Hey Ya’ll!
Gearing up for my '06 hike and I’m wondering about shelters. Personally, I’m looking for one of the sil-nylon hybrid doohickies. It seems like the Lunar Solo and the Virga 2 are the top contenders. I suspect that they’ll be the most popular shelters on the trail. Any truth to that?
Anyways, what’s everyone’s vote on these two shelters. Who has 'em? Who’s planning on bringing one?
http://sixmoondesigns.com/shop/shopexd.asp?id=36
http://www.tarptent.com/virga2.html
JackH
I guess this should be in the gear forum but how about we just keep it and make it a PCT specific poll or something?
JackH
I have the Six Moon Design Lunar Solo and am happy with it. A lot of condensation, but that’s true of any single wall tent. Still prefer my hammock though. Got the tent because there are trails where a hammock isn’t allowed.
If you’re thinking of the Virga 2, see:
http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/tarptent_virga_2_review.html
The short story is they liked it, but thought the orginal Virga was better.
bear bag hanger
We used our Virga II for our entire AT thru-hike this year. We liked the tent very much. Our strut broke near Pearisburg but we fashioned a new one with a piece of aluminum arrow. Henry promptly sent us a new one too. As for condensation, although we did have some it never posed a problem. We never had ‘rain’ inside due to condensation. You have to make sure to set the tent up correctly if you get the sewn in floor to make sure no rain gets in. The light weight is nice. We used a trekking pole for the center pole. We seam sealed all seams before leaving and had no leaking through repeated use in the rain. We probably used the tent for 3/4 of our shelter during the hike and in numerous heavy rain storms.
Bluelight
Does anyone have any experience of the new Rainbow? It looks like Henry’s most fully realised tent so far, though possibly a bit small.
I am glad to see that he has now bitten the bullet and is offering fully sealed in shelters with bathtub floors. I had the (old) Squall once (it was stolen) and although I liked it, I was never too sure how it would hold up in a storm and it was very hard to get in and out with out disturbing the condensation. Nothing worse than a wet neck first thing in the morning.
To answer Jack H’s question there are actually fewer tarps and tarp hybrids on the trail than you would think from reading these forums, either that or many tarpists tend to set up in fine weather and use the huts at other times, so you don’t see them around all the time; whereas, tent people tend to use their weapon of choice every day. In 2004, the most popular models on the AT were probably the Sierra Designs Clip Flashlight/Light Year and MSR Zoid/Microzoid/Hubba.
Nobody else had my tent, the Terra Nover Laserlite, in the Guiness Book of Records (British Version) this year as the lightest 2 skin tent in the world.
St Rick