Reviewer Information:

Name:	Mark Roberts
Age:	33
Gender:	Male
Height:	6’1” (185 cm)
Weight:	180lb (82 kg)
Email address:	mroberts AT biol.sc DOT edu
City, State, Country:	Columbia, SC, USA
Date:	06/10/2004

 
Backpacking Background:
I have been backpacking since I was about 15 years old.  A lot of early outdoor experiences, however, involved canoe camping.  Because of that, I rarely took the weight of my camping equipment into consideration.  I have been trying to break that habit since I was about 25 and am finally starting to get better at it.  I am not an ultralight, and probably not even a light, backpacker but I do try to buy the lightest equipment that I can find.  Since I have really only had a decent income for the last few years I am slowly replacing my old, cheap, heavy gear with bright, shiny, fancy, light new gear.  My typical excursions are long weekends (3-4 days) but they sometimes go longer.  My wife and I hike together a lot with our two dogs and are hoping to build up to much longer hikes sometime soon since our first child was just born in May 2004.  Most of our nearby hikes are either in the Congaree National Swamp or the on the Foothills Trails of the Appalachian Mountains, so our hiking conditions can vary considerably.

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Product Information: 

Manufacturer:	GoLite
Year of Manufacture:	2004
URL:	http://www.golite.com
Listed weight of tent and stuff sack:	2 lbs 15 oz (1332 g)
Listed weight of stakes and stuff sack:	6 oz (170 g)
MSRP:	$199 (US)
Weight of tent and stuff sack as delivered:	3 lbs  6 oz (1542 g)
Weight of stakes and stuff sack as delivered:	6 oz (170 g)

The Trig 2 arrived on the front doorstep in a small, rectangular, plain brown box via FedEx.  Inside were the tent folded neatly inside of a SilLite™ sack,  11 stakes stuffed away in their own SilLite™ sack, a very nice catalog of other GoLite products, a "thank you" letter from GoLite, some product hangtags and the instructions.  Everything appeared to be in good order and as expected after viewing the GoLite website.  The directions were succinct and would probably have been entirely adequate if this was a tent style that I was familiar with.  However, since most of my tent experience has been with free standing dome tents, this was new territory for me.  As such, I would have liked to have had a few more hints on how to properly pitch this tent.  Also, the instructions list the contents of the tent including 9 Y-stakes, however, my tent came with 11.  The GoLite website states that there are 8 stakes included so I am unsure as to how many a purchaser could expect to find. 

The Trig 2 Shelter appears to be somewhat of a hybrid between an ultralight tarp style shelter and a dome tent.  It pitches much like a tarp or a pup tent would but has some features of a dome tent such as a zippered mesh door and a vestibule.  It is a single-wall shelter made partly with GoLite's SilLite™ fabric.  SilLite™  is a silicone impregnated 30 D (denier) ripstop nylon.  GoLite describes it as an "ultralite waterproof fabric" that is "stronger than convential PU [polyurethane]-coated (or PU/siliconized) fabrics for a far lower weight".  They also state that is is "less likely to wear away or degrade in UV light than PU".  The down side to this is that it is not breathable.  However, the entire door of the tent and a small section at the bottom of each of the other 3 walls is made entirely of nylon mesh.  The bathtub style floor is made of 70 D waterproof polyurethane coated nylon taffeta.

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Initial Setup:

After receiving the Trig 2 Shelter I wandered out to my backyard, found a place I wanted to spend the night, and pitched the tent according to the instructions.  The instructions are printed on one side of an 8.25 in (20.95 cm) by 9.4 in (23.88 cm) piece of waterproof paper.  I think that having waterproof instructions on a single side of a relatively small sheet of paper really is a great idea.  This makes them easy enough to take into the field on the first trip or two yet resistant to the inevitable elements.  The instructions had several great tips on things like how to get sand off of the SilLite™ fabric, which it can apparently stick quit aggressively to, and other setup and care tidbits.  It also provided information as to why seam sealer is usually not necessary with this tent.  However, I found the instructions to lack some information that I needed to adequately pitch the tent.  Specifically, I would have liked tips on what to do if no appropriate tree branch is available to secure the rear point of the tent.  I would have also found it helpful to have a diagram to summarize some of the pitching steps.  Additionally, since I rarely guy out my dome tent, I was unsure of how to properly use the fancy plastic guyline locks that were provided.  Because of a combination of my inexperience with this type of tent and directions which didn't fill in my knowledge gaps, I had to improvise some of the setup - and apparently I am not good with improvisation. 

