Mountain Hardwear SuperMegaUL 2 Tent Review
Bottom Line: An Ultralight, 2 person, 3 season tent that’s perfect for those fast and light missions when saving a bit of extra weight is going to make all the difference. First Impressions and Observations: The SuperMegaUL 2 is a beautiful tent, sexy even! It’s light (minimum weight: 2lb 2oz), sets up easily and accommodates two individuals on mummy sleeping pads with room in the vestibule for packs and boots. To make this tent as light as it is the designers at Mountain Hardwear have clearly gone over every feature in this tent and shaved grams wherever possibly. It’s this precise attention to detail that gives this tent its beauty. The space inside is at a minimum, but this was expected with an ultralight tent. I’ve slept in it with another person and had no issues. I’m used to sleeping in small Winter tents so I am accustomed to tents with an interior space of this size. Some might say it’s cramped, I’d say it’s cozy. If you want more space then be prepared for your back and shoulders to have to haul more weight uphill. Those are the tradeoffs. Some of the features that I appreciated are: The toggles on the fly attachment points: They make connecting the fly to the tent body extremely easy and the design is so simple, light and functional that I don’t know why every tent doesn’t use this method. The pole design: This tent utilizes a pole design that I hadn’t seen before. It allows the tent to be freestanding while also simplifying setup and reducing pitching time. It has two main poles that are permanently joined together via a soft rubber joint that is positioned at the apex of the tent. Reflective points on the tent: The tent utilizes quite a few reflective points so that you can spot it easily with your headlamp and also avoid tripping over the guy lines around the tent. Pros: Weight: If you aren’t familiar with Ultralight tents then picking this one up will shock you. At 2 lb. 2 oz. (0.98 kg) this is the lightest tent I’ve ever owned. My back is going to thank me! Design: It’s incredibly well designed. You can tell that every inch of this tent has been discussed and altered to have only the essential features included. I also find the aerodynamic profile of this tent appealing to the eye. Vestibule: Not only does the vestibule aid in ventilation it adds extra space outside for storing my pack and boots. Cons: Durability: The materials used in this tent are ultralight which means they need to be managed more than heavier,...
Mountain Hardwear Shifter 3 Tent Review
Bottom Line: A medium weight 3-season, 3-person tent for the budget conscious backpacker that needs a tent that is as good for car-camping at the lake, camping out during a music festival or used as a multi-day backpacking tent. All the bells and whistles are included as standard, including the footprint to protect the base of the tent and a mesh gear loft inside the tent. First Impressions and Observations: This tent weighs in at 6lb 9oz (2.96kg) but that weight is likely going to be lower depending on your needs. It comes with some extra pegs, a mesh gear loft and a tent footprint which, if you wanted to go light, could be left at home without reducing the functionality of the tent. Without these the tent would be <5lb 9oz, which, when you consider splitting the weight between 3 people would come in just under 2lbs each. Not bad for a reasonably priced tent that doesn’t scrimp on space or features! When I first pitched it I could tell that Mountain Hardwear did a lot of work to utilize the vestibule space. This tent has 2 vestibules and depending on how you “shift” (see, this is were the name Shifter comes from) the fly over the main tent body you can have either a wide open vestibule with a mesh door or a more private vestibule and a solid canopy door. I feel this incorporation of a 50/50 mix of mesh and solid canopy will also allow this tent to be used in early Spring and late Fall when the temperatures are lower. I’d definitely have no issue using it in sub-zero temperatures but then I’m crazy like that. The only concern I’d have is if this tent would hold up in strong winds as it only utilizes two crossed poles. There are extra guy line points so if strong winds were expected they could be used to add increased stability. One of my only gripes with this tent is the added shoulder vestibule. This allows for greatly increased storage space in one of the vestibules but, the shouldered area of the vestibule has two small poles inserted into it that can’t be removed, they are sewn into the fly. I’m not a tent roller, I like to stuff my tent into a stuff sack and compress it. I’ve done this with all my tents and I find it is a quicker, more space efficient way of carrying my tent. With these poles inserted into the fly I can’t compress the fly in a stuff sack. I worked around this by just stuffing everything but the section...
