| |
Gear Reviews
Documents
Tools
|
Six Moon Designs, Lunar Solo Field Report
Manufacturer: Six Moon Designs, 2004
Web site: http://www.sixmoondesigns.com/
MSRP: $225
Tester: Mara Factor
Gender: Female
Height: 6’1" (185 cm)
Weight: 220 lb (100 kg)
Age: 39
Locale: Medford, Massachusetts (near Boston), USA
Date: February 5, 2005
Email: m_factor@hotmail.com
Web:
http://friends.backcountry.net/m_factor
Background:
I have been hiking and backpacking extensively since 1989. Weekends frequently find me in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Longer trips I've taken include such diverse locations as Copper Canyon, Mexico; Annapurnas, Nepal; Olympic Mountains, Washington; Austrian Alps; Paria Canyon, UT and AZ; Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Crest Trail, and a 1999 thruhike of the Appalachian Trail.
As a lightweight backpacker, I do not forgo comfort or safety. I weigh all of my equipment and carry only items necessary for each trip. My ~13 lb (6 kg) summer base pack weight includes a Nomad lite tent, alcohol stove, Big Agnes sleep system, ULA P-1 backpack or Kelty Vapor backpack, and an MEC filled jacket.
Product: The Lunar Solo is a lightweight, one person, tent. It is designed to be used as an integral part of a lightweight backpacking system.
Please see my Initial Report for further information about the Lunar Solo.
Weight: 1.5 lb (.7 kg) both as advertised and as measured at home. Once seam sealed,the weight of the tent did not measurably change. The recommended 9" stakes are 0.5 ounce (15 g) each and with six stakes bring the total packed weight to 1 lb 11 oz.
Field use:
Of five planned trips before the first of the year, only one went off. This, unfortunately, prevented me from testing the tent in what I would normally expect the colder range of this tent to be. Instead, with trips in late December and late January, I have only used the tent in temperatures beyond what I would expect the normal range to be. Also, on each occasion, the tent itself was set up on snow. My experiences are therefore tempered by the knowledge that I was pushing the tent beyond its intended use. On my first outing, the temperatures bottomed out in the mid-teens (-9 C). In late January, temperatures bottomed out at 0 F (-19 C).
Please keep this in mind as you read further about my experiences with the tent.
With such cold conditions, I did take Ron's suggestions to heart and pitched the tent low to ground in an effort to minimize ventilation and allow the tent to retain as much heat as possible. I believe some of my observations about the tent performance are a direct result of this lower pitch.
Being tall, I use a long sleeping bag. With a long Big Agnes bag and pad, both ends of my sleeping bag press against the mesh vertical walls of the tent. Because the walls are mesh, I haven't had problems with condensation wetting the head or foot of my bag.
Also, because the sleep system is so long, I find my head is positioned very close to one end of the tent. With the thick air mattress I use with my Big Agnes system, I found my face was just below the silnylon wall of the tent. On one occasion, I even positioned one of my shoes in the back corner to hold it up to get it from laying right on my face. With the tent so close to my face, in the cold temperatures, that meant a plethora of frost right at my face as the warm moist air I was exhaling didn't have a chance to disperse before freezing against the cold wall of the tent.
As expected, I did have frost layering the canopy of my tent in the morning. It was a small price to pay for retaining even a couple of extra degrees when out on such cold nights.
Pitching issues: Some of the pitching issues I had were simple finishing problems. Some of them could be addressed with slight design changes. Here are my observations and suggestions.
- The corners of the tent canopy and floor have preattached stretchy cords. These cords are also preattached to each other. Many of the loops came undone as I was pitching the tent. Upon closer examination, I realized they were tied with square knots. I'm no expert in tying knots, but I do know that square knots are not reliable knots. These knots should have been tied with something a bit more permanent. As it was, I ended up having to expose my fingers in order to retie knots in subfreezing temperatures but it could have just as easily ended up being a windblown downpour when I found out the knots were coming undone.
- The front string that stakes the pole at the entrance is too short to allow the vestibule to be pitched tightly. It just needs to be a bit longer.
