Reviews > Shelters > Tarps and Bivys > Tarptent Cloudburst > Steve Nelson > Initial Report

Initial Report: Tarptent Cloudburst
September 20, 2004

Reviewer's Information

Name: Steve Nelson
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Email address: nazdarovye at y..oo dot com
City, State, Country: San Francisco, CA, U.S.A.

Backpacking Background:

As an interface design and usability consultant by trade, I'm always excited by analyzing and improving designs and processes; backpacking provides a fertile and fun arena for that. I have been backpacking since I was a kid growing up in upstate New York: we backpacked and canoe-camped in all seasons, throughout the Adirondacks and nearby areas, ranging as far as La Verendrye Wildlife Reserve, Quebec. As an adult, I've backpacked and hiked extensively in California, but also have taken trips throughout the West, from New Mexico to British Columbia, and return often to the Adirondacks.

In the past year I made the transition to lightweight and ultralight backpacking. I like moving fast, and lightening the load facilitates that. I also enjoy urban strolls, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, kayaking, and aviation in addition to hiking and backpacking, so my gear gets exposed to a wide variety of uses and conditions.

Product information

Overview

The Cloudburst is a two-person, lightweight, "3+ season" tarptent constructed primarily of silnylon and mesh. It is supported by two hoop-style, sectioned aluminum poles and features a zippered main opening, a split/retractable "beak," and "sidewalls" that can be rolled up for ventilation or clipped down for additional protection from wind and precipitation.

The Tarptent web site gives a good overview of the Cloudburst and its companion shelters, providing photographs, specifications, illustrations including a "floor plan" and cross-section, usage tips, testimonials, and straightforward ordering instructions and prices.

Tarptent and its founder, Henry Shires, have an outstanding reputation online (and amongst my hiking buddies) for backing up their products with excellent customer service. I've personally seen Henry reply to questions in message groups within just an hour or two of posting, and I've heard stories about him going out of his way to get people their tents on short notice and to fix things that break. He also appears to welcome feedback and is continually tweaking and improving his products (for example, my Cloudburst's zippered front door and extended beak are recent additions to the design).

Initial Impressions

I received the Cloudburst in a small cardboard box, approximately 24x4x4 in (61x10x10 cm). The Cloudburst was in a stuff sack, rolled around two rubber-banded collapsed poles and a tiny silnylon bag containing 4 lightweight titanium stakes. It was shipped with Kelty Triptease (orange, reflective, spectra-core line) already attached to the main front and rear tie-outs. A one-sided, letter size page of instructions was included as well (covering basic setup, seam-sealing, sag and condensation, and a few key points and tips).

The top and beak of the Cloudburst are sewn from medium gray silnylon, the floor from black silnylon, and everything in between from fine mesh. Three zippers meet to form the front opening: two along the bottom of the front opening, one from the center of the top of the tent down to the bottom of the front floor. The zippers don't quite meet up, leaving a 1 in (2.5 cm) gap, which would appear to possibly let bugs into the tent, except that there is a flap of silnylon flooring inside the front opening that covers the bottom of the opening, closing off this gap and perhaps also preventing splashing precipitation from entering the bottom of the front opening (I'll be keeping an eye on this in the field).

Poles are made of shock-corded aluminum, breaking down into sections approximately 20 in (51 cm) long. The front pole is completely straight (before being inserted into its sleeve), while the back pole has a slight arc to it. The sleeves for the poles are sewn into the silnylon tent body and reinforced with webbing, and the pole ends snap into grommetted holes on a length of webbing that provides a "handle" and which also extends across the width of the bottom of the tent at each end. It appears that this webbing helps keep tension in the hoops.

The front webbing strap has a small patch of hook fastener underneath the center of the front opening that appears to be meant to mate with loop fastener sewn onto the front mesh door approximately 4 in (10 cm) up from the spot where the zippers meet. It appears that the bottom portion of the mesh is actually meant to fold flat to the ground under the front opening, or for the floor to be lifted up at the opening to form a "lip." The instructions make no mention of these elements. To help better illustrate this, I took the following picture while kneeling outside the front of the Cloudburst, facing inward and looking down toward the center of the front opening and the silnylon lip on the floor:

The top of the tent has a seam running down the center from front to back (the tent's instructions note that it's necessary to seam seal the tent and describe how to do so). There are two additional, optional-to-use side tie-out loops, but no line or stakes are provided for these, and they are pretty far down on the side of the tarp (at the top seam of the roll-up sidewalls).

The extended beak has two differences from the standard one: its sides extend all the way to the bottom of the pole hoops, clipping into the same spot as the sidewalls; and the beak is slightly longer (without a regular beak here for comparison, I'm guessing that it's less than a foot ( cm) longer at the center. Both of these help give a bit more storm protection, though both ends of the tarptent still remain fairly open to ventilation and do not completely block views into or out of the Cloudburst.

