After the big Wind River alpine trip, we realized that we desperately needed a new tent. I had been talking to the wonderful people at TarpTent for a couple months now and have been waiting for them to release a 2 person DCF (cuben fiber) tent.
Well, the day has come and we ordered it within the minute that they opened up ordering. I assume that we received the first production tent, but who knows! Anyways, here are photos from our first attempt at pitching the TarpTent StratoSpire Lithium and then our first impressions on it.
Overall, this thing is a freakin work of art! It is gorgeous! It seems like it will be perfect for our big trip. It is roomier than our other tents but uses a smaller footprint and has a door for her and a door for me.... We need that.
I did not expect the solid inner to be nylon and I didn't expect it to cover the top as well, but it will be nice when it is cold out! *Edit* - They used this material for now breathability over DCF, at a similar weight. Seems like a great decision to me.
I will likely report out after our Whitney/Russell trip, after we know how it does in the wind :)
Unfortunately, we did find a couple things that we were expecting... A few holes in the tarp and a couple stray threads in the inner tent. I am assuming the holes came from someone testing it, before shipping it. I have let TarpTent know, and will edit this with how they respond. I expect that it will be positive. They have always been wonderful to me :)
*Edit* - these are likely stitch holes and Henry Shires personally reached out to me. He offered a couple options to fix this issue and we are 100% totally satisfied with TarpTent! Thanks guys and gals!!
That line of holes is characteristic of when fabric gets caught in the seam accidentally while sewing. It appears that section of the canopy got caught in the nearby seam, so a bunch of stitch holes were made. The sewer would have noticed the mistake and removed the stitching to free this fabric, but it left these holes. This can happen with any material, but the holes are more obvious with DCF since it's not woven so the fabric strands can't move together to cover it. Either way, the sewer would have been aware of this mistake and should have set the tent aside, but probably was too embarrassed to admit the mistake.
ReplyDeleteThanks Dan! Seems like an honest mistake and not a huge deal to us. As expected, TarpTent has fixed it and we are stoked to get the tent out into the wilderness.
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