Opinion: Tent woes with the Zpacks 2p Zip

Sep. 11—By CHRIS PETERSON

So I spent $900 on a tent earlier this summer. Well, not exactly $900. It was $863 to be exact. There was a 5% discount for "first time buyers" and with postage it came to $863.

I know what you're thinking: I've completely lost my mind, which isn't all that far from the truth.

The tent is a Zpacks 2p zip tent. It weighs, with stakes, about 2 pounds, 4 ounces. It's made of a fabric called Dyneema, which makes it so expensive, at least that's what they say. It also makes it lightweight and pretty much rainproof, which is to say I spent the night in it in one of the worst thunderstorms I have ever been in and came out dry, save for some condensation on the inside walls.

That is the good part of the tent.

The bad part is during that same thunderstorm, the zipper separated from the interior bug mesh of the tent. This irritated me greatly.

Did I mention this was an $863 tent?

Zpacks fixed it under warranty, but I still had to openly wonder about their quality control.

I got the tent back a couple of weeks later and we went out for an excursion this weekend. When I went to set up the tent one of the ferrule ends had slipped inside the pole and I couldn't get it out.

This made the pole virtually worthless, since that one section wouldn't click together. So I went down into a willow patch, took out my trusty Swiss Army knife and cut a replacement pole out of a willow.

The tent wasn't exactly straight with the willow branch, but at least it was upright. Fortunately the wind wasn't blowing and it wasn't raining, or it may have been a long night up on that grassy hillside where we camped 14 miles from nowhere.

I complained to Zpacks and they are offering a full refund after the latest snafu, but even so, buyer beware.

Thing is, the boy was snug as a bug in his Hilleberg Niak tent. He's had the Hilleberg for about a year now and while it weighs about 1 1/2 more pounds than the Zpacks, it sets up in about 2 minutes (I am not making this up) and has proven to be bombproof. (He also spent the night in that same thunderstorm, and didn't have a drop of water inside his tent).

The Hilleberg wasn't cheap either and new ones today sell for more than $900. (The price went up significantly since last year, even, when we paid about $750.)

But if you do enough camping in the backcountry, being warm and dry is well worth the extra cost in my opinion. Just be careful on which $900 tent you choose.