I don’t normally write reviews, but since this tent is very new and rare I figured I would since there are not a lot of them out yet.
I am a 45 year old, 220lbs, 6 ft backpacker with a couple decades of experience coming from using a Nemo Dragonfly 2P and did six nights on Isle Royale in early September. Overall the tent performed well, and I am happy with the purchase.
Good Things
- Interior space and vestibule space is excellent. It is such a smart design giving me the roominess inside and a generously sized vestibule in a fairly compact footprint.
- The vestibule has a lot of vertical space which makes it much more usable than a larger vestibule by square footage that has a shallow taper to the ground making much of it less useful. No problem putting my assembled Flexlite Air chair with bag sitting on it in the vestibule.
- There are a couple well placed interior pockets and loops in the ceiling that made adding cordage for hanging clothes trivial.
- Magnets for door tiebacks are strong and easy to use.
- Good separation of fly and inner. I never felt like I was pushing into the fly.
- Only needs 4 stakes for a complete pitch, but has several good stake out points if wanting to add more for ventilation or storm purposes.
- Even though it is designed to be ultralightweight it still hasluxury features and sacrifices weren’t made to livability.
Neutral Things
- It rained a bit one night and the DCF is noticeably louder than I am used to. Tents are never quiet in the rain, but the DCF has more of a snare drum sound.
- With the fly first pitch when opening the door the 2 poles it is between can want to pop outward a little bit which makes closing the vestibule harder as you have to pull the sides back together. I don’t see any reasonable way to fix this with stakes as it is basically working with the staking tension doing this.
- Carbon poles just don’t feel as nice or as strong as aluminum. They are lighter, but I am worried about durability.
- The included stakes feel fine, but I used MSD mini groundhogs as I am a huge fan of the y shape over the v shape of the included stakes.
- No repair kit included
- At 6′ on a long pad I feel like I am maxing out the length and bounce between touching one end or the other. I would have liked a couple more inches in length. If you are over 6′ you might find the length restrictive.
- There are a few loose strings and fibers but they were easy to remove and not concerning.
- Removing the center stretcher ceiling crosspole can be frustrating as the tent is very taught across it and there doesn’t seem to be an easy way to pole the fly clips off the end of the pole without awkward stretching and worry about snapping something. There is a pull string but given the nub on the end of the pole and the already tensioned clasp it doesn’t help for removal.
Bad Things
- Having to roll the tent up instead of just shoving in your bag or stuffsack is somewhat annoying.
- The material is surprisingly translucent and provides minimal privacy. I have used a Tarptent Rainbow Li and it was not this transparent.
- Because the poles are outside the fly the length and structure of them is larger than a tradition fly over pole design. It makes it feel like more wild pole flinging around trying to slap into something when trying to (dis)assemble the tent in tighter areas.
- You can leave the interior and fly attached but the points for placing the poles don’t stay together so it feels like an extra chore going around and attaching 8 different corners (including 1 on a long string) to the pole ends.
- It is expensive
