Big Agnes Scout UL2 Plus – Initial Impressions

Will two hiking poles work in an "A" configuration at the front so the front entry wouldn't be blocked?

That's a good question. I'll give it a try tonight. I imagine it could be moved to the side. It's not a deal-breaker to have the pole there, it's just an inconvenience. Since my wife carries trekking poles as well, that could be a great solution.

Looking forward to more review after you use it.

"So it's right under 2 lbs without the stakes and instructions." Apart from the instructions, you would still require the 13 stakes so realistically, this is a 2lb, 5oz tent (still decent for two people).

Can you set it up without using all of the stakes?

Thanks for checking. I assume the two poles will work at the front in an A configuration, inside the tent. That would eliminate one of the major inconveniences with the Scout.

@ DaveU

Yes, you're right, it's at 2 lbs 5 oz. The stakes are DAC stakes. They're not heavy, but I could definitely save weight on the stakes. With the stretchy nature of the silnylon, I could get away with weaker stakes. The only real way to lighten the weight of this tent is to replace the stakes with something lighter. Ti sheperds hook stakes or carbon stakes will most likely save me a few oz. When zpacks and HMG list their tent weight, they're not including the weight of stakes (since they don't ship their tents with stakes included).

I'll experiment with fewer stakes too, good idea. If I ran a piece of cord from the 4 corners of the orange floor, I imagine I could tie the cord into the stakes used for the grey "roof." This would make setup more tricky and time-consuming, but we've all done crazier things to save a few oz. :)

I may even be able to pitch it without any of the 4 orange corners tied out, more like a zpacks duplex. That being said, i didn't exactly like that about the zpacks, it's nice to have the bathtub secured in place rather than blowing around. I'll have to experiment, as this may not even work.

I imagine I could also leave off the two stakes that tie out the middle of the long-side of the grey roof. It would lose a little ventilation, but it could work.

I'll take some pics of different stake setups.

there's also a little metal rod inside the prop stick of the frog-eye vent on the vestibule. It probably weighs an oz. That could be replaced with something even lighter if you care enough to modify it.

"When zpacks and HMG list their tent weight, they're not including the weight of stakes (since they don't ship their tents with stakes included)."

Very true. I'd add Six Moon Designs and MLD to that list.

" Apart from the instructions, you would still require the 13 stakes so realistically, this is a 2lb, 5oz tent…"

Not necessarily. I haven't used a stake on a tent in about 30 years.
Mostly they don't work above treeline in the Sierra anyway… they either don't go in because of the rocks or don't hold in the decomposed granite. I use rocks.

Billy

You are going to need 13 rocks where Billy treks above treeline.

LOL

Not sure this would be my first choice above treeline…..

Thanks to all your suggestions, I did some more experimenting today.

I wanted to see if there was a way to get by with fewer stakes, so I removed all 4 of the stakes holding the orange bottom down. It worked. The tent bottom blew around in the breeze, but it didn't affect how taught the top was, so it can definitely be done with 4 fewer stakes.

That being said, I don't really want the bottom of my tent to blow around, I like it semi-taught. My plan is to put some shock cord on each of the 4 orange tie out points and attach them to the same stakes as the grey roof. That's 4 fewer stakes. We'll see how that works.

Next I wanted to see if there was a way to move the main pole out of the way. This is actually very stable and seems to work good. I had to pull the main guyline in line with the trekking pole to get the tension right, but it works well. It does put kind of a weird twist on the tie-down loop on the top of the tent. I'll keep an eye on this and see if it causes a problem over time.

Without the 4 orange corner stakes:

With the corners staked out:

With the fly zipped up, you can't even tell that it's got the pole in at an angle:

Part 3.

My wife and I decided to test out some of our gear last night in the backyard. We tested our summer bags to see how comfortable they were down to 30*. I had my WM Summerlite (32*) with 2 oz overfill, and she tested her WM Megalite (30*) with various clothing options. We also tested the new tent.

