New Review: Tarptent Double Rainbow Li

Henry has created a marvelous tent here. Ryan – thanks for the review. I bought this tent from a forum member and used it for 12 nights on the JMT in the last two weeks.

We used it in all terrain, used it as free standing tent on hard rock. We used it during thunderstorms. I was able to setup the tent in under a minute when the rain started to come down.

We used it under excessive winds, that is the only time I used the extra guylines.

We camped near a water source every single night and had almost no precipitation. The other two layered tents were dripping in condensation and had to be dried. I don’t know how Henry managed this. The vestibule is smaller than Stratosphere Li, but handled two backpacks, two pairs of boots and such.

We were able to fit in two wide pads and had enough room in the head for all our gear.

It is an unbelievable tent. It is almost free standing and does EVERYTHING.  I can see that it won’t be as warm as the Stratosphere Li during shoulder season, but I am ok to layer myself for that.

Brilliant, brilliant tent. I exited at Bishop pass and my buddies went towards Whitney, but they loved my tent so much I had to carry their Big Agnes with me while they grabbed my tent from me to share. They will be buying the DR Li when they exit.

Ryan…..Would the Double Rainbow Li be a step above the Notch Li now after testing both tents ….and why OR why not.

Ken, I’m not sure what you mean by “a step up”?

In terms of size and livability, definitely.

In terms of wind resistance? Definitely not.

Snow loading is a toss up but right now I give the edge to the Double Rainbow Li. The Notch has weird catch basins that forms between the peak and the end struts.

Cold weather/winter? Condensation management is better in the Notch with the solid fabric inner tent.

Ryan….Considering all the variables, would you recommend the Double Rainbow over the Notch?

One thing to note about wind loading and guying out the peak to compensate… I spoke with Henry Shires about this over the summer and his guyout recommendation was quite different than what I’ve seen here. His solution is to guyout in a way that compresses the arch pole evenly (toward the ground) rather than attempt to stabilize the cross pole.

He suggested running lines from the lash points on the middle of the arch sleeve (the webbing loops about 1/4 way up the arch) to the vestibule stake-out points. That means two lines on each side that stabilize the arch between the vestibule stake-out points and force the arch toward the ground. I gave this a shot in my back yard and it was really, really stout. This does result in a guy line overlapping the entry on both sides, but that can be dealt with using proper rigging.

Andrew, yes, good advice. Stabilizing the poles and preventing their deformation is absolutely the right way to guy out any kind of tent that has single arches like the Double Rainbow. It’s generally good practice on any tent with ground-connected arch poles.