Dome shape tent with good vestibule storage, suggestions please?

[Cowsham]

I do like the snow skirts although I'll probably never use them for snow camping but I'd imagine they'll keep a bit more heat in the tent at night.

A fly that goes right down to the ground is a two edged sword. Yes, it makes the tent warmer, but on the other side it's also far more prone to condensation.
You choose, you lose.

Snow valances aren't as common as they used to be even on technical mountaineering tents. If there's plenty of snow you can just dig the whole thing in and you can get small clip-on ones to attach to pegging points if you want to add rocks and/or snow to your pegging.
Permanent valances always add weight and bulk though, and if the fly goes to the ground that's all you need to stop cold wind blowing under.

Pete.

I think you are right -- maybe naturehike should have not bothered with the snow valance and put in a better inner tent which would probably work out lighter or at least the same weight.

One of the other considerations was a footprint or me making a footprint for the bedroom bit at least.

Because of the horrendous weather the underneath of the inner bath tub ground sheet was very mucky ( none leaked into the tent ) . When packing up the tent I wiped as much off as I could with paper towels and got the tent back in it's stuff sack. Then at home on the first half decent dry day ( within the week ) I thoroughly washed the inner tent ( not in a machine just by hand ) out in the garden and hung it on the line to dry.

I thought -- if I had a light plastic sheet under the inner ground sheet just big enough to wrap up the outside of the bath tub about a foot -- that would keep the inner clean and easier to pack away, so with a lighter tent I could afford to bring that plastic sheet. -- a quick splash with the hose at the campsite and pack it away too.

All the workings of an OCD mind sorry.

[pjclinch]

Here's a geodesic with an extended porch... It's in the Real Money™ zone but much less than a Hille, the money is still going on tangible improvements to what you've been using.

https://www.lightwave.uk.com/products/t ... t=product2

It's an inner first pitch which isn't my favourite but not a deal breaker (our current usual bikepacking tent is inner-first because we couldn't justify twice as much on a Hille Rogen). Quite a faff to put up compared to an all-in-one tunnel but as you've noticed the market for extended porch domes/geodesics doesn't have much in it.

Pete.

[Cowsham]

That looks like an interesting option -- thanks Pete

[Mtb tourer]

Another Kaitum user here, needed a bit more space than the Nallo if away for a long trip and few stops indoors .
2 entrances with storage and as I am tall perfect fit .
Tunnel v Dome , think tunnel is more robust and easier to use. Hilleberg are expensive but they last. The Nallo is just starting to have sticky zips but it been used in arid places and is 23 years old.
Another plus is you can have it repaired.

[hoppy58]

I have a Big Agnes Blacktail 2 hotel, which is a dome tent with a 1/2 tunnel to one side. I’ve used it for a couple of mini tours with my Brompton, aswell as several car-camping trips. It’s very comfortable. As well as the main porch there is a second, smaller porch. Quality is good and it has stood up to a few windy days on the coast with no problems. It’s around the 3kg mark so quite heavy by today’s standards. I really like it and use my helinox ground chair in the porch when the weather turns foul!

[Cowsham]

I have a Big Agnes Blacktail 2 hotel, which is a dome tent with a 1/2 tunnel to one side. I’ve used it for a couple of mini tours with my Brompton, aswell as several car-camping trips. It’s very comfortable. As well as the main porch there is a second, smaller porch. Quality is good and it has stood up to a few windy days on the coast with no problems. It’s around the 3kg mark so quite heavy by today’s standards. I really like it and use my helinox ground chair in the porch when the weather turns foul!

I've had a look at these too ( not in the flesh ) What's the gap like between outer and inner and is it difficult to keep the panels of fabric apart when wet? This was the problem I had with this style of inner pitch first. Getting the fly sheet taught enough and in the correct position to keep the gap.

[slowster]

It might be worth checking the tents currently being sold by Sport Pursuit, which is an outlet used by brands to sell off stock. You need to register to access the website, but you can unsubcribe from emails so there is no penalty to registering. Currently they have some Big Agnes tents at 50% or more reduced, as well as other brands.

https://www.sportpursuit.com/equipment/ ... tents.&p=4

[hoppy58]

Re the Blacktail hotel, the gap between inner and outer is big and when it’s rained there’s been no problem. There’s a few videos on YouTube, particularly relevant is one by Gary McGivern which gives a good idea what it’s like for cycle touring

https://youtu.be/JgiMiSkyv8k?si=JA-jH8YjNRFL_irY

If you look at how it’s pitched in the BA photos it’s clear that there’s not enough pegs! (..it seems to be a thing with American tents!) I think I needed 6 extra to pitch it nicely!

[Cowsham]

I remember the problem I had with the gap was that because the inner tent is held in place by the poles the outer can be pushed in against the inner tent by wind more so when wet and heavy. With the poles holding out the fly in a pitch outer first tent and the inner hanging off the fly, the inner tent always moves in with the outer fabric so the gap is maintained.

[Carlton green]

As a very general observation - of a personal trait / social conditioning that I now try to manage - the search for perfection can: take excessive time, be expensive, and sometimes fruitless. At some point it’s best to accept what’s not excessively difficult to get and work with it. I’ve found that I don’t need the best possible item, something lesser that’s at least good enough will suffice and give me sufficiently good service - and particularly so with thoughtful use … it’s what you do with what you’ve got that matters. Well that’s my personal experience, and the change of perspective has been liberating.

[pjclinch]

I remember the problem I had with the gap was that because the inner tent is held in place by the poles the outer can be pushed in against the inner tent by wind more so when wet and heavy. With the poles holding out the fly in a pitch outer first tent and the inner hanging off the fly, the inner tent always moves in with the outer fabric so the gap is maintained.

It's implementation dependent.
My Spacepacker is a fly-first pitch and it's quite common for the inner to touch the outer (which I did worry about when I first got it back in the late 80s, but in practice it's not a big deal unless it's a cotton canvas tent).

In practice it's more about the amount of unsupported fabric than whether a tent pitches inner or outer first, plus more devil-in-the-detail stuff like how far the poles sit beyond the outer in an inner-first pitch.

I much prefer all-in-one and fly first pitching tents, but the inner-first pitching ones I have and have used really haven't had problems with this.

Pete.

[pjclinch]

As a very general observation - of a personal trait / social conditioning that I now try to manage - the search for perfection can: take excessive time, be expensive, and sometimes fruitless.

Particularly so with something like a tent, where the design is a compromise between different desirable traits and which are most important on any given trip will vary with the weather and the pitch.

At some point it’s best to accept what’s not excessively difficult to get and work with it. I’ve found that I don’t need the best possible item, something lesser that’s at least good enough will suffice and give me sufficiently good service - and particularly so with thoughtful use … it’s what you do with what you’ve got that matters.

Indeed.
I prefer fly-first or all in one, I think it's a better solution... but we have a couple of inner-first pitch tents which do what we need for the money we had. Similarly with PU coated flys, thin groundsheets etc. etc.

Pete.

[Cowsham]

I don't like the thin groundsheets although to be fair the omega has never leaked in.

My ideal tent would be outer pitch / all one dome with tunnel type porch and thicker ground sheet weight under 4kg. ( Edit -- and enough head height about 1.2m to sit in a proper chair in the porch. ) I know it could be done but I suppose a lot of trekers wouldn't want t.such a heavy tent but for base camp cycle touring style it would be perfect.