Tents

Holdsport from Cape Town owns both the Sportsmans Warehouse (SW) and Outdoor Warehouse (OW) chains; 360 Degrees is an in-house cheaper brand within the SW & OW group of stores. Holdport also own Performance Brands (PB) which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Holdsport. Performance Brands in turn owns Capestorm, are the major shareholers of first Ascent (fA), not to be confused with First Ascent in the US. Performance Brands also own BBB which is a high end cycling brand which is sold through the SW stores and through certain specialist cycling stores.

Cape storm used to offer highly specialised technical gear like down suits and a range of gear suited to polar expeditions. I used to be a big fan! Almost all of the gear was locally designed and manufactured but since Holdsport has taken over this is sadly no longer the case. As is the case with fA, much of it is now imported from China. The Capestorm range is now targeted at the more fashion conscious crowd as opposed to the fashion conscious technical adventurer. A number of their former designers and seamstresses have moved over to Cape Union Mart (CUM) and are designing and manufacturing under CUM's K-Way brand...again not to be confused with the french brand also known as...K-Way...

All rather incestuous in my opinion!!!!!

If you do head to Outdoor Warehouse to check out the Cool Mountain 2, do yourself a favour and have a look if they have any older stock available, I'll relate my story why:

My brother-in-law and I recently decided to get the Cool Mountain, so we headed to shop to check it out. We put up the tent inside the shop and climbed inside. We are both 1.8m tall. By all accounts, the Cool Mountain seems to be a great, affordable tent, but there is no chance we could've shared that tent; it's simply too small.

Then I spotted another tent on the shelf, just slightly out of view, the last one there. It turned out to be an older model, 360 Degrees, 4 Season Tent; the Summit 3. The price tag said R2300. We pitched it inside the shop and climbed inside. I don't know why they stopped making this tent, but IMHO it is the perfect size for 2 tallish people AND their gear. Anyway, we decided to take the tent and when we got to the checkout, their computer scanned it at R1300! What a find! 650 bucks each for a 4-Season Tent. I'm not sure if there are any more of these floating around, but if I saw another one, I'd buy it on the spot.

I did a full weigh in when I got home and it breaks down to:
Poles: 970grams
Pegs: 180grams
Inner and Groundsheet: 1200grams
Flysheet: 1250grams
Total weight: 3.6kg

Obviously the trade-off is that it's a bit heavier than the Cool Mountain, but for the size advantage, I think it's worth it.

Good Luck with whatever you choose!

....and everyone rushes off to outdoor warehouse....

I'd love a Cool Mountain II, but I bought a Trek II (since discontinued) cos its lighter, in case I have to carry it myself instead of sharing. If OW are planning to discontinue carrying 360 Degrees, I might have to buy one!

I've just had a look, the price for CMII on the website is now R2000 :o

intrepid wrote: Based on comments by others seems the CM II can handle a lot of what the Berg does (80-90%?) but I doubt that it can handle everything (the remaining 10-20%). I've heard of even MSR's getting damaged in the Berg. It would take the really hardcore tents like Hilleberg's to be totally sure that the Berg wont get you.

I don't know that any tent is absolutely safe in the Berg. I remember someone (Cesar I think) telling me about someone's Everest rated tent getting torn to shreds by a winter Berg wind.

Worst wind I have had in my CM II was the day before Hobbit was sick on that 7 day hike I took him on last year. It was above Mashai Pass where you cross the river before going around Mlambonja to tackle the Leqooa Ridge. The frame was buckling as the wind gusted, so I jumped up and shifted 2 guy ropes from the back to the front (relative to the wind) and the problem was sorted. I wouldn't normally camp in such an exposed spot, but Hobbit was exhausted when we got to that spot, so I found the most sheltered spot I could and we camped there. Then again - when the wind is blowing up from Lesotho (like it was on that occasion), there is often very little one can do to get real cover from the wind.

Worst wind I've had was so bad it literally blew my off my feet a couple of times (near Mafadi). I'm sure the fact that I'm 2m tall didn't particularly help me much, but still it was quite an experience
The night before the wind was also incrediby strong and two of my anchor ropes (the ones facing into the wind) pulled out, so the only protection offered against the storm was the strength of the aluminium poles holding up the tent. My Hilleberg Nallo 3 uses some serious aircraft aliminium for the frame and both hoops got bent - the large one at the front now has a 90 degree bend in it, the smaller hoop also got bent but not as much. I've since replaced both hoops with Hilleberg's strongest rated poles so that should be sufficient. The fact that the original ones didn't break was really amazing and this tent can really face some rough weather - on their website they pitch the tent in 110km/h winds. My view: buy the best you can afford. A tent is not something I would skimp on as it could save your life, and a quality tent will last you many years - it could even come out to the same cost over time?

I had occasion to go into Outdoor Warehouse Boksburg today, and having been following this thread I had two issues to check up on; the dropping of the 360degree range and the weight of the Cool Mountain II.

I spoke with the store manager who confirmed that OW no longer carry the 360degree tent range, and that FA are now supplying their tents as they belong to the same group of companies. Any Cool Mountain II tents still remaining at OW are old stock, and when sold out will be gone.

I took my scale with to check the weight of the Cool Mountain II, but the Boksburg branch had no stock so I couldn't weigh one. There was one on display, but it was stapled to the floor, and too much hassle to try and detach from the floor and weigh. The spec sheet on display with the tent indicated the weight to be 2.9 kg, and the price R 2000.00. The store manager confirmed the weight of the Cool Mountain II is 2.9 kg, not 2.2 kg as he had compared OW products with other similar products at other stores.

Other branches do still have stock of Cool Mountain II tents, but none are convenient for me to visit unfortunately, so it seems I will not get the chance to verify the tent weight personally.

So anyone wanting to purchase a 2.9 kg Cool Mountain II four season tent (a very good tent, but note all the discussions in this thread) for R 2000.00, don't delay in getting down to your local OW.

Any idea who will still carry the 360 degree tents?

As far as I can tell, 360 degrees are a manufacturer in China which OW/SW outsource to. I don't see that brand of tent for sale anywhere else in the world.

The OW salesman I spoke to when I was trying to get spare poles for my 360 deg tent said that the advantage of FA over 360 degrees is that it simplifies OW/SW supply lines. Getting things like the extra poles I wanted for my tent were a hassle for OW/SA when done through the outsourced manufacturer. I would guess its easier to do with FA because OW are dealing with FA over a bunch of other kit - not just the odd tent order.