Reviewer Information

• Name: Cora Hussey
• Age: 23
• Gender: Female
• Height: 5 ft 9 in (1.75 m)
• Weight: 150 lb (70 kg)
• Email address: cahhmc "at" yahoo "dot" com
• Location: Los Angeles, California, USA
• Date: April, 2004

Basic Product Information

• Manufacturer: Garuda / Dana Design
• Year of Manufacture: 1999
• URL: http://www.danadesign.com/
• Listed weight: Unknown
• Weight after use in this review:
  • Minimum (bivy only): 2 lb 3 oz (1 kg)
  • Stuff sack: 3 oz (85 g)
  • Total packaged (excluding stakes): 2 lb 6 oz (1.1 kg)
  • Note that this includes some extra patching on the hood hoop ends (described below) and some tie cord I sewed onto the peg loops for attaching to my pack.
• Measured Length x Width: 90 in (2.3 m) x 30 in (75 cm)

Product Description

Setup and Entry

I think the setup is very easy. I usually set the Menage A Moi up by pegging it out using the three loops: one on the top of the head space, and one on either side of the end of the foot space. This secures it against blowing away in the wind when I am not in it. The stiffened head hoop will stand up well even if the bivy is not pegged out, as you can see in the pictures below (where it is simply lying on my carpet). I have also successfully simply clipped the head loop to my pack to prevent it from blowing away when I am too lazy to peg it out properly.

Once secured if desired, I stack all my cannot-get-wet items in the end of the hood. My head only takes up about one third of the head space, and so I have nearly two square feet of real estate up there to stack my often extensive camera gear, boots, socks, and other items. I then slide my pad and sleeping bag in, and crawl in myself. The Delrin stiffener in the hood is easily bendable with my hands, and so I have no difficulty in bending the hood out of the way to get in. The entry method is to unzip a zipper which runs high from shoulder to shoulder, slide my legs in, and pull the hood over my forehead. You can see the entry zipper below in the pictures.

I have found that securing and fiddling with the hood venting system, no-see-um mesh, and two layers of zippers to fend off weather took some time (about two trips) to learn to operate from the inside. However, after awhile I figured things out and it turned out to be quite easy to use (it simply has a lot of options to learn about). The hardest is trying to figure out whether I want to prop the hood or zip the no-see-um mesh at the beginning of any given night.

The Venting System

The venting system has three parts: the hood prop, the chin-to-foot tube, and the foot prop. All three come together to provide what I have found to be the best ventilation I could imagine. This is my most favorite part of the Menage A Moi, so I will try to describe it well.

The Hood Prop

The hood prop is a small Delrin rod which props up the hood flap off of the main bivy body. It also works with the Delrin hood hoop to keep the fabric off of my face. This allows air to continue to circulate around my face. The no-see-um mesh can only be partially zipped up when the hood prop is used, but I only use the hood prop in the rain and mosquitoes are not really out in the rain. Here is the first of two pictures illustrating the hood prop:

The image above shows the rod (maroon), and the no-see-um mesh. The top of the rod attaches to the edge of the top hood via the yellow hook-and-loop. When not using the hood prop, the hook-and-loop tucks back against itself so it does not scratch my face. To use the hood prop, the rest of the yellow hook-and-loop flap unfolds and secures to the bivy body to correctly pull the top edge of the hood over the edge of the main body:

The Chin-to-Foot Tube

If venting around the face was not enough, the Menage A Moi also has a rubbery-plastic-stiffened half tube which runs from chin to feet along the top of the bivy body. The bottom of the half-tube is mesh, so air is free to flow out and around the tube from me and my sleeping bag, and from hood to foot prop at the ends to outside air. Here is a top view of the bivy, and I have drawn a blue line to the left of the tube (the bivy is rather permanently wrinkled so it is difficult to pick out). Though not directly part of the venting system, in this picture you can also see the Delrin hoop in the hood. It is what is holding the hood off the floor at the top of the picture. It runs from 'ear to ear' on the Menage A Moi and functions similarly to the single-pole design on other bivies:

Here is another picture illustrating the tube, and why it is sort of a half tube. This is looking end-on from the chin end of the main body. A blue arrow points to the black mesh which lies against my sleeping bag and keeps the rubbery plastic pulled into a tube, and the green arrow points to the rubbery plastic itself:

The Foot Prop

The foot of the bivy has a prop similar in function to the head prop. When both props are put up, the bivy vents nearly as if I was sleeping right under the stars without anything over me. It is quite amazing. Here is a close up of the foot prop. It is rather simple, I can either prop it up against the square of yellow hook-and-loop, or just tuck it under the foot flap:

Size

I have slept in the Menage A Moi with everything from a light summer sleeping bag to a heavy winter one, and all work fine. I have used thick inflatable pads and shaped pads, and all of those work fine as well. Bivies are hard to measure, but the Menage A Moi measures 90 in (2.3 m) long and 30 in (75 cm) wide across the top of the middle of the body.

