• Number of Poles and Material: 2 1/2 , 7071 Aluminium Alloy, shock corded.
  
• Length of Poles: Long 3.97 m (13 ft) Short 1.23 m (4.04 ft) My measurement
  
• Number of Doors: 2
  
• Number of Vestibules: 2
  
• Fly/Floor Fabric: Polyester Ripstop UV Resistant, Seam sealed/ Nylon
  
• Fly/Floor Waterhead: 2000/5000 mm (6.56 ft/16.4 ft) Manufacturers measurement
  
• Floor Dimensions: 210 cm x 135 cm (6.89 ft x 4.43 ft) Manufacturers measurement, verified by me
  
• Peak Height (Inner): 125 cm (4.1 ft) Manufacturers measurement and verified by me
  
• Colour: Marine
  
• MSRP: AU$349
  
• Optional Ground Sheet: AU$29. 95
  
• Optional Rectangular Gear Loft : AU$14. 95
  
  

Choosing this tent:

After a very early experience of being caught out at a Hut site without a tent, I decided to do some research on what type of tent to purchase with an upper limit on my budget of AU$450. Once the budget was set, I set the parameters to weight, pack size, inside height and the slope of the walls, whether they cleared my face by a good margin or came down at a severe angle nearly touching my face causing claustrophobia.

At the cheaper end of the market, the tents were either one- or two- seasons and used very heavy fibreglass poles. Ultralight tents were few and far between and very expensive. Within the upper limits of my budget I found the Snowgum Storm Shelter 2 and it has suited my need to date, although, technology has made it a bit of a dinosaur due to its weight. I purchased a two person as opposed to a single, because my son was walking with me on earlier hikes. He has not come since the purchase.

Some time after my purchase, I became aware of tents that could be pitched fly first, but they were very expensive, so I examined mine to see what could be achieved.

Features of the Fly:

There are two ventilation ports towards the peak of the fly, one on either side, to allow flow through ventilation. They can be closed from the inside by pushing the wall of the inner to the outer edge of the port and making contact with the Velcro, or, alternatively, I can go outside and push down on the top of the port to close it.

Reflective tape is on the vents and guy points for night use. I have also replaced the guy cords that came with the tent with reflective cords (another optional extra) so as not to trip over them in the dark. All the seams are factory tape sealed and the peg out points are reinforced. No additional seam sealing has been required by me.

The fly has two openings, one on each side, that are opened and closed by using a YKK zip and as an added feature, are further sealed, when closed, by strips of Velcro placed at intervals along the seam. The openings can be regulated as to how far I can open them up by rolling up the door of the fly and tying off at one of two positions by way of fixed toggle points. That is, halfway open or fully open.

The fly has twelve (12) peg and storm-guy points.

Features of the Inner:

The inner tent is rectangle-shaped when pitched, with two sides 2.1 m (6.89 ft) and the other two 1.35 m (4.43 ft). The inner tub floor is made of very thin nylon and the walls are polyester. It has two doors that are double layered. One layer is see- through mesh which acts as a window, and the inner layer is polyester. When both panels are closed together, I can not see out.

The tub floor has factory tape sealed seams. I have not had to do any further sealing. The sides of the nylon tub floor are high to prevent rainwater from entering, and to prevent splash on the lower parts of the mesh doors, which makes getting in and out of the tent slightly awkward since I have to step over a 30 cm (11. 8 in) barrier.

To either remove or put on my boots, I have to sit on the inside of the tent with my knees well bent over the bottom edge of the door, with my feet in the vestibule. I am not keen on bringing unnecessary dirt into my tent. I always use a footprint groundsheet (an optional extra) made for the Storm Shelter 2 to protect the floor and keep it relatively clean.

The two large door, 88 cm long x 83 cm high (2.89 ft x 2.72 ft), one on each of the longer sides of the tent, are double meshed, so I can regulate the internal heat somewhat by unzipping one panel, the polyester one, and rolling it back and tie into place with the appropriate toggle, and still leave the other panel in place to keep out insects. When it is cold, I want to keep heat in, so I leave both panels zipped together. The make of the zips on the inner are YKK.

