Reviews > Shelters > Tarps and Bivys > Six Moon Designs Gatewood Cape > Andre Corterier > Initial Report

Six Moon Designs "Gatewood Cape"

Personal Biographical Information:
Name: André Corterier
Gender: M
Age: 34
Height: 1.85 m (6 ft 1 in)
Weight: 80 kg (175 lb)
Email: andreDOTcorterierATfreenetDOTde
Home: Bonn, Germany

Backpacking Background:
I have started out with backpacking slowly – single-day 24 km (15 mi) jaunts by myself or even shorter hikes in the company of my little daughter. I am getting started on longer hikes, as a lightweight packer and hammock-camper. I’ve begun upgrading my old gear and am now shooting for a dry FSO weight (everything carried From the Skin Out except food, fuel and water) of about 10 kg (22 lb) for three-season camping. I am getting there.

Year of manufacture: 2006
Manufacturer: Six Moon Designs
URL: http://www.sixmoondesigns.com
MSRP: 110 USD

listed weight: 11 oz (312 g)
measured weight: 11.3 oz (320 g)

Rain Wear:
The Gatewood Cape is another attempt at reducing pack weight by making items serve more than one purpose - in this case, utilizing the same object for weather protection when hiking and sleeping. A few such items exist - I am aware of a few ponchos which are meant to serve as a tarp either on the ground or for a camping hammock. The "Cape" of Six Moon Designs is different from these in that it is meant to be set up as a "shaped tarp" - in effect, a tent without a floor.

The Cape comes with unsealed seams - the manufacturer suggests to seal the seams with silicone seam sealer. I have not yet gotten around to doing that (though I have just purchased the requisite seam sealer) so the weight reported above is with unsealed seams.

In its "cape" form, the Gatewood Cape did not appear to be much different from a rain poncho. You can see that at my height of 6 ft 1 in (185 cm) it comes down to just above my knees in front and somewhat further than that on the sides. There are a few contraptions provided which are apparently meant to allow fitting the Cape to the hiker in a way which makes it less of a sail and, possibly, to improve the weather protection it affords. The use of these was less intuitive for me than, say, putting on a jacket and zipping it shut. I will experiment with their use and report on my success (or lack thereof) in the Field and Long Term reports.

The hood (visible on the picture) can be adjusted by a thin cord which runs through a toggle (visible in the picture right in front of my chin). It's a thin toggle for a thin cord, so it wasn't bothersome for me. It occurred to me only after looking at this photograph that it might appear bothersome - for me, I hardly noticed it there. It adequately serves the purpose of enlarging or reducing the face opening of the hood. The hood does not have a stiffened brim or any such contraption, in keeping with the idea of keeping this item *light*. I guess that as a hardcore ultralighter one would just toughen it out without one. Others would likely use it with a baseball cap as I did in that picture (which worked very well). Usually, I carry a broad-brimmed rain hat, which should work just as well.

The Cape does not have sleeves. It has slits in the sides, through which I push my arms. The silnylon fabric of the Cape is doubled over to cover these slits so that rain won't enter here, particularly in its "tent" configuration. This creates a kind of "mini-sleeve". The effect is that the Cape follows my arm movements to a degree and that in the course of what little hiking with trekking poles I have done with it so far, usually no more than the lower half of my lower arm was exposed.

The Cape features an internal zippered pocket which is (just) visible in the picture as a slightly darker shade of light blue next to the zipper at chest height to the left of the picture (putting it on my right as I wear the Cape). This pocket is adequately sized for a few snack bars etc. - though as the Cape does not prevent access to hip belt pockets of a pack or similar things, it may or may not see use as such. The pocket can be turned inside out and then doubles as a storage bag for the Cape, which can be easily stuffed into it. I like that.

The zipper in front is a dual zipper, so I can open it from the top or the bottom or both. The top end won't separate, though. This should provide a means of adjusting ventilation which I will be certain to check out in the humid drizzles I am expecting in the future, particularly during the Long Term testing period.

The zippers on the Cape are quite small and light, but seem adequate. I see no need to employ bigger (and heavier) ones.

It may well be possible to adjust the Cape in a way which will have less of it simply hanging down over me and my pack - the manufacturer did provide some means of adjusting it, which I have yet to figure out. I am not saying that it's particularly hard, but as the only way to check it out is with the Cape over my head which does get in the way a little when sorting through the folds it creates, I haven't gotten around to it yet. But I will.

Shelter:
In order to set up the Cape as a bottomless tent, I face away from the wind as I am wearing it, then stake out the front of it with two stakes. Squatting down, I pull the hood up over my head and insert the ring which will suspend it from the trekking pole. This ring looks much like the sort of garland one sees at the top of maypoles - only without the outer "wheel" part of it. It consists of a metal ring which fits over the tip of the trekking pole used, and connects this with the neck opening of the Cape by way of several, colour-coded straps. The straps end in hooks which I found easy to attach to their anchor points around the neck opening of the Cape. Having set up the pole, I turn around and stake down the "rear" end of the Cape and then get to the sides. Not that hard.

The colour-coding on the "maypole" is apparently meant to insure that a guyline which is affixed the headpiece will be facing towards the face opening of the Cape. In the picture, this guyline is hanging down from it. It would be easy for me to stake this out. However, the manufacturer states that setting up the Cape as a shaped tarp requires only six stakes. There are six loops around the bottom of the Cape. In the picture above, I staked all six of these loops to the ground and therefore could not stake down the guyline elsewhere. Still, the set-up was good enough to wait out a ten-minute sprinkle (not enough to test the still untaped seams).

I emailed the manufacturer about this and he informed me that the loop at the bottom of the zipper is not meant to be staked down - rather, it is meant to be connected to the guyline. While an extra hook with a loop of cord came with the guyline, I am still unsure as to the exact way to do this. I will continue to research this and am confident that I will find out in due time (and will report my findings here). For now, I could leave it as it is or produce additional stability with the help of a seventh stake.

By size, the footprint of the Cape in its "tent" configuration is large enough for my DownMat 7 (visible in the picture), though I am guaranteed to sleep in contact with the tarp fabric at both the head and foot end. The sides of it slope rather steeply. I should mention that the Cape came with some extra cord and instructions to fashion extender loops out of them. These are meant to go through the stake-out loops, which should allow me to raise the entire canopy by a few inches (a few more centimeters). This may or may not make enough of a difference to prevent contacting the sides of the shelter - I'll be sure to check this out. My daughter accompanied me on this first trial walk and it appears as though we might *just* both fit under the Gatewood Cape. We will make sure to test this, also.

With the zipper closed, the zipper takes on some degree of lateral stress. This is the one situation in which the size of the zippers employed raises a possible concern in my mind. However, as the zipper does not separate at the top and has a largish hook-and-loop closure at the bottom, this may be enough to have it all hold together well. I'll report what I find in this regard.

Initial Summary:
While I, too, would have preferred to test the Cape's green version in keeping with my usual subdued nature colours scheme, everything else about the Cape seems excitingly intriguing. Should I find that it comes down low enough so that a decent DWR treatment on my pants will let me walk without rain pants, then in eliminating the need for a rain jacket, rain pants and shelter it takes a big load off my shoulders. I will probably carry a much heavier pad with it, however, because living in a hammock has made me soft.

My current impression is that for the kind of trips where rain isn't expected or is reasonably expected to be less than often and less than heavy, this thing could be just perfect. How far I would be willing to cross into seriously rainy and/or stormy weather remains to be tested.

Reviews > Shelters > Tarps and Bivys > Six Moon Designs Gatewood Cape > Andre Corterier > Initial Report