Canadian Wilderness Adventures: Canoe Tour
< Part 1: ATV Tour with Canadian Wilderness Adventures After getting back to Whistler and cleaning the dust off ourselves from ATV’ing we met up with our guide Gavin to go Canoe the River of Golden Dreams. We joined a group of others that were stoked to have this experience also. Truth be told we’ve been meaning to do this river for quite a while after first hearing about it years ago. We’ve just never had the equipment or knowledge to go for it. In late Summer, when the water level is pretty low, it’s common for a lot of people to just float this river in inflatable dingys and inner tubes. Even though we’d be tackling it earlier in the year I expected a similar experience. Will Lightning strike the lake? We started this adventure by getting geared up on the shores of Alta Lake. After a quick tutorial we hopped into the canoes and paddled out. Once out on the water Gavin got us to run through some drills practicing some paddling techniques to turn and control our canoe. The weather also looked to be changing for the worst so Gavin made us aware that if thunder and lightning did start we’d be ending our tour early. The prospect of being caught out in a thunderstorm definitely added to the adventurous feel of this trip. We paddled in a tight knit group, chatting amongst ourselves and getting to know each other. At the far end of the lake we began our journey down into and along the River of Golden Dreams. The Best Thing To Do in Whistler! It’s exceptionally picturesque. I now understand why this outing is considered the #1 thing to do in Whistler by locals and tourists alike. We floated by lilies, under bridges, through narrow sections were we could see grass growing along the bottom of the river through the crystal clear water. After a section of paddling along a narrow stream we entered 21-Mile Creek, a wider, faster flowing river. The flow rate was surprising at first as I wasn’t expecting it. During the Spring and early Summer snow melt the river level is higher and flowing quicker. We began to move quicker and the paddling drills we had practiced earlier at Alta Lake came into use. Not only did we need to avoid low hanging trees, sand bars and sharp bends in the river but there was also loads of people floating in the river in small, cheap, inflatable dingys. It was exciting and our guides did an excellent job of instructing us as to how to handle the upcoming challenges and...
Canadian Wilderness Adventures: ATV Tour
Recently myself and Spring had the opportunity to go on a day of adventures with “Canadian Wilderness Adventures” out of Whistler, BC. It was scheduled to be a jam packed day with ATV’ing on rugged trails in the Callaghan Valley in the morning followed by Canoeing the River of Golden Dreams in the afternoon. When asked if I had previous ATV experience I replied “yes”, but that experience was gained about 8 years ago in a field somewhere in Alberta. I was pretty overweight back then, not athletic in anyway and I basically just drove around in circles for an hour. Learning to properly handle a Quad has been on the To Do list for a while. In the future if we travel to more remote locations ATV’s might be the only way to get around. Plus, it’s serious fun! We have a secret! It’s also been a secret shame of ours that we don’t really know how to Canoe well. Canoeing is quintessentially Canadian and having now lived in Canada for 5 years myself and Spring should really know how to do it already. Spring grew up in Canada, in Alberta, so her shame runs deep, haha! We arrived in Whistler bright and early to begin our day. I was curiously nervous. I knew I’d be with a guide but I guess I always feel nervous right before I do something I’ve never done before. It’s always a guessing game to see how I will react when challenged with something new. We checked in at the Canadian Wilderness Adventures desk at the Carleton Lodge, signed our waivers and quickly headed out with Lewy, our ATV guide for the day to do the “Wild Wild West ATV Tour“. It was a quick drive to the Callaghan Valley and Lewy did an excellent job of getting us geared up and instructed to control our Quads. Let the Adventure Begin! Before we knew it our goggles were down and we were ripping along a rough gravel road. Our ATV adventure had begun! On the gravel road we had some time to get used to how the ATV’s handled. They rolled over potholes with ease and accelerated quickly, cornering well. Lewy told us to remember our past experience with Mountain Biking which really helped. The key was to always keep looking ahead and into the turns where I wanted to go, not where I wanted to avoid. Things started to get steep and technical. Eventually we started getting on to more technical trail, which got rougher and steeper. Making the conscious effort to keep my eyes up scanning ahead helped me to...
