Can I do better than a Zpacks Solplex?

A little heavier, but the Lightheart Gear solo cuben is a great shelter, great ventilation, roomy, easy to set up, bathtub floor. Always was my favorite ground shelter for 3-season backpacking. And someone is selling one for a decent price: http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=81882

Yama Mountain Gear Cirriform for $420 maybe an option at 17.5 oz….http://www.yamamountaingear.com/cirriform-sw-1p/

There is also an MLD cuben SoloMid with inner net which should come in around 18 oz.

You didn't say if you were set on cuben. There's a silnylon Duomid with solo inner net on sale in this forum for $330.

…over the alternatives mentioned for the following reasons (obviously, my priorities may not match yours):

– Dry setup in the rain. The Solplex (and Duplex) are easily laid out and erected in the rain because they are a single piece. The fly/doors protect the interior during the setup process. I have done this several times in the field.

– Protected entryway. When raining, the downwind doors can be left open for ventilation. If there is no wind, all doors can be open…awesome! The fly is designed to drip out past the net walls.

– Side entry. Granted, at 6'2", 220lbs, I'm not small…nor terribly flexible, but I have never found an end-entry shelter that I considered easy to enter/exit.

Go for the Soloplex. You know you want it. If it doesn't suit your needs, then sell it. I would be happy to take it off of your hands at a lower price. : )

Seriously…I agree with John. My needs may be different than yours but he summed it up. Dry set up in the rain is golden for me. Makes it easy when the storm is blowing hard and rain is sideways.

> You didn't say if you were set on cuben.
Cuben is just a means to an end. I want my summer shelter system to weigh a pound or less. How I get there is irrelevant as long as my specified needs are met.

I appreciate all the responses so far. I am feeling terribly under the weather today so I will review the options mentioned in further detail later.

I'm looking too, do not like opinions on the cuben floor though and second, the price. Aging, so debating whether another Hex tent K(really light) or SMD Deschutes tarp and Serenity net tent for component system flexibility and a little more ground level wind protection and no fiddle factor dealing with rain water in a rain. If nice weather (Sierra), only set up the netting, saving wear and tear on the cuben tarp. Holding out still for more info, ideas and learning the price of the Deschutes. Oh man, terrible being a Libra, weighing info too much.
Duane

You could also go with a hex solo tarp and a smd net tent.

4oz + 7.9oz

12 ounces for a super versatile setup. And only $300.

Here's a pic of mine, let me know if you want the link to my review of this.

Michael I remember. Thank you though. Of course can't see that today, at work on my break.
Duane

Six Moon Designs Skyscape X might work for you.

I got a Serenity Net Tent on gear swap last year, and I love it. It fits perfect under my Hexamid tarp and makes for a very light fully enclosed shelter. It also fits well under my Duomid, and works alone for sierra, bug-free stargazing in summer months. I would suggest anyone try the Zpacks Hexamid and SMD net combo. It's under a pound, fully enclosed, and laden with options. Spend some money down the road and get a cuben groundsheet or poncho for when you don't have bugs, or a bivy for winter.

To the OP: you should also look at the Skyscape X from SMD. It's $550, but a great shelter. See John Abela's excellent review. I had a Trekker and loved it. I preferred it to my friend's Lightheart solo, and, to me, it looks every bit as nice as the solplex.

Duane, I also have the Zpacks bathtub solo floor, and it (the 1 ounce cuben) is quite impervious to the pine needles and twigs I thought would go right through it. I think older concerns may be related to shelters with .74 cuben floors.

Ron at SMD suggested to one person on here interested in a Skyscape X that they should tape a piece of polycro cut to the size of the footprint to the bottom if they were afraid of being careless and just change it out every so often between trips.

I'm curious; what exactly do you prefer about the Skyscape as compared to the Lightheart Solo?

To my untrained eye the SMD Skyscape and the LightHeart Solo look the same. Why would I choose one over the other?

