by South_Aussie_Hiker » Wed 27 Apr, 2016 3:47 pm
So, this tent decision has been a long time in the making. Made more difficult by the fact that I had an awesome tent in the first place. My MSR Mutha Hubba HP is a built like the proverbial. But at 3kg, it was the main sticking point in my lightweight kit. Dividing it between three is doable, dividing it by two or taking it on my own is manageable (not ideal) weight wise, but volume wise just doesn't work with my transition to a much smaller pack.
So, enter TT SS2.
This gear review will be in two parts: initial comments, then a longer term review
Reasoning
The decision to choose the TT SS2 over other shelters came down to a few things:
1. My wife and I use 1 walking pole each, solo I can use one of the strong TT poles
2. Needs to be comfortable and spacious for two, and fit three in an emergency
3. Dual vestibules
4. Dual wall
5. Option of both a mesh (for use in SA) and solid inner (for use in Tas)
6. Small packed size (it really is small when packed up)
7. Lightweight
I'd read conflicting views on the robustness of the SS1/SS2, particularly in strong wind, so I've kept the MSR for now – however that's a pretty big dome tent, so it probably wouldn't be the most bombproof tent in really exposed locations anyway.
Ordering
The ordering process was pretty easy. I ordered both inners, one pole, two 10' lengths of guy line, Tyvek ground sheet, two pole adapters, seam seal kit and requested the free repair kit in the comments section of the ordering page. All up came to about AUD$800 with a conversion rate of 76c. The Stratospire 2 was not listed as in stock, so I expected a wait time.
But within a day I received an email asking me to confirm I only wanted one pole (great customer service). Within two days of ordering, the tent was dispatched! It arrived in about 6 business days which is very good for USPS. Very well packed and protected, bravo TT!
Everything arrived exactly as ordered. The solid inner was clipped into the tent, while the mesh inner came with it's own separate sack. Weigh in showed 1419g with solid inner, which would equate to about 1330 with the mesh. Another 120g or so for the Easton pole if I hike solo.
Repair Kit
This came with an assortment of mesh, bathtub floor, and silnylon fly materials wrapped in a small bundle – included for free if you request it, and no doubt useful down the track.
Pole Adapters
The tyvek is wide enough to cover the ground where my hiking pole goes, so I don't see the handle getting damaged – and without the footprint, it's not that hard to clear an area for the hiking pole to sit. I also imagine the shelter would be less robust with the pole up the other way because it might be able to move around a bit in the spire. I'll be using the walking pole tip up. Anyone want two pole handle adapters?? Don't really see the point.
Tyvek Groundsheet
The Tyvek groundsheet seems great – I've never seen Tyvek before. It feels very much like thick paper, but I think for it's weight, is a cheap and effective solution to protecting the bottom of the tent. It seems slightly oversized compared to the bathtub floor, which may be intentional on TT's behalf because apparently the first time you wash Tyvek it can shrink a little. Either way, it's good to have a bit extra because it means my hiking pole handles are not in the dirt.
Pole
The included pole is the stronger one available from Tarptent. A lot of online comments indicated the "substitue" lightweight poles were a waste of time. The pole seems quite strong, although perhaps not as much as a hiking pole. The hiking pole is generally easier to setup too, because you can fiddle with the height to get the tensioning right. It will do the job when I'm walking solo.