The first step in pitching the tent, aside from picking the location, is to secure the supplied guyline coming from the rear apex of the tent to a suitable location.  The choices are either securing it directly to a tree or, to a stake with a pole or tree branch in between the guyout point and the stake.  This will provide the necessary height for properly pitching the tent.  Since I didn't feel I had any trees or branches near my desired setup location that were both the correct height and strong enough to support the tent in a windstorm, I secured it directly to a stake that I moved as far away from the back of the tent as possible, hoping not to pull the rear apex downward.  I felt that the lack of an appropriate tree is a very real scenario when in the field so I thought that I should go ahead and try to pitch the tent in this way.  Also, I couldn't figure out, if I did have a second trekking pole, how I could use it as part of guying out the rear apex.  If I simply placed it in the ground and ran the guyline from the tent to the pole, around the pole, and to the stake - as the instructions suggest - I cannot see for the life of me what will provide it stability when faced with wind forces coming from the side of the pole.  One possible solution that I came up with was to, along with tying a rope around the pole in the above manner, use two stakes that are placed to each side of the pole and use these to secure the pole by stringing guyline from one stake, around the pole and then to the other stake.  This seems like an enormous effort in the field and I imagine there is a much more intelligent way to use a pole to secure the rear of the tent but I cannot find one.  Again, this is where a few more details in the instructions would have been nice. 

The next step is to insert a trekking pole set to 4 ft (122 cm) tall into the reinforced cone at the front of the tent.  There is a very secure space provided for the top of the pole that seems to be quit tough.  This cone of material is the very apex of the front side of the tent and, as such, is just in front of the mesh door and within the vestibule.  On the top of this cone of material is a guyout point to which some guyline is already attached.  After inserting the pole into the cone, the guyline is secured to a stake placed some distance in front of the tent.  This was very easy to accomplish and was a welcome relief after wrestling with the rear of the tent.  Alternatively, the instructions suggest that the trekking pole can be eliminated and the guyline wrapped from the front apex up and around a branch and then down to a stake. 

Next, the instructions say to stake out the four corners of the tent to "create moderate tension to maximize floor space and contribute to a taut overall pitch".   This was also relatively easy to accomplish and allowed the front pole to be further supported by the two front stake out points.  The instructions then state that the user can roll up the SilLite™ canopies that cover the mesh panels on the side and rear walls to increase ventilation.  The canopies actually roll up very nicely into easy to use elastic loops and toggles located above them.  The elastic loops can also be used as guyline attachment points in very windy weather.  I didn't use these guyout points for this initial setup.  At this point, the instructions have only called for 6 stakes, leaving me with 5 extra.  I used these to stake out the vestibule and to stake out the canopies slightly further out then the sides of the tent were staked - creating very small awnings that still allowed for some ventilation. 

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Initial Use:

I spent one evening in the Trig 2 shelter in my backyard.  The ambient temperature started out at approximately 85 F (29.4 C) just before sunset and reached about 65 F (18.3 C) at night.  I had all of the canopies rolled up exposing all of the mesh panels.  At night, the Trig 2 was amazingly well ventilated.  The temperature inside the tent didn't seem to vary too much from the ambient temperature.  Having the mesh very near ground level provided for wind flow to directly reach me while I lay on the ground.  It actually got pretty cool and I had to crawl inside my sleeping bag by the end of the night.  In the morning there was no condensation inside the tent.  The stake out loops and the guylines were very reflective and could be seen from quite a distance using just my LED headlamp. 

I found that the mesh is quite strong when my 25 lb (11.3 kg) beagle "discovered" me in the early morning hours and rammed herself continually into the mesh trying to get to me.  After I let her in the tent and calmed her down, I was impressed both that the tent was still standing and that the mesh was unharmed.   I left the tent setup and went inside. 