On each side wall, diagonally opposite each other in the bottom corners, are good sized diagonal mesh pockets where I store a torch, toiletries, reading material and water to drink during the night. They are very handy for those small items that can get lost in my bedding and loose clothing laying inside the tent.

The gear loft is a handy extra to lay a torch on so I can illuminate the tent at night to read by. In addition, I also put some clothing up there, mainly socks for the next day, or to pop on during the night should I get cold feet, and nibblies like nuts, biltong (dried marinated meat strips) and Mars Bars (the small ones) to tide me over during the evening when I am reading.

The inside of the inner tent is very roomy for one, bit crowded for two, but height wise it is very good with the roof being slightly peaked at the centre. The gear loft does sag a little, but my head still clears it when I sit up. A fellow walker commented on the height of my pitched inner by saying that it was very high at 1.25 m (4’ 10”).

Pitching the tent:

To pitch the tent, the two longer lightweight 7071 Shock Corded Aluminium Alloy Poles with locking pole tips are placed into grommets at the corners of the inner tent, crossed, and clipped to plastic hooks on the outside of the inner tent. They keep the inner taut. The fly takes the short pole across the centre to help create the vestibules. The fly is attached to the inner tent frame by way of Velcro straps, one halfway up on each side. The base of the fly then clips onto the male section extruding from each of the four corners of the inner by way of a webbing strap, locking all into position. The short pole is the most difficult to install into its pockets on the fly. I have to bend the pole a bit, and being short, there is not a lot of flex to play with.

On a number of occasions when it is warm, I have just pitched the inner only, to provide a bug free shelter, and no pegs are required. When I use the fly, I like to peg out the fly entrances. If I don’t do this, I lose the vestibule space on either side of the tent as the fly wants to collapse against the doors of the inner tent when not pegged out. However, I can still put gear in the space but the outer walls flap around against the backpack and whatever else I put out there. Only by pegging out the fly entrances do I have two fully functioning vestibules. This is where the minimum number of pegs comes in, and in this case it is four .

When I am erecting the tent by myself in fine weather, it takes me around seven minutes, and to peg out, another three minutes. I am not trying to break any speed record as the weather is pleasant, so there is no hurry. I find the tent very user friendly to erect. As a speed trial in my yard, I was able to erect the tent just under five minutes and pegged out around two and a half minutes. There is a potential problem I became aware of when doing the speed trial, and that is snapping the shock cord in the poles, because the quickest way to put the poles together is to flick the arrangement like a whip, but not as vigorous. To dismantle the tent, I can do it much quicker, around four minutes, and that includes removing the pegs, but not folding up and packing away

Although the tent is designed as an “inner pitch first”, I have worked out a method of pitching the fly first to protect the inner from getting wet during wet weather, and it only takes me a few minutes longer.

I lay the fly face down on the ground, insert the short pole into position, then strap the other two poles onto the fly where they belong, there are four Velcro straps/loops, and this is where the innovation comes in, I place the tip of one long pole in the loop at the end of the webbing that has the “Male” part of a clip which matches up with the “Female” part of the clip attaching to the inner tent, then I bend the pole into its diagonally opposite end loop. Then I repeat the process for the other pole. All is in place and I the right the fly, hop under it and hook up the inner to the poles. When that task is complete, I then remove the tip of each pole, in turn, and place it in its correct position, i.e. the metal eyelet attached to inner tent in each corner. All I have to do is then go outside, clip the fly and inner together and peg out.

To date, I have done it twice when it started to rain.

I am unable to use the fly as a stand alone tent as the pole tips in the loops put stress on the stitching, so it is very much an emergency action for inclement weather.

Field Information:

I have used my Snowgum Storm Shelter 2 in all seasons whilst backpacking on the Bibbulmun Track in the South West of Western Australia (WA). The major use has been in winter conditions and rain is pretty well guaranteed on most days and nights. The South West of Western Australia is characterised by a Mediterranean climate with hot dry summers ranging from 16 C–42 C (61 F–108 F) during December to March and cool wet winters ranging from -3 C to 28 C (26 F to 85.5 F) during June to August.

