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...
Therm-a-Rest NeoAir XTherm Review
Bottom Line: Super light, super packable, very comfortable, air mattress. Might need to be babied on uneven or sharp ground to avoid puncturing it and it does make a crinkling noise when you move around on it but overall it’s an amazing piece of gear. Highly recommended. We use ours 12 months a year. How I chose it: Before buying this pad I had been using a Big Agnes Insulated Air Core, the largest one they sold. It weighs ~0.9kg and took the better part of 10 minutes to blow up, usually leaving my lips feeling like rubber but it was really comfortable. I slept like a log. I still use it now for car camping. But, there came a time when I wanted to climb higher in the mountains and do it faster and to make that endeavour easier I started to research ways to reduce my pack weight. The Big Agnes was also too large to fit in the tent I wished to buy, The Sierra Designs Convert II. I needed a pad with a mummy shaped design that took up as little space when inflated as possible. After some research I decided upon the Neo Air XTherm. Some friends I knew were already using it and it came highly recommended online. Inflated and in use in an MSR 3P Tent Relaxing and warm on top of snow. Directly on snow in a snow pit Observations since using it: I’ve used this pad exclusively since purchasing it for every backpacking trip that I’ve been on. It’s incredibly light and packs down really small. In regards to comfort, which is subjective, I’ve found it to be reasonably comfortable. It inflates quickly. It is recommended in Winter to not inflate these pads by breathing into them as the water vapor from your breath will condense back to a liquid when it cools and remain in the pad. Therm-a-Rest supplies a stuff sack with this pad that has a valve attached to it so that you can inflate the pad by opening and closing the stuff sack and rolling the air from it into the pad this way. I’ve never used this method of inflation. I find it slow and laborious compared to just blowing into it. I’ve been using the pad through all 4 seasons for the last 2 years and, so far, I’ve noticed no water staying inside it. Pros: Light: The regular size, which I bought, weighs 430g’s/15oz’s. For a pad that inflates to 6cm/2.5” thick which can be used through the depths of Winter on top of snow and ice this weight is simply amazing. Packable:...
Sierra Designs Convert 2 Tent Review
Bottom Line: A spacious yet lightweight 2 person, 4 season tent. Burly fabric, vents well. I’d recommend it. There are some design elements that I don’t personally like, but can live with. Modular in design. If drawing an analogy with a blade it would be more of a multi-tool than a simple full tang knife. How I chose it: What I was looking for was a single walled tent, burly enough to be used in a snowstorm on an exposed ridge crest but also capable of being used through the shoulder seasons and sometimes in the summer. Liveable, but not so large that creating a platform for it would take a long time. I also wanted it to be light, <5lbs at least. After doing some extensive research into 4 Season tents (This spreadsheet of tents proved invaluable although it isn’t exhaustive so I’d still do some additional research), I settled on a shortlist of 3 tents. Black Diamond: Eldorado Mountain Hardwear: Direkt 2 Sierra Designs Convert 2-Person Tent The Eldorado is a bomber tent, and was a serious contender. But, it’s expensive, it doesn’t come with a vestibule (you have to buy it separately) and, even though it has more total real estate inside compared to the Convert II it didn’t have the extra space where I wanted it. The Convert II has 2 inches of extra headroom over the Eldorado and it’s 3 inches wider, which reduces the possibility of touching the sides which will get wet from condensation in a single wall tent. The Direkt II is the Ueli Steck tent, so it had that going for it. I quickly decided against it though. It’s amazingly light, with a packed weight of 2 lb. 15 oz, but I wouldn’t consider it a true 4 season tent. It’s a pure high Alpine Mountaineering tent, or Winter tent. There is no mesh on the entrance so I don’t know how liveable it would be during the shoulder seasons or bug seasons. It’s also small. It was designed with Ueli in mind and he’s a small guy, but I just couldn’t imagine squeezing two average sized people into it. It is 4 inches shorter than the Convert II and a whopping 9 inches narrower, ouch! Dimension Comparison Length (in)Width (in)Height (in) Convert 2855445 Bibler Eldorado 875143 Direkt 2814545 Using the top vents to look out Showing the size of the entrance Fully set up with guy lines Interior with all vents open Room enough for two with some wiggle room Here are some reasons why I decided upon the Convert II. It had the right mix of light weight...
Hiking: Tips and Tricks
Sometimes, the best tips and tricks are learnt the hard way, so I thought I’d compile a list of some of mine that I’ve picked up over the last few years from hiking and backpacking through all four seasons and from valley floor to mountain top. Tie your shoe laces properly: This is a bit of a life hack as you can utilize it outside of hiking. If you find your boot laces start to loosen every few hours when you’re hiking you probably learned to tie a granny knot instead of a square knot when you first learnt to tie up your shoes. I realized this mistake myself and went searching for a solution. Not only does this method guarantee you tie a square knot, but it’s also a lot quicker. I also find this method of tying up my shoes a lot easier with large winter gloves on than the usual method. Use a Buff: You need to buy a buff if you’re hiking and camping. It has so many uses through all 4 seasons of the year. It can be used as a; Balaclava, Face mask, Neck gaiter, helmet liner, Beanie, Headband, eye mask, wristband. I never leave home without it. Stuff don’t Roll: If you roll up your tent or sleeping bag before putting it in a sack then stop. Stuff it into the sack. I used to roll up everything and I needed to use a 65L pack to go on an overnight trip. When I switched to stuffing everything I was able to get a much lighter 32L pack and still bring the same items. Here’s why, when I’d roll up my sleeping bag I needed a sack that had an opening large enough to fit the entire sleeping bag inside it all at once. These sacks were so large that I couldn’t compress any additional airspace out of them. When I switched to stuffing I only needed a sack with an opening that would fit whatever part of the sleeping bag was bunched up in my hand as I fed it into the sack. I went from using 25L compression sacks to using 8L compression sacks. On most overnight trips, even in the Winter, I can use one 12L compression sack for all my spare clothes, jackets and winter sleeping bag. Here is Spring @ pebbleshoo quickly unstuffing her sleeping bag from her compression sack on one of our recent trips. Start using Compression Sacks: I use a the OR compression sacks, the heavier ones. They’re burly and can take a beating while still being pretty light. They save you weight though by...