I had left the tent set up since noon, mainly to see how much it stretched out over time and to see how it fares being left for a while. We climbed in around 11 PM. I immediately noticed that the inside of the grey roof had ice and condensation on it. When I had pitched the tent, I pitched it over wet grass. During the day, i'm sure the water on the grass evaporated and rose up to the tent roof. I can't blame the tent one bit for this, but I thought it was worth noting.

The tent was a little saggy. I later figured out that this was because of how I pitched the main pole at an angle. It didn't put enough tension length-wise on the roof to keep it up when loaded down with condensation. The roof sagged a bit lower than earlier in the day. I'm sure pitching the tent as intended would fix this problem. Even so, it wasn't much of a problem. Once I was lying down in my bag, the roof wasn't near me, so I stayed dry. If I were to sit up quickly during the night, I'd probably brush against the wet roof, but that didn't happen. The cool thing was that there was zero condensation below the roof. It had passed through the mesh to the outside.

Immediately I could tell that the tent was a lot warmer than my zpacks duplex. It's probably the same warmth as my HMG Echo II when pitched low to the ground. There is considerably more room in the scout than the echo II. My wife mentioned that we would be able to sit up and play cards all day if we got stuck in a long storm. Not to mention we'd be able to use the vestibule area as well, which is bigger than the echo II.

There was plenty of ventilation, but it wasn't breezy. Then again, the breeze was pretty tame that night. My wife didn't have a hard time climbing in once I was already in, so pitching the pole to the side ended up being a good thing while entering. In the future, I'll pitch it as intended, them move the pole to the side when entering and exiting, then putting it back for the night.

Apart from that, it was uneventful. We slept all through the night with no drama. The overnight temps ranged from 28*F to 19*F. I wasn't expecting it to snow, but it did snow a bit during the night, which only made our testing better. I woke up a few times to notice the roof covered in snow. I knocked it off from the inside, and it fell aside. The weight of the snow on the roof caused it to stretch a little, and it wasn't pitched as taught as when I initially started at noon the day before. If I cared enough, I could have snugged up the guy lines and taken out the slack, but it was snowing and I was warm in my bag. When I knocked off the snow, I noticed that there was still ice on the inside of the roof, just like when we entered the tent. I believe that if I had pitched the main pole straight, and tightened up the guy lines, the condensation would have had an easier time rolling off the roof down to the mesh. It was also unusually humid that day, with rain, hail, and snow going all day. Not super typical for Utah.

In the morning, we woke up after a great night's sleep and headed in to the house. I left the tent set up with the pole angled just to see how it fares later today. I hope this review has helped.

Thanks for Posting.

"You are going to need 13 rocks where Billy treks above treeline.

LOL"

I'm missing the joke… Is that funny? It's certainly not a problem to find 13 rocks… or 13 million rocks for that matter…

"Not sure this would be my first choice above treeline."

Actually, I have found it to be the ONLY choice at many High Sierra camps I've had.
If your stakes won't pound into the rock or hold in the decomposed granite, then you have carried the weight of useless stakes for nothing. Now that's something to lol about.

Billy

At this point, I'm very satisfied with the tent. However, this may just be the honeymoon period.

I've got two more trips this month, where I'll be able to test it in the desert to see how it does keeping sand and dust out (my biggest complaint with the zpacks duplex). More info to follow in the coming months as I put it through its paces.

FWIW, I have it pitched with 12 stakes, with one left over. I could get that down to 8 stakes if I had some shock cord between the orange corners and the grey corners.

"I'm missing the joke… Is that funny? It's certainly not a problem to find 13 rocks… or 13 million rocks for that matter…"

Yes – it is funny. I want to see this shelter set up with 13 rocks just for visual hilarity. Or 13 million rocks for even more chuckles, facetious remark aside.

"Not sure this would be my first choice above treeline."

This is referring to the type of shelter, not your insistance on rocks and relates to my first comment – ergo, perhaps a non freestanding shelter above treeline is not the best for your trips. FWIW, you would be better served with using the stakes in a deadman angle with the rocks, not just rocks alone for tension. Have you looked at how this tent is staked? So that would be 13 stakes and 13 rocks….