Seam Sealing
In hindsight, I wouldn't bother with the kit for several reasons. With two kids, a trip to the hardware store is a half day outing, so I took the easy option and bought the kit. I didn't realise, but the mixture they send is premixed with low-odour mineral turps (flammable), which technically (unless I've missed an obvious difference with US dangerous goods legislation) makes this illegal to ship by air without declaring and shipping as a dangerous good. I'll be following this up with Henry, because it should not be posted like this. The premix appeared to have either not been made runny enough or partially dried out already (although bottle was well sealed), and had very thick consistency which made it hard to use – not dissimilar to pure silicon. Also, because you have to tip it into another, bigger container that fits the brush head, it dries out quickly and skins. Within 10 minutes or so the mixture becomes unusable unless you keep adding a your own mineral turps to keep the consistency – which of course means you need supplies beyond what is in the kit and makes the whole idea redundant. I did two entire seals of all the seams, but the second one was a heap better because I mixed the “premix” with turps to thin it out a little and this made it much easier to use. The paper towel method for wiping off excess worked a treat, and prevents discolouration of the fabric. Overall, the seam sealing takes getting used to and is a little time consuming – the seam seal kit is a waste IMHO. Better off buying your own equipment so you can maintain the correct fluid consistency as you go. I also seam sealed the four stitched corners of each bathtub floor. Unfortunately I had standard (not low odour) turps at home, so was a bit stinky for a few hours until it all evaporated. I didn't bother hosing it down to check waterproofing, hopefully I got it right.
Pitching
I set it up in the backyard, and agree with the general consensus online that it can take a while to get a good pitch. Having to move each peg to reposition is an obvious disadvantage of the non-free standing tent, so hopefully I'll get it right next time so I don't have to move anything. My main issue here was the pitch lock corners are easy to over tension if you set it up randomly or using Franco's method. You actually need the most tension between the two spires, so in my most humble of opinions, Henry's method is better and will allow me to get the pegs in the right spot first time. My first pitch had a big crease on the bathtub floor between the pitch lock corners, so I repegged these closer in and then moved the door pegs out to reshape the whole thing.
Guy Outs
You really can't set this tent up properly without guying out the spires. Even by juggling the peg points and pulling the door out fairly taught, without the assistance of the guyline pulling the spires apart – the tent fly doesn't sit clear of the inner, which would be a disaster with any condensation. As soon as I had reset the pitch lock corners closer to each other, and then guyed the spires out to some additional peg points – the inner sat well clear of the fly, I had a reasonably taught pitch and the bathtub floor no longer had a crease between the pitchlock corners.
Pegs
Which brings me to another issue – the tent is provided with six pegs, and it's simply not enough. If you could roughly get it pitched well enough for reasonable weather I'd be forgiving, but the reality is you just can't get the tent inner off the fly without guying out the spires. So for even fine weather, this tent really requires a minimum of 8 pegs. For strong winds, you'd be looking for at least 10 pegs so that each spire could be double guyed out, or so you could add extra guy out on the provided black loops on the into wind side. I know I'll cop criticism for this – TT's argument will be that some people would complain about 8 pegs being standard when they can use their own, and I know it'll add another 25g or so to the weight which might cost them sales – but the reality is, the tent is not really a 6 peg tent in any sense of the word or even fair weather conditions. I understand TT's reasoning here and the fact that they are damned if they do, and damned if they don't. I'll be adding 2-4 MSR Groundhogs to my kit to make it all weather capable, and I'll be installing longer guys on the spires – the provided ones aren't nowhere near long enough to give any sort of angle away from the tent, so they'll pull pegs out too easily. I'll also carry some extra lengths of guyout for extra protection in bad weather.
For really bad weather or camping on any windy, exposed ridges – I'll be swapping ALL of the Easton pegs out for 12 Groundhogs. The better sideways strength of the Groundhogs make it a much better suited peg for this tent. The longer guys with a flatter angle to the ground will also make the pegs more likely to stay put.
Finish Quality
The stitching quality is excellent. The fabrics are high quality, and the mesh is by far the finest I've seen – which allows for completely unimpeded views outside. Even the storage sack has excellent quality stitching, at least equal to my MSR which is saying something. The only aesthetic faults I could find were
1. the mesh had a couple of little darker patches where it had maybe been pulled or scraped on something, but it massaged back to normal (I read somewhere else Henry had emailed someone how to do this to fix it)
2. the stitching on the spire guyout points is a bit rudimentary and ugly (but obviously has to be very strong)
3. on one seam of the fly there was a tiny crease stitched in
I only noticed these things because I had to seam seal the thing inch by inch – otherwise I would never have noticed them. And they are a complete non-issue from a tent performance point of view. The build quality overall is simply outstanding. Cottage manufacturers continue to impress me with how well presented their products are.