Michael L, I'd like to see that review of your Hexamid + Net Tent set up.

The one huge upside to me of the Solplex is the simplicity over this, nothing extra to stake down. I've seen the set up of the Solplex on Zpacks website, and I'm curious to how the set up with a separate net tent compares. How do you hold up the netting?

Hex + smd net:

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=84915

Just say no to overpriced cuben fiber shelters. I have ; ).

I have the soloplex, I'm happy with it.
If I expect rain I would probably also bring along a 2 oz polyproplene ground sheet
and duck tape it to the cuben so even if I was sleeping in a river it would not get in, the big bathtub on the soloplex would be great in the rain. The disadvantage of the big cuben bathtub in hot weather is it block the breeze from coming in but I would just lay my pack on top of it to keep it flat.

The zpacks hexamid long is also a great option but weighs more.
Huge amount of room. I don't like my sleeping bag touching the side of the tent.

Cuben gets less condensation than silnylon.

The other option for me would be a MLD solomid XL with a sea to summit nano bugnet.
about the same weight. It would handle the wind and rough conditions better. Less pegs, easier setup. If the bug net is a hassle. You could get bearpaw to sew on a net door.

I have a duomid and a solo inner. I leave the inner attached all the time during bug season. There are no extra pegs, no extra pitching…it rolls up with everything all at once, like a single piece tent; it just happens to be a double walled one.

So no, I disagree. The inner net is not any trouble at all

The only one I have any experience with was a cuben lightheart and it weighed almost as much as my Trekker (silnylon) 20 oz. vs. 23 oz. It also did not seem to pitch as tight or offer as much vestibule/porch space as the SMD tent. Not sure of the differences, I think it may have been slightly larger and that's likely why my buddy purchased it (he's 6' 4"). That's about it. Just that pitched, the Skyscape looked and felt a little more practical and thought out . I've never owned one, though, so many of the most important traits may have been lost on me, durability, etc.

"To my untrained eye the SMD Skyscape and the LightHeart Solo look the same. Why would I choose one over the other?"

Here's some pics I took when I first got a Lightheart Gear Solo: http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=49500

The pad inside this is the large neoair, not regular. Gives you a good idea of the room, and the plentiful extra room on each side of the pad (easy to have all your gear inside the shelter with you), as well as extra room at the head and foot.

With the awning version, which I had, you'll also see how you can really open it up, even when it's raining (unless it's a hard, sideways rain). And with (optional, I opted) doors on both sides, ingress/egress is easy and you don't have to worry about what's beside you when you pitch it.

I always hammock now, which is why I sold mine. If I did a lot of ground camping, I never would have let it go.

The other option for me would be a MLD solomid XL with a sea to summit nano bugnet.
about the same weight. It would handle the wind and rough conditions better. Less pegs, easier setup. The bug net is a hassle. You could get bearpaw to sew on a net door.

This!! I received my cuben XL and even at 6 ft 5 there is a ton of room. My plains the STS nano but I have not set them up together yet

With that said I do have a duplex from Zpacks and it is pretty amazing shelter. I don't think you can go wrong with anything mentioned in this thread

Jeff

Hey All,

As most of you know I do not like talking about gear until I have a thousand plus miles on it or have used it for months and months out on the trail, but given that the SolPlex is so dang new, and the fact that Joe sent me out his personal one to try out for a weekend and see how I like it, I thought I would jump in this thread real quick and share some thoughts.

First off, I have some photos and videos that I have uploaded to my HikeLighter facebook page.

It started with this set of photos.

I then posted this video, which I shot shortly after I got it setup (it was raining and did a piss-poor job of setting it up, it was my first time setting it up)

I then posted this video in which I did a quick walk-around of the shelter. I added notes to the video to explain a few things.

I then posted this video in which I show how the SolPlex handles a really good rain downpour. We had 0.36 inches of rain in under 20 minutes and nearly 40 mph wind gusts.

