Vents. Are they necessary in a mid? I don’t think so and I bet you don’t either. Do they help mitigate condensation? Hmmm. Not that much. I think the ones used by MLD and Locus Gear (and Bonfus and Liteway, etc.) on their rectangular mids are basically just ornamental.
The worst condensation I have every experienced was with my Chouinard. Overnight low was 11° F (-12° C). The entire inner was covered in a sheet of ice in the morning. As you said, these vents probably don’t do much, but probably better than none. Thus, one of the issues with a single skin mid.
The great thing about these tall mids, in addition to storm-worthiness, is spacious room and easy ingress and egress. In winter, when nights are long and weather often a challenge, the extra room is great for cooking inside (safety precautions of course). Plus lots of room for companions, who have their own shelters, to visit and socialize — not a big deal for me since I rarely want to hike with others.
I have stated here many times that if I could have only one shelter it would be my silnylon Trailstar. On the other hand, it isn’t my favorite shelter. Ingress and egress is a crawling on hands and knees affair.
And so we have it — there isn’t a perfect shelter. Favorites are personal.
I have about a dozen shelters, an accumulation over 57 years. A few, the early ones, I almost never use except for an occasional “nostalgic” hike. I don’t know why I keep those, but then I have tax returns and cancelled checks dating back to 1971 in the garage. The last new shelter I bought was a Six Moon Designs Deschutes CF, eight years ago. I am excluding the Black Diamond pyramid bought in 2020, as it was intended to be a direct replacement for my Chouinard, which at the time I thought could not resurrected. Thus, I am not in the market for a new shelter ever, at my age of 72.
However, this new material intrigues me. I’ll wait to see more reports from the field. If it is that superior and lighter, and if a well known manufacturer were to make a standard sized 108” X 108” one, I would be very interested. My go to shelters for most trips the past 10+ years have been Cuben mids. I am done with CF, just too bulky, too fragile (although no failures on my part except one that wore out from lots of use), and too expensive. A silnylon MLD Super Mid (26 oz.) is $385 versus $885 in CF (19 oz.).
Edited to correct the AI spell checker ;-)
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