I'm having some trouble reconciling "super easy to set up" with "requires 13 stakes."

Just *thinking* about bending over to set 13 stakes makes me tired.

To be clear, it takes 12 stakes, but you find staking a tent difficult, you could run lean and only use 6 stakes.

Give it a try first, you'll see how easy it is. There's no magic way to pitch this tent to get it to work. You put stakes where the corners are, and adjust the strings. Most other trekking pole and tarp tents require you to stake, then re-stake multiple times as you try to get the proper tension on all the lines. Not the case with this tent. You put your stakes in, pitch it, and it's done. No need to re-position stakes, or change pole heights, or change the angle of guy lines. To me, that's easy to set up. You don't need to "practice" setting this up multiple times to learn how to have the ideal pitch.

Let's face it, we're backpackers who walk 1-25 miles a day to camp. Surely we can handle putting in 8-12 stakes for our shelter. Besides, there aren't too many sub 2 lb 2-man tents that don't require 8 or more stakes.

The design of the tent makes it very simple to pitch. There are plenty of other tents out there with fewer stakes, that are far more difficult to pitch, especially when you consider having to re-stake corners that don't have equal tension.

Perhaps I'm not that anal retentive (at least in regard to the tensions of my tent parts).

My tent requires 0 stakes, while I am lying in it.

If I have two stakes and have to fiddle with each one 6 times, isn't that better than fiddling with 13 stakes 1 fiddlin' apiece?

That doesn't even take into the time it takes to count all those stakes to make sure I haven't left one stuck in the ground.

To paraphrase The Boss: " I ain't here to pound stakes, baby, I'm only here for fun."

For a light two person tent I'druther have the Tarptent Squall 2 at 34 oz.

1. more interior space
2. faster setup
3. fewer stakes to carry
4. more aerodynamic for wind and snow load
5. MUCH easier entry & exit W/2 hiking pole front supports

I'd swallow the extra $$ upfront for the advantages of the Squall 2.

P.S. I think Henry Shires will add an optional middle (interior) arched pole for more support for wind and snow load, although this is not a true 4 season tent.

The squall 2 looks nice, but it wouldn't work for where I camp (mainly desert). It'd have the same issue as my old hexamid duplex. The bathtub floors are so low that any breeze would blow sand right under the edges of the vestibule and right in to the tent. It does look like a cool tent though, and extra points for being cheaper, bigger, and for requiring fewer stakes than the Big Agnes Scout 2 UL.

> 5. MUCH easier entry & exit W/2 hiking pole front supports

I don't imagine there is much difference in ease of access if you use 2 hiking poles at the front of the Scout UL 2 Plus in an A configuration as I suggested.

The Scout UL 2 Plus is taller at the rear than the Squall 2, though narrower at the front.

Also the Scout UL 2 Plus has a much larger and better protected vestibule than the Squall 2.

Paul, I think youre right. Sorry k haven't tested it with two poles in an a up front. I dont see why it wouldn't work, but I'll give it a shot and let you know how it turns out.

I was able to test the two trekking pole idea, and it worked great.

I think I will be doing that moving forward.

This time, we went to bed on dry grass. There was a slight breeze that I could feel blowing through the tent during the night. I noticed a fair amount of condensation on the grey part inside the tent in the middle of the night, and even more in the morning. We slept with the vestibule closed, so that may have had something to do with the condensation. Either way, I feel like it had more condensation than it should.

Also, the walls and roof of the tent get loose and sag a bit during the night. When I got up to pee, I staked the side guy lines out wider, and this helped a lot, but when the roof has moisture on it, it wants to sag, even with tight guy lines.

It was a humid night, which is uncharacteristic of Utah, but I still noticed more condensation on the inside than I wanted. The next two weekends will involve some trips out in the desert, so we'll see how the condensation does there.

So far, I like the tent for its weight, design and simplicity, but I don't care for the sagging walls in the middle of the night, or the condensation issues I'm experiencing.