Durston X-Mid Pro 2 Setup

Wait a second. I’m looking at this again, and I think I may have set it up right every time. Is the floor supposed to be a rectangle (with 90 degree corners)? Maybe not. Maybe it is supposed to be parallelogram, but not a rectangle.

the floor doesn’t have square corners.

The floor is a parallelogram, yes. 🤓

Thanks George. Mystery solved. I wish I knew that before I set this up.

I have a feeling this is obvious is if you have the previous versions, with the separate inner. You can pull out the floor and look at it. In this case, it is all integrated. Since the corners weren’t square, I figured I set it up wrong.

Glad you’ve got it sorted out. Think of it as a rectangle floor, plus triangles in the two opposite corners for gear storage. These are the lower corners, so it best to sleep away from them in the ‘rectangle’ part and leave the lower corners for gear.

If you do have troubles with the pitch, we have more info on that in the ‘pitching’ tab on our X-Mid Pro 2 page:
https://durstongear.com/product/x-mid-pro-2p

Yeah, I read that pitching guide about a dozen times. I kept looking inside, and assuming I had a right skew. I also looked at several videos. None of them seemed to show the interior. It wasn’t until I looked at the diagram (https://durstongear.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/X-Mid-Pro-Floorplan-1.jpeg) that I considered I had it right from the beginning. By then I had posted the question, and figured I would ask for confirmation.

I followed Ryan’s pitching advice and on level ground got a near perfect pitch the first time and in about 2 minutes…surprised the heck out of me. Like most shelters of it’s ilk, pitching on an uneven/undulating/sloping site is a bit of trial and error, and you will end up with something that is not perfect but that you can live with.

First trip with the 2P Pro was this week and I really like several things about it:

• The quick setup
• The poles being completely out of the way of the doors.
• The “small” side of the vestibule is actually quite large and very useful…an assembled Chair Zero/One fits inside and you can zip up the door!

Something that I did not expect was that for solo use, it is best to sleep across the short diagonal.  This provides the most head/foot room and leaves large corners open for gear.

I followed Ryan’s pitching advice and on level ground got a near perfect pitch the first time and in about 2 minutes

Yeah, I did too. But then I looked inside and thought I had it all wrong. That eventually lead to this thread. Too much self doubt I guess.

I agree, it fairly easy to setup (the main reason I bought it). Like similar tents, it works fine when you don’t have it perfect. With a previous shelter, I would carry a pair of these poles, for when I would use the tent as a base camp. It is clear these are just a bit too short (as expected). But they work fine unless there is a storm (and then I probably wouldn’t be out day hiking, and just use my hiking poles for tent support).

Overall I’m pleased with the tent.

Not sure if this has been addressed, but do twist lock poles make a taut pitch more challenging with this shelter? I’m currently using Ruta Locura Yana poles and I wonder if adjusting the twist locks while pushing up the canopy at the same time will be problematic. I really like these poles, but don’t want to be fighting my shelter every time I set the thing up.

I am in the same boat, and from what I can tell, it will be fine. When I practiced, I used poles with flick locks. But I also just locked them in at the recommended distance. Then it is just a matter of pushing the tent up with the poles at an angle, and then dragging the tips along the ground. Less than ideal, perhaps, but works just fine. Thus you could put this together with a fixed length pole (as long as it is the right length). When I use this in the mountains, I will be using twist locks, and I’m not worried about it.

For any trekking pole tent, twist locks are a bit clumsier to use but still work fine. Either way you have one hand holding the pole higher up and the other hand down low, where the main difference is whether that lower hand is either flipping a flick lock, or it’s twisting the pole a bunch of times. So the twist takes a bit more hassle but it’s just a couple sections and not a big deal. I used twist locks (Fizan Compact 3’s) on my ~100 day thru hike in 2017 and the hassle never really occurred to me.

I find the twist locks easier for tent tensioning.  It’s a bit clumsier to hold a section in each hand and simultaneously work a flick lock than to simply hold the two sections and twist.  The only reason you’d need to twist “a bunch of times” is if you untwisted a bunch of times before starting.  Don’t do that.

Regardless, neither kind is difficult.

As for squaring the footprint pitch Ken Webster in his 4 minute vid has nailed the geometry….I use it all the time on my 1P.  Much more positive feel to it, than trying to align the free side.

https://youtu.be/5aNTuurDEFE