Stratospire Li(mitations)

[Bonzo]

Okay, decision made: Strat Li solid interior.  There’s still mesh at the top so it won’t be a total oven, and it’ll make me feel better about blowing detritus.  I don’t think there are any coupons or sales upcoming, but I sent a contact to them anyway; never hurts to ask.  Might be ordering as soon as tonight!

[Stumphges]

Bonzo, have you used a solid inner before? If so, no need to read on, but if not – solid inners feel much smaller to me. The inner of the Li is not the widest and may feel quite close with fabric walls.

[jscott]

I much prefer a solid inner. But I tend to hike at altitude and find a solid is a tad warmer. Far more importantly, solid inners do a better job at blocking wind.

But I’ve only had half solid inners. Is that an option? Or 3/4? star gazing remains viable with that.

[Bonzo]

Bonzo, have you used a solid inner before? If so, no need to read on, but if not – solid inners feel much smaller to me. The inner of the Li is not the widest and may feel quite close with fabric walls.

I have, yes: my all-time favorite tent is a first-generation Clip Flashlight, with a completely solid interior.  Solid walls do feel smaller, but I’m usually pretty comfortable in small confines…and I can always swap to a mesh interior if needed.  I kind of planned on picking up both if I went this direction, regardless; hopefully I’m picking the right one, though!

[Bonzo]

…hopefully I’m picking the right one, though!

And now I really hope I picked the right one, because the order is officially placed! 😬

[jscott]

Sweet! Lucky pup!

[Stumphges]

Bonzo, where will your pup sleep?

[Bonzo]

That is a very good question.  If she curls up she can barely fit in something the size of a Strat Li vestibule – that door will be useless – but she doesn’t like to curl up.  She starfishes, most of the time…so I’m honestly thinking of giving her a tarp of her own to sleep under.  I mean, she’s not that big of a dog…but she’s still big for her weight, and lean.  She can take up a lot of room.  So, short answer: I don’t know.

[Bonzo]

It’s shipped and on the way!  It should arrive at my door on the 16th, which gives me just enough time to set it up and give it a quick test in the yard before taking it on a little two-night thing next weekend…which will absolutely not be a good first outing for it, because we’re just going to a state park with some friends.  Toilets and showers and gravel tent pads: oh my!  We’re driving, so we don’t have to carry anything, so I’ll take a heavy piece of Tyvek for a groundsheet; state-park gravel is sharp!  And it would be just like me to accidentally tear up a brand new tent on a manicured tent pad. 🙄

[Bonzo]

Well, it’s here…all 29.25 ounces of it.  The problem, however, is that we’ve had some consistently unseasonable thunderstorms for the last few days, so the ground is actually wet and soaked in the middle of August…so I’m not going to be able to get the tent up and tested before taking it out for a weekend.  Because of course that’s how this would turn out.

Pictured: Chapman’s Tent.

[Bonzo]

So, after having done a quick two-night trial in decidedly-less-than-difficult conditions and with a nearly-perfect tent site, I can positively state one thing about the Strat Li:

It’s somewhat smaller than I was expecting.

It might have been my pitching and lack of experience with the tent – in fact, I’m going to assume that these were a major causative factor – but the headroom at the head and foot of the tent was extremely minimal.  When sleeping on 3″ thick pads my head was about 1″ from the fabric surface of the inner tent, and when lying on my back my feet were consistently scraping the fabric at the opposite end…and I’m not that large of a hominid: 5′-10″, 1.78m, 0.00096 nautical miles, whatevs.  I also didn’t have a sleeping bag at all; if there was any insulation over my feet, I would have been constantly cramming the footbox into the tent wall.  Had I been using any sort of thick pillow I would have had my face in fabric all night; this was because the inner tent was actually pretty loose, in relation to the outer shell.  I pitched it by the instructional video and even managed to do a good job with the Pitchlok corners, but no matter how I tensioned and positioned things, it seems like I couldn’t get the sag out of the inner tent fabric.  This was a particular problem at the Pitchlok corners, which didn’t have an adjustable connection strap as did the other two interior corners.  Being able to increase the tension on the inner tent in relation to the Pitchlok corner – i.e. shorten the connector strap – would have seemingly alleviated a lot of problems and given us a lot more room…but I didn’t see a way to do this.  My partner, who is about 5′-4″, didn’t have many clearance issues at all, but still said that the interior just felt a lot smaller than we had expected, based on reports.  Hmmm.

