The Slingfin Crossbow is very well regarded for its strength to weight ratio… but it’s kind of spendy for those of us who don’t do a ton of winter hiking.
Part of the strength comes from the “outrigger” atrachments where trekking poles are used to enhance the load bearing capacity of the cross pole. Slingfin does not sell the outrigger attachment as a standalone item. Tarptent has something similar but it is a bit flimsy and does not work well for the particular application at hand.
<p style=”text-align: left;”>I just got a Big Agnes Expedition at the REI sale at 50% off plus an extra 25%, $230 before taxes. Could not pass on that deal. The tent is fairly robust out of the box but I have been looking for ways to adapt elements of other tents to enhance the CSE.</p>
The internal guy lines are easy, the CSE has internal loops at pretty much every clip on the inner.
For the outrigger part, I took a rubber trekking pole foot like this (https://www.rei.com/product/750119/leki-fitness-walking-tips-pair) and trimmed it with a kitchen knife on 3 side on the part that just out. The trim was intended to make an approximately prismatic protrusion small enough to fit into the pull loop used to secure the cross pole into the fly. Then put the tip on the inverted pole, shove it into the loop and bingo – you have a very robust outrigger attachment.
This should work on most designs that use cross poles, as they tend to have a pull loop of some sort. And if you don’t have a pull loop then an elastic strap made from an old bike inner tube should allow a slightly less convenient but probably more robust method for simulating an outrigger attachment.
The downward load bearing capacity of the CSE is markedly improved with this crude hack. If anyone has a more elegant way I am all ears.