The beak has two round patches with small pieces of hook and loop fastener sewn to them on each side; these are meant for holding the beak partially rolled up (still leaving about 10 in (25 cm) of beak deployed, as shown in the pictures below). Additional pieces of hook and loop/webbing sewn into the inside top of the arch can hold the mesh door rolled up out of the way (it may be possible to roll both the full beak and mesh into these top holders—I'll test this).

The split beak and multiple "holders" give nice flexibility to the front opening, providing maximum ventilation and views with the beak completely rolled up; partial shelter and privacy with one side of the beak deployed; maximum shelter and privacy with the beak fully deployed; and several other combinations when factoring in the zippered mesh door as well.

The sidewalls are roll-down curtains approximately 6 in (15 cm) tall and run the length of both bottom sides of the Cloudburst. Small pieces of hook and loop fastener sewn into the seam provide a means to hold the rolled-up sidewalls in place, and elastic cord loops at each corner allow the sidewall to be hooked into the pole bases at each corner to keep it rolled down.

The following photo shows the hoop pole entering the image in its sleeve from top left and exiting the sleeve near the top of the sidewall, with the pole's tip inserted into a grommet in the piece of webbing at the bottom corner of the tent. Both the sidewall (which extends up and right in the photo) and extended beak (the wedge of fabric going up and left in the photo below the pole sleeve) are shown anchored down with elastic cord, just visible near the tip of the pole and grommet:

Inside, there are no "features" such as pockets or loops for stringing lines or hanging items—just the floor, mesh and silnylon top, as befits the Cloudburst's minimalist style. The floor is simply a flat piece of silnylon with the previously-described extra flap at the front (note: a clip-up bathtub floor may be a future option for the Cloudburst). Here are inside views, looking toward the front and rear:

Note that the interior space is quite open—even with the beaks on each end, the interior is substantially exposed to airflow and light (and prying eyes, if privacy or security are a concern).

Near the corners of the front opening and the back mesh, the floor is attached with elastic cord. The instructions say that these can be re-knotted to adjust the spacing of the floor relative to the walls of the tarptent. Here's a picture taken from inside the Cloudburst and facing its right front corner, showing the plastic hoop and tensioning cord at the intersection of the mesh and floor corner:

The quality of the sewing in general looks solid, if a bit crooked here and there. In my initial inspection of the tent, I found only two anomalies, both minor:

• At the top of the main body, where the beak attaches, there was a minor snag and loose thread in the stitching
• The center front tie-out had some snags in the Triptease cord, through which the Spectra core was bulging out

Setting it up

Lacking suitable space in my city yard (which is mainly a brick patio and plant beds), I took the Cloudburst to the park around the corner to set it up (much to the amusement of the local dog population, who consider the park their turf and were quite curious about what I was up to).

The instructions are straightforward and the Cloudburst is simple to set up. The instructions said that it would take only 2-3 minutes once I had some practice—and as it turned out, this very first outdoor try took about four minutes. I believe that I'll soon be able to get the setup time down to what the instructions state.

Pitching consists of assembling the two shock-corded poles, pushing them into the sleeves at each end of the Cloudburst, staking out the rear line, then staking out the three front lines, "walking" the hoop poles forward or back and restaking as needed to get things taut.

I didn't achieve the tautest pitch ever...but the tent also was wind-loaded from the side (right to left in the following picture), and I only pitched it facing this way because this was the only level spot available in this part of the park. General experience says that it would be best to pitch the foot end of the tent into the wind—though, interestingly, the instructions make no recommendation. I will experiment with this in the field.

There are two side tie-outs that I will also try in the future to see if they add additional stability—my hunch is that they won't help much against the side-loaded deflection near the top of the arch (the tie-outs are located at the center of the bottom of each side of the top fabric, at the seam where the sidewalls attach), but they'll likely help get a tauter pitch and add a little extra space inside the tent. Here's a view from the front right, at the instant a big gust caught the Cloudburst from the side:

Here's a view from another angle, showing half of the split beak deployed, and half rolled up:

Here's a view of the tent from the foot end:

I found the space inside the Cloudburst very pleasant and airy. It looks as if it will easily hold two side-by-side sleeping bags, though perhaps not packs or other larger gear at the same time—this is something I'll definitely be experimenting with in the field. I also noted that I couldn't sit up straight without my head pushing into the top fabric, even when I sat close to the front opening. This will be exacerbated when sharing the Cloudburst with someone, since we'd both be shifted further to the side, where the roof drops off. That isn't a deal-breaker, but because single-wall tents tend to collect condensation, I'll have to be careful when I sit up or change clothing so that I don't get things wet.

