Massdrop Announces Dan Durston X Mid Tent: 2 People, 2 hiking poles, 28 oz, $199
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Thanks guys. Here’s a few answers:
“The 28″ inner width might just be a CAD operator’s error. Maybe it’s meant to be the actual width of the inner relative to the sleeper. Who knows.”
Yes it is meant relative to the sleeper. The inner floor width is 28″ perpendicular to the sleeper, so that drawing isn’t quite right. You could fit a 28″ wide pad. I’ve tried to be a bit conservative here – the actual design drawings are 29″ wide but sometimes in reality dimensions end up a bit smaller so I’ve said 28″. Most of the prototypes tend to pitch closer to 28″ but it depends on how much you crank the inner up to the fly peaks, as this pulls the sides of the floor up. Depending on this, the inner floor is 27 – 30″ wide.SD High Route & Yama Swiftline
Compared to the HR1, the X-Mid 1P uses the unique idea of having the inner positioned at a diagonal inside the rectangular fly. This is a unique idea that changes almost everything else about the shelter and has huge benefits.Making the tent wider plus having the inner on a diagonal allows for the poles/peaks to be moved inwards from the edges of the fly, eliminating the vertical walls of the HR1 which catch wind and require guylines. You can set the X-Mid up with just four stakes and it’s decently robust (use 6 in harsh weather). So yeah the High Route and X-Mid both have a diagonal ridgeline, but many tents have this (TarpTents, Yama etc). The X-Mid is the only tent with the unique combo of a rectangle base, diagonal ridgeline and opposite diagonal inner. It’s only when you have this complete combo that you get all this super simple, easy pitching yet spacious design. It’s the only rectangular tent to avoid all the common pitfalls of rectangular tents (e.g. lack of headroom, poles in the way, mandatory guylines, vertical side walls, lack of vestibules).
Compared to the High Route 1, the X-Mid offers generous vestibules, no vertical walls so it’s more storm worthy, simpler 4 stake pitch, no mandatory guylines, far lighter (28 vs 37oz), lower cost and no sag polyester material. Simpler, larger, lighter and more functional. The advantages of the HR are that it will fit into narrower tent sites and has slightly more inner floor area (16.8 vs 18.8 sq feet).
Compared to the Yama Swiftline design, the Swiftline again has a diagonal ridgeline but everything else is very different. The Swiftline inner is not diagonal to the fly, nor is the fly a rectangle – rather it’s extremely complex. Further, the Swiftline is a single wall. Due to far more efficient geometry (e.g. way less seams) the X-Mid is slightly lighter than the Swiftline (27.9oz vs 28.3oz) despite being a full double wall. Add in the extra stakes the Swiftline requires and the weight of seal sealing and the X-Mid is about 2oz lighter in total. The X-Mid also offers a much simpler pitch, more vestibule area, dual doors, seam taped, similarly generous headroom and much lower price. The only advantage to the Swiftline I can see is 10% more floor area (18.8 sq ft vs 16.8″).
“The fly’s width is listed at 67 inches (vs 48″ for the Skurka designed SD High Route tent). That’s a big footprint for high, rocky Sierra tent spots IMHO.”
Yeah the footprint is larger than the HR but about average overall. The fly dimensions are 67″ x 100″. This is the same width as the DuoMid, but 8″ shorter. The X-Mid is also 8″ shorter than the HR (enabled by the rotated inner), so the HR will fit in narrower sites, but the X-Mid will fit into shorter sites.Here’s a comparison of the footprint of some common solo shelters. Everything is to scale. Pad is 20″ x 72″ (scaled of course).
“And the claim you can pitch it with just four stakes…uh, if you want the doors to flap in the breeze and the poles to shake in any wind. I’d love to have something similar that’s weather worthy that only needs six stakes.”
I’m a big fan of minimal stakes too. The X-Mid shape is robust enough that you can pitch it with 4 stakes in normal conditions. Add two more stakes for the peak guylines if it’s windy. It’s foul weather worthy with six stakes. You can also little stakes to secure the small side of the door, but the small side of the door isn’t actually that annoying because it’s a lot smaller than it is in traditional mids. But yeah I like to add one ti skewer stake at whichever door I’ll be using. No need for one on the back door. Also, if you don’t want the small side flapping, you can tie it out the peak guyline instead of staking. Four stakes and you’re pitched, six stakes and you’re ready for a storm.“Who’s making this thing for you (not trying to start any silliness, simply curious).”
It’s made in Asia (Vietnam). Same factory as MSR tents. They do a super great job and have the technology to seam tape, so the 28oz weight is fully seam taped. Way nicer than anything I can sew.“Looks like a very interesting design with impressive specs. Is it ok for you to post additional images in this thread for the people not on Massdrop?”
Thanks Ito! Yeah for sure. I didn’t realize you need to have an account on Massdrop to view the listings. I think you can opt out of the emails etc, but I totally understand not wanting to sign up more places.Just to clarify, are there six guyout points along the bottom hem? It looks like four in the corners plus two on the shorter doors. Is that correct?
No there are more than six. There are the four corners, plus the bottoms of the door zippers, plus four more – one at roughly the center of each side. These last four are just grosgrain loops, while the four at the corners have LineLoc3’s. Here’s a diagram:
Is the zipper waterproof? I don’t see a flap on it.
Yes. The fly zippers are YKK water resistant / “uretek” zippers – the same kind you’d see on most nice ski jackets and high end tents (e.g. MSR, HMG). It’s a beefy #5 zip too. The inner uses regular #3 YKK zips like nearly every tent.These zips should keep all the rain out, but even if a drop got through it would just land in the vestibule. The inner is not under the doors at all. I much prefer not having the zipper flaps because of the snagging hassle they cause.
“The pole placement means you can’t use it as a 2P tarp without the inner, right?”
You can easily sleep two without the inner. This works the best if you angle the poles a little bit so the bottoms are closer to the centerline of the shelter, and then you can easily sleep one person on each side. From the pole to the fly edge is normally 25″, so if you angle the pole a bit then you have about 30″ of width. If you sleep opposite ways you both have 30″ at the feet and 35″ of width at the head end, or sleep the same way and one person gets a bit wider head and the other person gets more space at the feet, but either way you can easily fit.A couple other points:
1) The tent is 28oz, not 29oz. The latest prototype is 27.9 oz for the fly + inner including guylines. Actual production tents should be extremely similar but maybe 28.2oz since I made the inner slightly taller.2) The 20D sil/pu poly fabric used in this tent is tested by Richard Nisley (of BPL fame). He wrote:
“I received your fabric sample and completed the virgin HH test; it was >3515mm….The micrographs show that the weave is of high quality”
20mm FOV (Richard Nisley photo)
5mm FOV (Richard Nisley photo)
1.4mm FOV (Richard Nisley photo)
Full test results were:
New: 3515 mm
5400 wear cycles: 2812 mm
10,800 wear cycles: 2100 mm
16,200 wear cycles: 1582 mmSo the fabric holds up quite well. Even after extensive wear cycling simulating a ton of use, the fabric is still above 1500 mm considered waterproof. This compares quite well to other fabrics Richard has tested. For more on this, you can see the results for other fabrics Richard has tested here:
https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/fall-2016-fabric-samples-compared/
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