Durston X-Mid Pro 2 Review

Hi Jon

I’ve used a XPro2 for 8 nights with 4 or 6 stakes depending on wind and if I want to 1 hand the zipper.

The first 2 nights my pitch had the issues you’ve point out in the pictures. The 3rd night I concentrated on getting the corner to corner seam taught and the stakes at +/-45 degrees to the corners. After this the perimeter has been tight even with just 4 stakes.

Between the tension and possible wind load I didn’t trust the supplied 6″ stakes so I used 7-8″ stakes at the corners.

The biggest issue I had is getting use to the larger footprint.

I’m noticing a pucker in the video on the long side of the door, down low where the bathtub is attached. I received mine and have the same pucker. Have you noticed this and have you found a way to mitigate it (and is it even necessary)? I’ve tried loosening the bungees a little and it helped some, but not fully. Pitched easy and more stable than I expected with just 4 stakes.

Glad you’re finding the pitch easy and stable. That pucker is normal. The floor connects to the fly there and the floor is under some tension, so it does create a dimple on the fly at that point.

Thanks Dan! The more I mess with this the more I like it. Hoping to get it out in the field this weekend. 🤓

I appreciate the video update, but the staking section was exhausting. Whew! It seems that only the four corners use line-locs, and all the other stake points are elastic loops which seem to cause very steep pull angles and minimal discretion in stake placement. It brought to mind the very interesting pull-angle insights that DD expounded on in this discussion.

Older youtube vid pitching the 1P.  Method works for any rectangular or square tent.  Geometry in the field. Triangulate the square to find center of the opposite side.    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aNTuurDEFE.                                                    Apologies if this has been presented before.

That method is money!

Hi guys, have the OG Xmid, the new Xmid 1 (HUGE improvements and well worth the cost) and now the Pro, which I’ve never taken into the field. One thing about that video is that it doesn’t really work with the 2 person, read the comments in the video. I’ve gotten pretty good at the old “eyeball” trick and can usually get the square right the first time. Although it’s nice to have some extra cord on the corners in case you hit rocks etc.

But I’ll tell you, I have over 150 nights in my Xmids and it’s still a little bit of a spitball getting the head position just right due to the “clocked” inner. Does the hive mind have any tricks? Meaning: I have a fairly square site that slopes a bit. I find myself laying out the inner, which I usually keep attached, then proceeding from there. A rather sloppy method that I would like to tighten up. Any tips would be swell!

EDIT: One issues V1 vs V2 I have is that the struts to hold open the vents are shorter by a good inch or two. I’ve found the vents sag a bit. Would be nice if they were longer like the old ones. But the rest of the changes, particularly the net tie outs on the inner and slightly larger inner are really great.

For orienting the inner, I throw out the tent onto the ground while holding one end of it. Like this, I know the sleeping position angles a bit to the left, so I throw out the tent in a direction that is a bit to the right (by about 20 degrees) so that the inner inside that angles left will be about right.

Dan, thanks for the reply. Very helpful. Always learning new stuff about this amazing tent. It’s a huge resource that you’re so engaged in not only the design but the user experience of these tents.

Sorry.  Didn’t mean to hijack the thread.

Hi Philip

I can’t think of a scenario when it needs to go from low to high so re-pitching done in the video isn’t necessary.

It will be easier to start off high and lower it if a storm comes in. Double staking the guy lines may work if the ground/sand/snow allows it but more than likely I’ll be laying rocks/logs across the guy lines.

Made some changes yesterday

Easier to know which is the top or bottom

Magnets holders for the bug mesh. I’m guessing this added 4g. Made with 1″ (15/16″) DCF tape cut in half then folded over. Tabs at the end are 1″ DCF tape folded over.

Couple more Velcro tabs to hold the vent close and 10′ of Lawson guy line at the peak

Longer guy lines with a longer tail to pull and bigger eyes to double wrap stakes. Orange on 2/ yellow on 2.

Prusiks on each corner using the shock cord taken off the tie outs reduces the tension on the bottom corner and add tension to the top. Makes the rods stand up so the edge of the floor across the ends is up 1/2″-1″.

Also put guy line on the other (doors included) ties out to reduce the chance of damaging the DCF when driving stakes in.

Longer guy lines with a longer tail to pull and bigger eyes to double wrap stakes. Orange on 2/ yellow on 2.