Vestibules
The MSR had dual vestibules and they were big, but presented me with two problems – firstly, they were staked out at quite a low angle, which meant you had to climb out of the tent inner and duck down right into the vestibule to reach the zip to open the vestibule door, and secondly, there were at the each end of the tent rather than the sides, which necessitated climbing over pillows and sleeping gear to get in and out. The side vestibules are an absolute delight. Heaps of space, and you can sit up in bed to open the inner zip and also reach the door zip without getting out of your sleeping bag. Love this – massive plus for me.
Interior
Space – huge. This is big and comfy for two. I'm 6' tall, and there's oodles of space at either end. I can easily sit up from a sleeping position without touching the fly. While it's obviously not as big or wide as the 3P Mutha Hubba, it feels at least as big because the spires give it vertical walls on each side, rather than a dome roof which wraps around and reduces head room near the walls. Fitting three would be a contingency plan only.
Mesh inner is great, awesome all round visibility. I'll be using this inner when it's not too cold and there's views to be had. Solid inner has two small triangles of mesh, the rest (including the roof of the inner) is solid for good water protection from condensation.
Keeping the inner dry during setup/packup – huge advantage. Removing the inner is a great option, but the clips are clumsy to reach and really stiff to get undone unless you have superman strength fingers. They don't need to be so stiff, it's not like they need to have any structural strength – and the elastic keeps tension on them at all times. Perhaps they'll loosen up with use. I'll try Franco's “hold the D loop and twist” method next time.
Weather (Wind) Resistance
I'll obviously talk about this more in the long term review, however I don't see why this thing will be any less weather worthy than the MSR. In fact, it'll probably be better. I think some of the negative comments I've read online about wind shedding are probably the result of two things:
- this thing needs to be guyed out properly. In strong wind, it would need at least two longer guys from each spire (the most important point on the tent to guy out), plus potentially an additional guyout/load lifter on the into wind pitch lock corner
- by its very nature as a non-freestanding tent, this thing places a lot more load on pegs, so you MUST have good pegs.
Because the walls are quite steep, it places more vertical load on pegs, so they will pull out easily. Adding guyouts which are longer is a must in bad weather. The included pegs are really only fair weather. If you try and take this tent into strong winds with the standard guys, the included pegs will pull straight out. This is not a limitation of the tent's strength or weather worthiness, it's simply common sense that this tent gains all its strength from the ground anchors and they need to be robust and spaced further away so they are pulled more sideways rather than vertically. If you were to guy it out carefully and use cup hooks into a timber tent platform (instead of pegs into the ground), I can't ever imagine this tent failing. It's immensely strong. If people want a bomb proof pyramid (non free standing tent), then they need to accept the key to the strength lies in the pegs. I saw some PCT hikers placing rocks on pegs to prevent them pulling out – that's a good indicator that they need better pegs, not that the tent is weak. I've also seen a video of Franco trying to set this thing up freestanding using weights like rocks and water bags to hold the peg points. Don't waste your time, it's just not feasible as anything other than a useful backyard experiment. I wouldn't set this tent up on a hard surface with rocks instead of pegs, in even the most mild of conditions. I tried it in my garage using 6x 10L tins of paint, and it wasn't even taught enough to seam seal.
Summary
All in all, I'm chuffed. It's a fantastic design, lightweight, excellent materials, strong and great finish quality. So far, I'd definitely recommend this tent based on what I've seen.
I have a few trips planned in the next 8 months (one or two nights close to home, plus an Overland Track) so I'll update the thread when I've used it more in the field.