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Topic Date User

Which tent - 4 season, 2.5kg, 6ft2in, vestibule 20-Jun-2009 At 9:57:16 PM shmalec

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Okey dokey. Been pondering this a bit, poked around a few tents and going shopping tomorrow.

I've decided I definately want full length pole sleeves and don't want a fly that just gets thrown over the top. It's gotta all pitch together.

I don't have enough experience in single skin tents and the condensation problems. The reputable one's that have vestibules aren't that much lighter anyway (eg Bibler tempest is 3.3kg).

The Olympus has been great aside from the weight. Unfortunately, the new one has only one vestibule, a silicone nylon fly and is still 3.5kg. Didn't the original olympus have a nylon fly that went all saggy after a while?

The Exped Sirius looks really well built. The normal version is 3.3kg with a tough polyester fly and the 'extreme' version drops to 3.1kg with nylon fly. While this doesn't have a second entry like the oly, the floor area is definately bigger (wider). So will probably get this with the lighter fly.

Some of the Hilleburg tents look attractive. If they had a dealer here, I'd take a good look at them. But not going to buy one off the net without checking it out first.

I'm a bit disappointed that there aren't bigger improvements since I last bought a tent. I wonder sometimes if design and quality of this sort of gear peaked some time ago and we're not on the downhill 'maximum profit' path. Certainly a lot of the new style packs look almost disposable. I'm also trying to replace a macpac torre but find they don't make it anymore......used to be the macpac pin up boy!! Sad. Will have to get an ascent or maybe glissade.

For those that are interested, here's the shortlist with weight in kg.
Salewa - Sierra Leone Ultra 3.3
Mountain Hardware - Spire 2.4
Bibler Tempest 3.3
Exped Venus II Extreme 3.0
Exped Serius Extreme 3.1
Macpac Olympus 3.5
Hilleburg - Nammatj 2.8
Hilleburg - Kaitum 2.8

Thanks everyone for your thoughts, they have been very helpful.

First decent outing is larapinta next month. Alec.