The one major thing about the Menage A Moi that I do not like is the fact that it is relatively enormous when packed compared to the packed sizes of other bivies I've used. The stuff sack size is 7 x 18 in (18 x 46 cm). This is because the rubber-stiffened tube does not fold easily and the Delrin hood hoop stiffener does not come out. On one hand it is a very sproingy type of bulk and can be squashed down much, much more than my stuffed sleeping bags, but on the other hand it still takes up a bit of space.

Field Testing

I have used the Menage A Moi on many backpacking trips in the Colorado Rockies and the California Sierras. It has seen hail, very heavy rain, cold, and a lot of summer dirt and grime. Temperatures ranged from 90 F (32 C) to 10 F (-12 C), and I have used it on all sorts of terrain between 6000 and 9000 ft (1800 to 2700 m).

Additional Comments:

+ Durability: Great
Comments: Impressively enough, my Menage A Moi has no rips, holes, or even many abraded patches. After the first two trips, I glued some extra ripstop under the ends of the hood hoop because of worry about their durability, and yet over the years those areas have only abraded a bit. There are only two nitpick-style comments I have about the Menage A Moi. First, it is dirty and smelly. Perhaps this has a great deal to do with how much I use it. However, other bivies I have used and seen used (the Menage A Moi is the only one I own) do not smell nearly as much. Nor are they as dirty despite my occasional efforts with a soapy sponge to clean the Menage A Moi. Since I know no one else who owns a Menage A Moi, I cannot confirm that the fabric has any contribution to the dirt and smell problem, but either way it is not a big deal. It came with no real cleaning instructions, and it does not bother me much. The bigger issue is that the Menage A Moi does not come seam taped. I do not mind hand-sealing it, but even though I used really good seam sealer (McNett Seam Grip) it wore off in three years of use. I have yet to see tape come off of my other shelters, and so it is sort of odd to have to watch the sealant slowly fail on the Menage A Moi, and then remind myself every trip for a few rain showers to re-seal it. I appreciate the fact that the cost for the Menage A Moi was lowered by letting me seal it myself, but, well, I don't have a good answer for this. Those nit picks aside, however, the bivy has seen hail, scuffing, even pet dogs running pell-mell over its surface repeatedly and still is perfectly serviceable.

+ Space and Livability: Excellent
Comments: For a bivy, I find the Menage A Moi to have a perfect mix. With pole bivies I have used, they need to be tautly pitched for their pole to work well. The Menage A Moi works just fine when not pitched tautly, and the Delrin hood stiffener hoop and hood prop hold the fabric off of my face well. I can sit up with my feet in the body of the bivy and cook, and I can store my big camera, various bulky lenses, my boots, my socks, and my head all comfortably together in the hood. The Menage A Moi has enough girth to accommodate my thick pads and warm sleeping bags, and the weatherproofing and bug-proofing mechanisms of the hood became intuitive to use after a couple of trips of futzing.

+ Weatherproofness: Excellent
Comments: When I first saw the hood prop, I thought of it in a rainstorm and said "No way". I almost sent the Menage A Moi back, but I thought I would keep it and give it a whirl for kicks. Well, five years later I have had it go through storms where water was literally running next to the sides of the bivy, and I stayed perfectly dry. Torrential rain (as long as it comes relatively straight down) is no match for the bivy. The only instance where the hood prop was not the best idea came when the wind was perfectly situated in the 15-degree angle of approach to my face, and then it was blowing probably 25 mi/h (40 km/h) in light, easily-blowable rain. Only then did I forgo the hood prop and zip the bivy up for everything it was worth. Then, I felt a little stuffy (as I describe below in ventilation) but I stayed dry. The waterproof breathable fabric also does its job well. It feels soft and fuzzy on the inside, and wicks and breathes incredibly well. Finally, the bivy is very warm. I have found that it adds probably about 10-15 F (6-8 C) to my sleeping bags.

+ Ventilation: Excellent
Comments: In case I have not made it obvious enough yet, the ventilation provided by the two prop bars and the tube running across the top is amazing. In other bivies, my sleeping bag will come out damp across the top after a rainy, hot, or muggy night, which is typical of some lower elevation thundershowers. In the Menage A Moi, my sleeping bag has always come out perfectly dry. The hood provides a great feeling of openness since I do not have to zip it closed much to be well protected from weather. Thus, I always feel like I am breathing fresh air. In the one time that rain pelted me sideways under the hood and I zipped everything up on the hood with only an inch (2.5 cm) or so left open, I still got more than adequate air through the stiffened tube from the foot prop, but I had to sleep with my face right in front of the tube opening. Otherwise it felt very stuffy. On other bivies I've used, when zipped almost completely up I have no choice but to feel stuffy. However, I laughed all night because with my face in front of the half-tube I felt like I was snorkeling in my own bivy sack.

Summary

The Menage A Moi is a bivy sack with excellent ventilation, a Delrin-stiffened hood, no-see-um mesh, and lots of space to store items in the head area. It is comfortable and has sheltered me and all of my different sleeping bags and pads nicely in all sorts of weather.

Upsides for me:

• The ventilation is incredible
• Weatherproof
• Durable

• Bulky when packed
• Cannot zip the no-see-um mesh fully with the hood prop up

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Reviews > Shelters > Tarps and Bivys > Dana Design Menage A Moi Bivy > Owner Review by Cora Hussey