Taking the tent down was easy, though I could see that an extra pair of hands would be a nice thing when the wind is blowing like it was in the park—the tent is so light that it wanted to blow away once the poles were out. Nevertheless, I was able to roll it up quickly, and it easily fit back in its stuff sack.

As an aside, I feel that the instructions could include a few more details—for example: noting the webbing and hook and loop fastener at the front opening; noting the floor flap; discussing optimizing siting relative to wind and optimizing the Cloudburst's pitch in inclement weather. No big deal that these are not covered, but it did take me a few minutes to figure out some of the features of the front opening.

Next steps: seam sealing, then taking this beauty out for a real trip!

Test Locations

I'm really looking forward to using the Cloudburst in the field. I'm going to use it as both a solo and duo tent, in mild, rainy and snowy conditions, both here in California and in the Adirondacks, and hopefully in a few other locations as well.

Specific trips planned include:

• Confirmed extended fall trip on the Northville-Lake Placid trail
• Confirmed weekend backpacking trips in the Desolation Wilderness, Pt. Reyes National Seashore, Santa Cruz mountains
• Car camping in Mendocino and Big Sur during the rainy season; possible car camping at other locations this fall (Colorado, New York)
• Planned early winter backpacking and snowshoeing trips in the Lake Tahoe, Mt. Shasta and Yosemite areas

In addition, I hope to use the tent on at least one canoeing or ultralight rafting trip—possibly a canoeing trip in the Adirondacks sometime later this fall. Finally, I'll also bring the Cloudburst on non-backpacking travel and set it up whenever possible in rain and storms, even if just on the brick patio out back, to give it as many bad-weather workouts as possible.

Altitudes on these trips will range from sea level to over 10,000 ft (3,050 m). Weather will range from hot and dry California late summer conditions to afternoon Sierra thunderstorms, and from wet and soggy east coast hiking and paddling to wet and windy winter Pacific storms. Temperatures will likely range from below freezing to as high as 100° F (38° C). Most of the campsites will be on dirt and rock in the Sierra Nevada; on forest duff, rock or sand on the California coast; and on forest duff, heavy undergrowth and/or mud on the east coast. Winter camping will be on early season powder or frozen ground. Canoe camping will expose the stored Cloudburst to splashing and pooled water as well as soggy shoreline campsites. Since I got the extended beak, I will actively seek out some adverse weather and soggy sites and see if I can push the limits of the design. I love camping out in storms!

Test Plan

Among the issues I intend to test and document with the Cloudburst are:

• Ease of setup, including during adverse weather conditions (does the Cloudburst get wet inside as you're setting it up? How easy is it to set up in strong wind?)
• General usability (features, zippers, poles, location and type of tie-outs, etc.)
• Roominess and comfort, for both solo and duo use (including headroom, whether we brush up against condensation, ease of entry and exit, ease of changing clothes and getting into sleeping bags, and so on)
• Stormworthiness, including the effectiveness of the roll-down sidewalls, rear and extended front beaks, and floor flap in keeping out precipitation and dust, as well as the design's resistance to wind loading
• Ventilation and condensation; draftiness
• Suitability for colder, windier weather (Does the great ventilation become a liability in windy and cold conditions? Does the extended beak help mitigate this?)
• Ease and speed of breakdown, including in adverse conditions
• Packability, including ability to split up the load between two people
• Durability of all materials (including fabric, mesh, zippers, loops, provided stakes and lines)
• Suitability for winter use (again, respecting the stated "3+ season" rating of the Cloudburst); how well does the flat floor work on snow; is the openness of the ends a problem in winter?
• Whether it's possible to safely cook in the vestibule of the Cloudburst (an assessment I will approach very cautiously, if at all, due to the flammability of Silnylon)
• Issues, if any, with seams and seam sealing
• Slipperiness of bags and pads on the floor (taking into account the instructions' suggestion to paint seam sealer stripes on it to limit this)
• An evaluation of its overall suitability for solo versus duo camping

I'll record information about weather, terrain and gear used for each trip, and photograph pitches, locations, and features of interest where relevant.

Summary

The Cloudburst is an impressively light, airy and roomy two-person shelter—I can't wait to take it out backpacking.

Things I like so far:

• Nice design
• Flexible beaks and side coverings
• Lots of fresh air
• Light in weight
• Easy and fast to pitch

Things I don't like so far:

• Not as much headroom as I'd prefer
• Instructions could include a few more details and pointers

Thanks to BackpackGearTest and Henry Shires/Tarptent for giving me the opportunity to participate in this test.

Reviews > Shelters > Tarps and Bivys > Tarptent Cloudburst > Steve Nelson > Initial Report