Since we had to put the tent up slightly wet today, we’ll take it out and dry it tomorrow and set it up again; maybe a bit more investigation of the corners and pitching is is order.

Thoughts?

[Roger Caffin]

It’s like joggers. Too small is too small.

Cheers

[Bonzo]

Too small is too small.

It may come down to that, eventually.  I like almost everything about the tent, but I’m genuinely surprised at the interior volume: I read so many reviews and threads and comments on it, and it’s universally lauded for its livability and comfiness…so to find that it’s a bit of a squeeze for one human and one smaller human is a bit surprising.  It may be a catch-and-release if I can’t get it working correctly for us; no harm in that, but it puts us back to square one.

[Paul S]

Are your trekking poles set long enough? Having a SS2 (Silnylon) I know that the inner will sag if the outer is not pole’d high enough. Lengthening the poles could help lift it away from your face a bit I think, and result in the inner having less slack. Also, is there an adjustment where the inner connects to the outer (our SS2 has this) at the pole peaks that you could try tightening?

[Bonzo]

I’m not sure if the poles are set long enough or not; I went with 120-ish cm, but I’m thinking they could have/should have been a bit longer.  Staking points adjacent to the poles might have been a bit off: I followed the set-up instructions, and although the stakes likely weren’t 100% correctly-placed they were still pretty close to the right locations…but I might have been off a bit there, as well.

We do have the adjustment straps between inner and outer, but only at four points: the two lower corners, and at the pole peak.  The Pitchlok corners look to be connected with an elastic strap.  I did some adjusting of all four points once we were set up, and I even moved a stake or two…but I had two main issues, even so:

1. I couldn’t get the ridgeline taut without the external guy lines.
2. I felt like the Pitchlok corners weren’t quite correct, because these were the places that were sagging the most.

If I pushed outwards on the inner tent just a bit, right at the Pitchlok corner, tons of sag came out of the inner and a lot of headroom showed up.  So, I know I had something wrong, somewhere.  It’s just a question of what, and of how wrong I had it.

Thoughts?

[Phong D]

Regarding solid or mesh: I have a Tarp Tent notch, and wish I went with partial solid.  The mesh net is just cold…I know that doesn’t bug most of you, but I’m a wimp.  Anyway, the design of these tents is VERY airy and so you get a lot of breeze and cold.  It’s not like other tents, where you can just drop the fly and stay cozy.  I hear to you can “bury” them a little closer to the ground, but its still a breezy affair.  Because of this, I am now a mid convert and wont go back.  But tents are VERY personal things, and everyone has different preferences.

[Paul S]

On our SS2 we always use the guylines at the two peaks, otherwise we couldn’t get the ridgeline as taut as we wanted it. This hasn’t bugged us really as we camp above treeline mostly, and usually it is windy, so the peak guylines are a necessity.

[Stumphges]

Bonzo, I think the SSLi is tricky to pitch. I needed lots of practice. The ridge is hard to get taut without the apex guys, but they aren’t necessary if pitched well. In fact, needing them is an indication that the pitch isn’t quite right.

I would loosen the inner completely and pitch several times with goal to get ridge taut, hems reasonably taut, and all panels smooth with symmetrical lines at the pitch lock corners. If all those conditions are met, the inner should snug up easily.

I could never get a good pitch at 125cm. 120ish was better for me.

I never noticed lack of length, but I’m a couple inches shorter than you.

I think making sure the corner guys extend along the line of their respective ridges is important – you might need to fiddle with stake placement once poles are in and before setting the pitch lock corners. As always, don’t crank any tension until the shape is perfect, or nearly so.

take photos of your pitches and compare with official TT photos.

[Bonzo]

The mesh net is just cold…I know that doesn’t bug most of you, but I’m a wimp.

And the solid interior is just downright hot.  I was surprised at how much the more modern solid fabrics do to block wind while still being incredibly lightweight.  Nighttime temps over the weekend were in the low 80’s, and that made for an exceptionally airless couple of nights.  If I keep the Strat, I’ll definitely grab a mesh interior for the summer.

On our SS2 we always use the guylines at the two peaks, otherwise we couldn’t get the ridgeline as taut as we wanted it. This hasn’t bugged us really as we camp above treeline mostly, and usually it is windy, so the peak guylines are a necessity.

I tried a few times to get the ridge taut, but it just wasn’t happening.  I’m going to take the tent to a local park where we have soft ground and clean grass and set it up and just futz around with it for a few hours, trying various configurations.  That should tell me a lot.

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