Later that day, a huge thunderstorm was about to break and I had not yet taken down the tent so I ran out and rolled down the canopies to ready the tent for the storm.  It rained hard for about 1 hour with gusting wind to about 40 mph and occasional small hail.  I was worried that a storm this bad would ruin a tent that I had not yet had the chance to adequately test.  After the storm I went out to survey the damage and to my surprise the tent was still standing securely and the hail had not done any damage.  There was, however, small puddles that had collected on the canopies pushing them flat to the ground.  When I opened the tent I found that the bathtub sidewalls had collapsed inward probably both from a large amount of water pushing up against them since the tent was sitting on a slight hill, as well as from the collapsed canopies pushing them down.  Regardless, the end result was that the water had come over the sides of the bathtub floor and through the mesh walls to flood the inside of the tent.  At least half of the floor was covered by scattered patches of water.  I think that pitching the rear of the tent higher by attaching it around a branch or a tree would probably have given the sidewalls adequate tautness and height to prevent this from happening again but I will need to test this. 

I think that I will need to practice pitching this tent several different ways to figure out the best method.  However, once I figure out the proper pitching method, I am excited about using this tent because it appears to be rugged, well ventilated and very light.  My two biggest concerns at this point are proper pitching and the possibility of condensation if the canopies are not rolled up such as would be required during a storm. 

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Test Strategy:

I plan to use this shelter on at least four planned outings ranging in length from three days to one week long during the six month testing period.  The test may also include a few outings that are not yet planned and may be supplemented by a handful of nights spent near my house.  Specifically, I plan to test the shelter in the following locations:  Congaree Swamp National Park, Columbia, SC; Ellicott Rock Wilderness, SC; Croatan National Forest, NC; and Mountain Bridge Wilderness Area, SC.

In general, I intend to test the functionality, durability and quality of the tent under as many conditions as I can provide.  Specifically, I am interested in testing the following aspects of the tent in the field:  

A. Ventilation and condensation.  Does the tent’s design, including the air flow panels and single wall design, allow for adequate ventilation to keep relatively cool during the hot summer days of South Carolina as well as provide sufficient airflow to minimize condensation?  Do the air flow panels provide enough airflow to compensate for the waterproof single wall construction?  Since they must be closed during a rainstorm, what effect does this have on the temperature and condensation within the tent?

 B.  Effects of temperature.  Double wall tents offer an insulating layer of air that can make the inside of the tent cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter.  How does this single wall tent compare?  Is the lack of an insulating air pocket a significant factor in interior temperature regulation? 

 C.  Durability.  Single wall tents are often thought to be less rugged than double wall tents.  Is this the case with the Trig 2?  Will it stand up to the rocky trails of the Mountain Bridge Wilderness as well as the water soaked swamps of the Congaree?  Does the zipper wear after time?  Is the zipper prone to catching the fabric?  How does the bottom of the tent hold up after repeated use?  Are the seams prone to wear over time?  Will the seams need to be sealed after long term use?

 D.  Packability.  Is the tent easy to setup or breakdown and store?  How long does a setup or breakdown take?  Is it possible to set it up in the rain and maintain interior dryness?  How do I properly pitch this tent to create a taut shelter that will not allow the sidewalls to collapse?

E.  Performance under adverse conditions.   How does the tent perform in light rain?  In heavy rain?  Do the air flow panels on the side of the tent allow for water entry during rainstorms?  How difficult is it to close the air flow panels during a storm?  How wet will the tent get if you leave them open, go off hiking, and come back during a storm?  How does the tent perform under high winds?  It looks like the tent may perform well if the opening is pointed away from the direction of high winds, what if it was facing high winds?  Does the fact that it is pole-less make it less stable in the wind? 
How well does it keep insects out?  How well will it stay dry sitting in the boggy soil of the nearby swamps?

F.  Vestibule.  How functional is the vestibule?  Does it adequately keep the area dry?   Is it large enough to cook in during inclement weather?  How much gear can it reasonably hold?

G.  Miscellaneous.  How much gear can be stored in the interior mesh pockets without causing the tent to sag?  Is there a spot to hang things from the roof, perhaps near the “pole”?  How “roomy” is it for a person over 6 feet tall?

Over the next 6 months, I am eagerly looking forward to testing this tent over many nights.  Hopefully, my time in the field will allow me to fully evaluate all of the above aspects appropriately. 

Many thanks to BackpackGearTest.org and GoLite for this testing opportunity.