- While using my hiking pole to support the tent, I found that the pole tip that was positioned up through a grommet and should have been protected from coming in contact with the tent wall by a small webbing strap frequently slipped out from the strap. A quick look shows the strap is not exactly centered over the hole. I recommend a reconfiguration so the handle end of the pole is up. This would eliminate the stress point altogether.
- The way the tent pitches, the mesh walls and floor of the tent essentially hang from the silnylon canopy. While guylines attached to the corners of the floor help hold the floor in place, I find the front portion of the floor, with no guyline, is often pushed back upon entry to the tent.
A loop at the center front of the tent around the base of the supporting hiking pole would eliminate this problem. This loop may also need to be attached to the front stake to prevent any accidental dislodging of the front pole while entering and exiting the tent.
- An added benefit to stabilizing the front center portion of the tent would be easier zipper handling. The zippered door would then be usable as a one-handed zipper. As it stands now, two hands are necessary to open the zipper fully.
- I wish the front vestibule had a way of tying back the front door at the midway (guyline) point, not just the fully open point. With the door of the tent only opening halfway, it was awkward to have to unhook the vestibule from the staked string just to tie it back. In situations where you know you're going to use the vestibule, it is still nice to have it tied back and off the ground while doing camp chores and getting in and out of the tent.
- With longer stake out ties on the back wall, it would be possible for the extra back wall tie out to use the same stake as the lower back wall tie out. There is a picture on the web site showing this configuration but I found I needed an extra stake to make the geometry work.
- With the high point of the tent being at the front wall of the tent, I find the vertical height of the tent does not come close to representing the usable headroom. While I was still able to sit up, I found I really did have to slouch a lot. Using the back pull-out helps with shoulder room and when spending any significant amount of time in the tent (such as a long winter's night), I found it necessary to use the pull-out.
Other observations:
- I put plenty of SilNet on the floor and still find myself sliding around. I'm hoping that's a function of the fact that I've only been out in extremely cold weather and the silicone just doesn't stay as tacky when it's that cold. I'll report back on this for my long-term report.
- This may come under the heading of "personal preference", but I recommend a slightly larger stuff sack be used. While I don't have any problems getting the tent into the sack, it is a tight fit which means the packed tent does not conform to space available in my pack very well.
- With mittened hands, I had a hard time closing the vestibule. Closing the vestibule requires matching up three strips of Velcro. With zippers being used for the door of the tent, perhaps they should also be considered for the vestibule.
- On snow, I have found no significant difference when setting up the tent on a Tyvec groundsheet or with no groundsheet.
Modified long term test plan: I will have plenty of more temperate use of this tent in the next four months. With a two month road and hiking trip planned for April and May, I expect to get plenty of use out of the tent. As a solo trip, I will no longer be relying on the vagaries of others to get out and about.
Questions I still hope to answer for the long term report:
- How well does the tent stand up to windy conditions?
- How well does the tent keep rain at bay, both along the vestibule entrance which is adjacent to the tent body, and while entering and exiting the tent during rain?
- Does the vestibule reliably keep the area underneath dry?
- Does the ventilation keep condensation at bay in the humid eastern US states?
- Do the preattached guylines present a problem when hiking where the ground is unforgiving? I am used to searching for a spot to sink a stake and with the premeasured guylines, will I be frustrated in my attempts to pitch the tent? If so, will some additional line solve the problem?
- With my long bag pressing against the mesh at the head and foot of the tent, will I have any problems with moisture transfer through the mesh from vegetation just outside the tent?
Needless to say, with my field report being based on trips with extremely low temperatures, I can safely say that I do not recommend the Lunar Solo as an extreme cold weather tent. This tent is designed with plenty of ventilation for warm weather and provides little or no extra protection from the temperature in cold conditions. This is by no means a complaint about the tent performance. I had anticipated pushing the lower temperature boundaries and I did. I will report on the performance of the tent in more temperate conditions for my long term report.
Read more reviews of Six Moon Designs gear
Read more gear reviews by Mara Factor
|
