Anyone with experience with the Slingfin Portal 2?

[Joey G]

It’s on pre-order right now with a October ship date. https://www.slingfin.com/products/portal-2

Was wanting to get some more intel on it before hitting the purchase button.

[Paul S]

A decent self standing tent. Roomy enough for two.  My wife and I use it.

She uses a   Womens Xlite thermarest and I have a large Xlite thermarest. The pads fit, but not much extra room beyond that. Nice internal pockets for stowing stuff.

Fairly good in the wind if properly guyed-out-and there are provisions for good/solid guying (guy-out points connect to poles using toggles), plus trekking pole attachment points on the cross pole (!), as well as internal guy-outs.

Due to its modest size it’s easy to find a place to pitch it, and it is fairly light.

The rain fly and be tightened to be within about 2″ off the ground. The fly is 10D Silnylon – so far it has held-up.

The inner tent is almost completely mesh. I wish they made an accessory/optional inner tent for the Portal that had more solid fabric. It’s nice in warmer weather, but when it gets cold and windy we prefer something with less mesh. In winter we use the Slingfin Crossbow-mostly solid fabric.

So, for summer, and spring/fall when it’s not too cold, it is a great tent. Light, sturdy, compact.

 

 

 

 

[Bruce Tolley]

Joey, What specific questions do you have?

It has been reviewed extensively by various folks on the web. For example, SectionHiker.

Some of the reviews exaggerate its winter worthiness.  I would say it is a very light for a double walled tent ( less than 3 lbs) and designed with some specific features to increase its performance (meaning staying erect) when you expect high winds say along the Pacific Coast on the Pacific Crest.

One neat feature I like is the mechanical connection of the guyline to the pole which is described in the videos on the SlingFin site.

I was also looking for a tent with very large vestibules for cooking and storing gear.

I am 6 ft 2 inches and sleep on a NeoAir on top of a closed cell foam. The tent is almost not long enough. But if I set up the four corners properly to stretch the tent out to its full length, it works fine.

The tents are designed in Oakland/Berkeley, California and sewn in Vietnam (if I recall correctly).  All the aluminum hardware is from DAC. I would judge the materials and workmanship to be on par with the likes of Mountain Laurel Designs or Hilleberg, albeit all three have different design goals.

SlingFin is a small shop and the customer support team answers questions quickly. There are also detailed reviews on the SlingFin site from real users.

Hope this helps.

[Joey G]

I guess my first question would be should I be worried that the fly is 10D 1200mm. I’m still kind of new to backpacking and I wonder if it would wet out? All I know is that 1200mm is lower than other tents I’ve looked at such as DD Xmid.

Do you use the footprint often with it?

[Bruce Tolley]

@ Joey: You say wet out. There are many reports of silnylon absorbing water esp. from silpoly advocates.  Sometimes my silnylon shelters stretch and there is water on the surface that I need to shake off but I have not experienced water being absorbed.

But I think you are asking about hydrostatic head (HH).  I was a bit concerned about the Portal 2 spec but I read many reports of users in rainstorms that had no problems.  We are living in drought here in California so I have only been in only one serious rainstorm in the Portal 2 where we got about 1 inch in 8 hours.  The fabric is coated on both sides and very slick like my Hilleberg tent so at this point I am not worried about it.

You could ask the customer support guys at Portal.

By all reports, Durston makes very good shelters. If you want a lighter weight, trekking pole-supported shelter, you could not go wrong with a Durston shelter.

[Kevin M]

I’ve had a portal 2 for about a year now and it’s great.

In most ways it’s pretty similar to other 2 person dome tents with twin entrances, from the likes of Nemo or Big Agnes etc. But it has a few important differences that put it that little step above them (in my opinion obviously 😀)

It has a touch more headroom than most of them, and a touch more width at the top than them. It’s not much in paper, but really does help to make it feel nice and spacious inside.

The fly material sounds like it’s a concern on paper too, but it does seem to be a particularly high quality silnylon, strong and better at not becoming saggy and wetting out than most others.

