Will, thanks for the review!

As a retailer with a conscience I've been struggling with reported dimensions of tents. The trend keeps slipping more toward over-stating actual floor area--my pet peeve was the Mountain Hardwear Helion 2, reported at 28 square feet with actual area of ~19 square feet. Not really a 2-person tent! I've found this erroneous reporting to be pretty standard from manufacturers. Even measuring pole tip to pole tip I still can't ususally come up with the same area as the reporters.

PU coated rainflys aren't a bad thing. They are generally more waterproof than a straight sil-coated fly, and the weight difference is realistically insignificant. Big Sky is now using a PU coated, fire retardant sil with negligible weight difference (an ounce or less, I think) from their earlier models. Should be shipping any time soon. Richard's point on degree of waterproofness is key.

n/m

Edited by dandydan on 06/28/2009 12:19:17 MDT.

Well I bit the bullet and bought one of these for $355 on eBay.

Based on my initial setup in the yard and two 1 night trips, I find the BPL review to be accurate.

As BPL recommends, access to the rear vestibule would be improved with an L shaped zipper. As it is now, you're passing stuff through a slit that spreads to maybe 16" at the widest point. I haven't measured the max width, but it sure looks tough to pass a medium sized pack through here which is too bad. It would also be very awkward to cook in here. Overall, the second vestibule seems pretty much useless except for tossing my packs under here from outside the fly. You could pass footwear through the tent into this area.

Regarding the 40" width, my CR2 measures around 42" in the middle, but it still certainly isn't close to 50". My tent is 46-47" wide at the corners.

Essentially what's going on here is that the top strut pulls the floor of the tent up in the center when the tent is empty. The tent is a very taut unit and the carbon fibre top strut (cross pole) is quite stiff, so when you don't have anything holding down the floor the edges are lifted up in the center. A stakeout point in the center of the tent would add a few inches to the tents midsection width.

The lack of peg out spots really isn't a problem though....the floor is adequately wide for two averaged sized people. I would share this tent with people who aren't my spouse.

Overall, the tent has a very high quality feel to it. I really like the mesh storage pockets. They are very well placed. In the pitch dark, you can just reach out and they are exactly where you imagine they'd be. This is very handy when you need to find your headlamp so you can relieve yourself.

Edited by dandydan on 08/24/2009 16:04:11 MDT.

Regarding the weight of this tent, here is what I've measured:

Tent Body: 578g (20.4 oz)
Fly: 500g (17.7 oz)
Poles: 219g (7.7 oz)
Footprint: 179g (6.3 oz). Optional
Pegs: 8 x 10g (0.35oz). You only need 6
Guy Lines: 2 x 10g (0.35oz). Optional
Pole Repair Tube: 8g (0.3oz)
Main Stuff Sack: 43g (1.5oz)
Pole Stuff Sack: 19 (0.7oz)
Peg Stuff Sack: 7g (0.25oz)

If you carried all this stuff (including the footprint) it would weigh 1653g (3.65lbs or 58.4).

A more realistic setup is no footprint, only 6 pegs, no guy lines, no stuff sacks (I use 2 hair elastics to keep it all rolled up) which weighs 1368g (3.02 lbs or 48.3 oz).

In fly/footprint mode with 6 pegs and 2 hair elastics (1.5g each) mine weighs 969g (2.14 lbs or 34.2 oz).

I have been interested in a light tent that my 6yo daughter, my 65lb Belgian Sheepdog (with nails, ie tough floor material appreciated) and I can sleep. This seemed to be just the tent! Mind you, the dog and I did quite well in my Scarp I, although in a rainstorm, enough moisture collected on the floor to fry my itouch (ouch).
I've notice that backcountrygear.com has put this tent on sale for $399, effectively $100 off MSR. I've taken advantage at this price point, and will use it this weekend with my crew!
Don