice 1p tent to weather out most anything. My only two issues with it are weight/bulkiness and lack of a door on the other side. In a perfect world i would like one tent that works for super wet Prince William Sound and tropical Mexico (super ventilation). The Soulo has dryness and strangth in spades but would be miserable in Mexico even with the mesh interior.

Both the Moment DW and say, the Big Sky Revolution 1p should be fine in the tropics as they have opposing openings or the ability to do so and that really helps catch any light breeze from any direction, plus all screen options.

The more i think about it what i really should have asked is basically .. ‘can i trust Silnylon fabric in extended rain to keep be totally dry’ (condensation issues not included in dryness .. that's a separate issue).

I don’t want to make the mistake i made once before when i took a new Bibler Ahwahnee to Prince William Sound. It rained every day for 14 days and it stayed dry inside for first 4 days of steady rain and then that was it, water came in everywhere. It was just too much and the tent fabric and it whetted out and gained about 3 lbs. I thank the Epic fabric on my Feathered Friends bag and cotton shirt mopping several times a night for keeping me warm and dry-ish. I had a number of people insist that the Ahwahnee would do fine up there and after the trip i explained what had happened to them. They both admitted that they had never been in rain more than a day or two in there Ahwahnee…. :-/

So, has anyone out there spent extended rain time in there Silnylon tent. Would you trust it on a 2 week trip where it essentially never drys out to keep you and a down bag dry?

Good silnylon will stay waterproof for longer than you want to spend in a tent. I doubt any commercial silnylon tents will be using any 'bad' silnylon. Yes, I have spent 'a few days' under silnylon in the rain. Oh well, maybe 4 weeks continuous?

On the other hand, we KNOW that EPIC fabric wets out quickly. The fabric in the Bibler Ahwahnee is probably just fine in the snow if you stay below freezing the whole time. I suspect that the Ahwahnee was a good lesson for a lot of outdoors gear companies: it was a bomb!

Cheers

If you're worried about the lack of an Inner for the Unna, Sean at Oookworks has made a smaller inner for it that leaves a bigger vestibule inside. There are pictures of it on his website, it is very cool.

You might not be able to wait long enough to get one from Oookworks, but maybe you could get someone else to make one for you if you decide to get an Unna.

Tarptents are now using 'Shield' silnylon, which has a hydrostatic head of over 3500mm, which is better than what Hilleberg uses on some of their 3 season offerings. You should have no issue with waterproofness with Tarptent.

Some silnylon fabrics have been known to mist a bit with heavy rain. My experience has been good and I would expect to have more moisture from condensation in a single wall shelter, regardless of the fabric used. If I have a complaint with silnylon, it is the tendency to sag a bit when wet. That's a small thing on my list.

I've used silnylon tent for week of rain

I used 2nds which has minor misting, but I don't think it's enough to matter. You can feel a very small amount of mist on exposed skin, but it's not enough to get stuff wet.

Besides, some condensation is inevitable, and hard rain will knock some of that off, and you'll get way more wet from that than any misting.

But, may as well just get the Shield silnylon if it's available

If you're using it for a floor, you definitely want the Shield, although if you coat cheap silnylon with mineral spirits:silicone it will make it waterproof. When I've coated the bottom surface that's against the ground, it starts peeling off after a few weeks, so that doesn't work so good, but the top surface holds up pretty good. But again, why bother if Shield is available.

So after emailing Big Sky tents three times in the last week they're are in danger of possibly missing a sale. All I have asked is what the static head of there Silnylon is and have never heard back. Does anyone out there have that info? Or how it compars to what it used in Tarptends. I do like the designs but the communication from Tarptent has been much much better.

Bill

the akto :
is a wonderful thing, but weighs a bit over three pounds with rigging. it, and the unna, Desperately need a decent window. sans window it is quite too warm on better afternoons when you may want to rest. plus, there's no view out of it, and that's a waste right there in my op.
i am installing a window in my new akto next week and am taking pictures to explain what is a fairly complex bit of sewing trickery.
if i was buying a tent for the real world, i'd call henry and bag me a moment dw. and even IT probaby still needs a proper window.

stay tuned.

cheers,

Peter's right, a window helps. Mine has the equivalent of a window – a tulle mesh panel on the door. Possible for me only because I bought the tent from Peter.