And the good thing is the design means that it doesn’t ever actually take much force or strain when things get windy, the material is never put under pressure. The guy lines on the outside have matching little clips on the underside of the fly that attach to the poles, so when the wind blows and pulls on them, the guy is pulling on the pole itself, not the material. This is common on a few tents, but slingfin take it even further because the clips that go to the inner are also at the same place. And they then attach to internal guy lines that you can attach, which run down to the opposite bottom corner, and directly to the peg point on the ground. So the line of force travels directly from one ground peg, up the guy line, through the clips and poles, and down the internal guy to another ground peg. The actual material from both the outer and inner are both protected from much of any strain. That combined with good pole design means that even though it’s still only marketed as 3 season, it can stand up to a little more weather, even a touch of snow load, more than other tents of similar design/weight. Nice to know you have that in the back pocket, should you get caught out.

HH is fine, it’s pretty wet here in Scotland sometimes lol and it’s never been an issue.

Even just asthetically, the cut of the fly also seems particularly good. It seems to just fit well over the poles and inner and tension up well, and it doesn’t take much of any work to have it taught. You don’t end up spending ages tweeking and adjusting to get it sitting right.

K

[Rickyboyd]

I’ve watched the pitch videos as the crossbow was on the radar at one point. How is pitching the outer first method in practice please? P.s also live in Scotland so would get used this way predominantly.

[Kevin M]

I’ve only had to do it a couple to times, but it’s fine, wee bit footery but no big deal.

They didn’t have the matching footprint in stock at the time I bought mine, so I purchased a Nemo one to use which is almost exactly the perfect size, even the eyelets on the Nemo groundsheet match almost perfectly with those of the slingfin floor, so it can be pitched a few different ways depending on what I’m doing.

(I also got a Crossbow, bought them together so I could use the portal in summer/3 season, and the crossbow when it gets colder and wetter in late autumn and winter.)

Where are you in Scotland? If you were somewhere near me (glasgow-ish) I’d be happy to meet up some time, you could set it up and get to see it in person if you wanted.

[vireoes S]

The zippers on these tents are junk.  I take care of my gear well and the zippers were toast in a year of use.  I would go elsewhere for a tent.  I really wanted to love this one, now it is the the dust pile in the garage.

 

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

I think SlingFin uses #3 YKK zippers for the inner tent which is pretty standard for a lightweight tent. On the fly I think they use #4.5 which is more durable than the commonly used #3 zippers but not quite as durable as #5 that some companies use. So I think their zippers are pretty good and anything more durable would be a fair bit heavier. What issues did you have?

[Alex Wallace]

“The zippers on these tents are junk. I take care of my gear well and the zippers were toast in a year of use.”

“Pre-installed spare zipper sliders on every zipper double your zippers’ lifespan.” – Slingfin

@vireoes S – Did those fail too?

 

[Paul S]

My wife and I have been using the Slingfin Crossbow 2 since Feb. 2021. We use it from October to May and camp out roughly every other weekend. So, I approximate that we’ve put 15-20 overnights in the tent, Zippers have been no problem.

 

We also have the Portal 2, since October 2020 – No problems with any of the zippers.

 

[Joey G]

I took the Portal 1 on the Wonderland Trail this past summer. I loved it! I ended up getting the 1 because I was backpacking with two others and the campsites on the WT can be tight. The Portal 1 feels very spacious on the inside. The inner walls actually slant outwards vertically a little. Tons of pockets and the fabric is really high quality if you’ve listen to any of the BPL podcast or have done research on what they use.

IMO, the only manufacturer that makes higher quality semi-free standing tents is Hilleberg. However, they’ll be heavier. So to me, Slingfin makes the best semi-free standing lightweight tents.

I actually now have the crossbow 2 with mesh inner as a shoulder season / winter 2p tent and can’t wait to use it.

[Jeff L]

I have both the Portal 1 and the crossbow 2 with mesh inner and solid inner.  I have had zero issues with zippers and the tents have been out in heavy rain and had no issues.  The fly is silicone treated on both sides and doesn’t absorb water and dries very quickly.  In my opinion, there is not any better freestanding tents out there for the same weight and features.

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