The Smith Rock Ascent Race Report
The Smith Rock Ascent is a trail race that is organized in Smith Rock State Park, Oregon. A few months ago a friend made myself and Spring aware of this race and we got stoked to run it. Not only was it in a place that has world class rock climbing, which we love also, it was also in Oregon, a beautiful state in the US we’d been hoping to explore for quite a while. We planned a road trip from our home of Squamish, BC down to Oregon for 7 days. The race would be on the 3rd day. We awoke on the morning of the race to Semi-Trucks revving their engines at a rest stop. The previous two days had been jam-packed with exploring some beaches and waterfalls and a lot of driving. Spring exclaimed: “This is probably the worst way I’ve prepared for a race ever!”. Our legs were stiff from sitting in the car and we’d gotten no sleep that night due to vehicles passing in and out of this rest stop. It wasn’t the best place to sleep but both of us were so tired the previous night that continuing to drive would have been too dangerous. We were about a 45 minute drive from the starting line so we headed out, stopping for coffee and a pastry along the way for breakfast. Not an awesome race morning combo I know. We pulled into Smith Rock and parked. We still had plenty of time before our race started so we went about collecting our bib numbers, getting changed into our running gear, filling our running vests with Hammer Gels and water. By the time we’d joined everyone else at the starting line we both felt pretty awake and ready to go. The energy was electric. A few days prior I’d gone to a free talk on fuelling for athletes given by our friend Paul at UPrise Performance Camps. He mentioned that some people have had success with taking a gel a few minutes before a race if they haven’t had breakfast. I hadn’t had much of anything to eat so I decided to take a gel before starting. A few minutes later the starting countdown began and you could almost feel everyone revving their internal engines. Go! I started out well. I tried to stay with the front 20% of runners. The course followed the Crooked River for a while before ascending a steep road. Thankfully this was in the shade. I ended up speed walking it which worked good as I passed quite a few people doing the uphill running trot which...
“Spring Rush” Trail Race Recap
Every time I have ever driven through the Kelowna area, gazing at the dry, sagebrush covered hillsides, I have dreamt of running there. So I was pretty stoked to get the chance to run “Spring Rush” on April 25 in Kelowna. Not only is the race named after me (you may have to fact check that with the race director), but the race would wind through the very hills I have long dreamt of running. The event is located a ten minute drive from Bear Creek Provincial Park, which came in very handy for camping the night before. With such a short drive from the start line it meant I didn’t need to get up too early on race day. When I arrived at the start line the morning of, the tents were just being set up. Despite the flurry of activity I wanted to take a minute to meet Rene Unser, the race director, as I have seen so much of her through social media and have heard so many wonderful things about her. She said hello with a big warm hug and was bubbling with excitement! All I could notice was the huge smile on her face and how eager she was to share her local trails with everyone that day. This race was tough, tougher than I thought it was going to be. I am not sure what I was expecting, in fact I didn’t actually research much about the actual course before running it. There was a quick glance of the elevation profile, but apart from that I was just so stoked to run the race that I didn’t pay much attention to anything else. I had no knowledge of when the big hill was coming or of the endless switchback descents. Everything was a surprise and in the end I kind of liked it that way. If you are reading this though you probably want to know a little bit about the course, so I’ll share some of it with you. The course is flowy, runnable, dreamy singletrack. But don’t let that fool you, there is some serious climbing to be done on these trails and it is the runnable nature of the trail that makes this race tough. When you are used to technical uphill running, like I am on the west coast, you get used to slowing down a lot. This terrain, however kept you running, even when it was steep. You are convinced that since the path under your feet is not technical there is no reason to slow down, so you push harder. Then there was “the monster climb”. This is the part of...