Without a doubt the things that have impressed me big-time about the ZPacks Hexamid SolPlex (allow me to just abbreviate that as ZPHSP from here out) are:

(1) The shelter has been in constant rain for 50+ hours. For about 15 of those hours (as of time of this posting) I have had one of the side-doors rolled opened. Not a SINGLE drop of rain has hit the bug netting where the door would normally cover it. ZPacks are calling these new doors “storm doors” and I gotta say, between them and the in-set bathtub, its just downright impressed me. Going to try leaving the door open all night (it is expected to rain all night and for the next three days) and see how it handles condensation with it raining and the door open and me in there sleeping. Last night it was raining all night and I had the door closed and it had a very minimal amount of condensation – which I am attributing to the fact that it is setup in my back yard on super wet ground and grass. It seems to have great ventilation even with both doors closed, but interested in seeing how it will handle it all night with a person sleeping inside.

(2) Its freaking huge inside. Check out this photograph… that is a XTherm Large (25″ wide pad) that is made to look tiny. Even the GoLite Chrome Dome not wide enough for this bathtub. Oh, and it is an 8 inch tall bathtub — woot!

Anyway, I only have one night inside of this shelter (second night will be in about two or three hours) so it is far from being a situation where I am willing to say “yeah, go drop $535 bucks” for this shelter, like I have for other shelters that I have spent 100+ nights inside of it and said such things. But, I think given the amount of days I spend in shelter has kind of put me at a place where just setting up a shelter and getting inside of it I know pretty much all I need to know about it… and at this point, I think I am ready to drop the money for one of these.

The SMD Skyscape X use to be the world lightest one-piece fully enclosed shelter. The ZPHSP has now taken over that honoured spot. Here are more of my thoughts I shared this afternoon on the SMDSX vs ZPHSP in which I really try to break down the numbers and facts of each shelter.

Unrelated to all of that and to answer another question:

Stephen Komae (skomae): To my untrained eye the SMD Skyscape and the LightHeart Solo look the same. Why would I choose one over the other?

Hey Stephen, yeah the SMDSX and HLGSCF have a lot in common, but there are also some things that very much set them apart.

The SMD Skyscape X now has external support and the HLGSCF is an internal structural support. This is a recent change to the SMDSX and is likely (???) due to the fact that LHG was awarded a patent (US8555908)

The SMD Skyscape X has an 80/20 apex. This means that you can sit up in it and not hit your head on the fabric, because the angle of the head end of the shelter is much steeper.

The downsides to the SMDSX are (a) it is almost never in stock – they seem to only do three or four production runs a year. (b) it has a cuben fiber floor and the LHG offers the ability to have a silnylon floor, which a lot of folks seem to prefer. (c) the bathtub floor of the SMDSX is not very tall.

The downsides to the HLGSCF is more expensive than the SMDSX and it is heavier.

Both of them are heavier and more expensive than the ZPacks SolPlex.

John,
I truly appreciate your insight about the Solplex. Your photos were very helpful and your attention to the details makes me more confident that the Solplex is the shelter for me.

I didn't realize that the bathtub floor was so big and deep. That's a huge plus!

I first had a zpacks dulplex and I when I switched and went to the soloplex I was disappointed at first because the angle of the sides at the foot and the head of duplex give so much more room. I don't like the side touching the foot of my bag but then I used the tieout at the foot and the head with stick and I was able to lift the side up enough that now I'm very happy with the soloplex
the soloplex
the foot of the soloplex

this is the foot area of the duplex
the duplex from the outside.

Thank you John on the PM reply, really appreciate it. Did not make my decision much easier. Still up in the air over either going SUL (plain Hex tent again at 12-13 oz. or tarping it with bug bivy) for summer use or going with something like the Solplex at out the door weight (poles, stakes) of 19-20 oz. but good for the shoulder seasons too. Nothing but money.
Duane