I like your mods! Clever stuff. Though, just so I’m clear…you have big eyes, so you can double wrap 1 eye over your stake. Though….why? Were you wanting more friction against the stake so it doesn’t slip, or worried about a single loop getting abraded or ?

DGoggins

Everything you mention + it’s easier on the fingers pulling stakes with the guy lines.

John W T – I like (and will shamelessly copy) everything you did. Also planning on replacing all guylines with Lawson Glowwire.  I HATE the tiny linelocks that come on it so will replace all of them with linelock 3s and add 2 on the peak guylines.

Question – where did you source the magnets?

It’s UL so I understand the choice of line locks. I’ll use a tucker’s hitch for the peak.

The magnets are 1/4 from Lee Valley Tools.

The magnets MAY stuff up your compass bearings if you are not careful.

Cheers

Hi Dan,

Does this also apply for the X-Mid Solid 2p? i.e. realistic max stakes of 14, assuming there are also 2 side panel guyouts?

Waiting on mine to arrive (very excited!) and just working through potential stake configurations.

Thanks!

For a pretty robust pitch you’d put 4 in at the corners, 1 at each door, 2 peak guylines, and 2 side panel guylines = 10. From there, you could add 4 more via the stake loops near the midpoint of each side for pretty much the maximum of 14 stakes. Beyond that, you could put a stake in at the large side of each door, but then the door wouldn’t work so you’d do this at most on one side. So you could stake 16 spots but practically 15 is the maximum.

I got to minute 8 of that video and said, yuk. Way too much fiddling for me, esp at the end of a long hard day. Geometry, raising and lowering trekking poles, and messing with corner stake tension, yada yada. It’s a bit of a mismatch between the video and the review description saying it’s one of the easiest trekking pole tents to pitch! Also, with pole tips down, how do you prevent them gradually – or quickly – sinking into soft turf? Which then changes the pitch altogether.

I like the idea of a 2 person trekking pole tent, but so far I’m not seeing one I like.

That BPL video is showing a lot of depth and different options, but the basic pitch is as simple as staking out a rectangle and inserting the two poles. I have a pitching video here that shows that in about 20 seconds:

It really is pretty much as simple as it gets for a trekking pole tent, because I agree with you that fiddling with a complicated tent is the last thing you want at the end of a long day. That’s why the base is a rectangle instead of a hexagon, and why the poles are designed so you can simply extend them with no need to measure.

For pole tips down, this is a very common style for a trekking pole tent. Normally the tip will only push in slightly, but if it is soft ground then I would intentionally push it in about 2″ up to the basket and then it’ll stay there.

The myth is that trekking pole tents are hard to set and that you need a perfect pitch every time..

I have various tents, free standing and trekking pole, including an Altaplex and Xmid Pro 2.

I can’t say that any of them are hard to set up or much of a hassle. The Xmid is pretty quick and simple though, you can be inside with a “good enough” pitch very fast, the Altaplex takes a bit more fiddling with, but it’s not hard.

I say good enough, because I’m frequently not looking for more than that. 90% of the time I don’t need a perfect pitch to sleep through the night, even if it rains a bit. In a storm with wind and rain yes, but those conditions aren’t the norm in the West.

The Xmid also can be pitched to save space if needed, that’s a nice option.

I was skeptical of trekking pole tents for a while, especially after having some bad experiences with setting up tarps (user-error, mostly), and stuck to freestanding tents. I would much rather spend my time in camp fishing, looking at the clouds, reading a book, or just strolling around the campsite and admiring the scenery than moving stakes around like musical chairs and fine-tuning tensioning systems. So I was hesitant to try them out when I started looking at lighter shelters. I now have three different trekking pole tents in my line-up now (SMD Lunar Solo, REI Flash Air Two, and Durston X Mid Pro) and rarely use freestanding tens anymore. The weight savings just make sense to me and the set-up is nowhere near as fiddly as it can seem. After a bit of practice, it’s not much more difficult than making a bowl of cereal, to be honest (or setting up a freestanding tent, to use a more relevant analogy).

I’d recommend getting your hands on one of the more simple designs (most likely one that requires the fewest number of stakes) and trying it out before totally dismissing them. In some cases, they can be a really great addition. They make a lot of sense for me in the mountain West and the type of trips I do, but they might not be for everyone — I just wouldn’t want to let the perception of a difficult set up stop anyone from enjoying their real benefits.