4-person tent recommendations
I'm looking for a 4-person tramping/mountaineering style tent, i.e. not a large car-camping tent. I've looked at lots of brands (on the web) so far including Marmot, North Face, Macpac, MSR, Mountain Hardwear, Terra Nova, Exped, Big Agnes, Vango, Black Diamond, Hilleberg, etc and thus far nothing is quite right (although Hillberg are looking pretty good).
The main things I'm after is actually being big enough to fit 4 sleeping mats side by side (the Macpac is not, despite being labelled a 4-person tent - I looked at one of these in person) and having a decent floor. Many/most are either not tub floors, or are only rated to 1500 or 3000mm hydrostatic head. Compare this with Macpac which is rated to 10,000.
The other nice feature (but less important) is being able to pitch the inner and fly as one, so the inner doesn't get wet if it's raining.
Can anyone suggest any other brands I should look at? Cheers...
I've been one of 4 in a Wilderness Equipment Cirque (without the vestibule - we didn't expect much snow on the Larapinta - central Australia :)
It was certainly a very stable 5-season (expedition) tent - here's a link :
http://www.wildequipment.com.au/tent_detail.php?Code=WECIRQCOM )
I own a WE First Arrow and can vouch for the excellent design and workmanship of that product.
Unfortunately the quality of materials and the workmanship of Wilderness Equipment is wasted on many people as they are often obsessed with cost and weight and the silly idea that going outdoors should cost them next to nothing. I was that way once too.
Hilleberg tents are awesome. Extremely light, strong, spacious and expensive. They use siliconised nylon instead of polyester and this keeps the weight down. I saw a (rich) gear freak with a 3 person tent and it had a spacious vestible so it could have accommodated 5 people. There was just him and his girl but it was so light, it didn't matter. I'm pretty sure that as well as some of the Macpac they also feature the multi-pitch feature i.e. pitch inner, pitch fly without inner and pitch both options. Our flimsy little MontBell can do that too.
Just don't expect the same durability with the siliconised nylon. The individual fibres are siliconised and it's generally stretching and abrasion which will compromise the waterproofability first. Our WE Dart gave a good few years but i wouldn't depend on it now in a downpour.Stretching makes the fly sag a little and touch the inner. Still, nothing lasts forever.
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| Forum | Gear talk |
|---|---|
| Started by | asidwell |
| On | 6 May 2011 |
| Replies | 4 |
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