Terrain on the track is undulating, ranging from 0 to 585 metres elevation (0 to 1,920 ft).

Within this region I backpack along old forestry roads, sandy tracks, and purpose-built walking tracks

Use:

Ventilation between the inner and fly is meant to minimise condensation and to keep the occupants warmer in colder conditions. However, on warm, still, sunny days, I found that I could not stay very long inside the tent as the interior was much hotter than the outside. The fabric appeared to magnify the temperature. I even rolled back the inner and fly doors to vent the heat and it worked to a degree, but it still was uncomfortable to be inside, so I would take myself outside and occupy myself doing other task or just sit under a tree and watch nature till evening when the interior becomes much more pleasant.

The manufacturer states that the tent is a four season tent below the snowline, and I find this to be correct. I have never camped in snow as it is an extremely scarce commodity in W.A.

There are two big door openings in the fly which can be closed enough to keep me dry when it is raining, and still provide extra ventilation to minimise condensation, and there are two vestibules created when the tent is pegged out provide enough room for gear. In this area I store my boots, backpack, collapsible kitchen sink and drinking water. Mostly I store items in one vestibule and use the other vestibule for entry and exit.

To date, I have not shared the tent with another person, but there is definitely enough space for another mattress.

When hard surfaces are encountered, and I have to pitch the tent freestanding without pegs, I bring my backpack inside the inner, but I do leave my boots outside the inner but under the fly.

There is a certain skill, arrived at through trial and error, on how to repack the tent into its pack. The sleeve for the poles is not quiet correct, as I find the Velcro strips are slightly out of alignment to each other when the poles are in the sleeve, and does not stay sealed when the pack is rolled up into its normal format. In my opinion, there is a small risk losing the poles as the end is completely open. Probably the reason the poles have not become lost, is that the rolled pack is tensioned by two straps going around its circumference. But should the straps not compress the pack enough, and the whole arrangement is a bit loose, and the disaster of lost poles could happen.

Worst Conditions:

The worst conditions in which I have used this tent, and I was on my own, was during an electrical thunderstorm when condensation actually formed on the inside of the tent and made the inner quite damp.

My sleeping bag got wet on the foot end where it came into contact with the wall of the tub floor.

I did slightly get rained upon inside the tent when the Earth shook from the many claps of thunder, thereby vibrating the condensation from the inside of the tent and gravity took over the droplets.

No damage was suffered by the tent, but the lower part of the tent fly was very dirty from the splashing up of the rain mixing mud and water together, and the webbing attached to the locking pole tips were caked in mud and saturated.

Summary:

The tent has been a very loyal friend to me throughout extreme weather and warm nights, but it is now five year old technology.

There are no signs of wear and is still an excellent tent.

I see the tent’s future being taken in a vehicle and used at campsites at a beach by my children, who have done this on a number of occasions.

I would like to see the manufacturer install one metal eyelet on each of the webbing straps at each corner as this would give the tent an option of being pitched “Rain-Fly-First” without any possible damage being done to the end loops of the webbing and/or another possibility would be to modify the dedicated optional groundsheet by adding metal eyelets on each corner by way of Tabs, in lieu of the existing fabric loops. The locking pole tips would lock into position. Once the tent is erected, it is just a matter of going to each corner in turn, removing the locking pole tip from the groundsheet eyelet and/ or webbing eyelet and reassemble the inner tent corners first, fly corners second and groundsheet last.

Features I like about the Storm Shelter 2:

• Easy to pitch
• Freestanding
• Good cross ventilation
• Able to Rain-Fly-First Pitch (My innovation)
• Good door design
• Storage pockets
• Accommodates a Tent Loft
  
  

Features I dislike about the Storm Shelter 2:

• Heavy
• Storage bag is too short to be strapped horizontal to my Backpack. I have to roll it up differently out of the Tent pack.
• Very stuffy and hot inside on a hot/warm day
• Stress on webbing when pitched fly-first