Tents

Treklite on Trojan Wall in a near gale in winter. Everything stayed in tact and had a relatively comfortable night's rest, was just constantly wondering how hard the wind actually had to blow to roll the tent over the edge with me in it.

@plouw: I may have a very similar photo to that (minus the snow) in the next month. When did you sleep in a tent above Trojan Wall? Any local threats? You say the tent held up fine? I have to say that that would be awesome news ahead of my planned hike

@ghaznavid: It was in August 2009, check the thread on Corner pass, i think there's more photos of that trip under there. We planned to reach Injisuthi summit cave, but the snow and ice in Corner pass kept us quite busy and we only reached the top of the pass by dusk. we saw two locals who hid when they saw us, we decided not to take any chances and headed for Trojan wall to set up camp over there, where we knew we would have a stunning sunrise!
was bit difficult to find soft spots to anchor tents down.

First Ascent is taking their first steps into the tent market. Has anyone seen or used this tent yet: Travers II Plus

Where can I look at one in Gauteng?

Just checked the stats on it, a 3 season 2 man tent for R3800 that weighs 3.2kg, thats heavy, expensive and not 4 seasons by contrast to its competitors... Just my 2c worth

Oh, my overdue write up on a K-Way Treklite III tent. Read the following review in the context of a person who is a huge fan of almost everything that K-Way makes:

The Treklite III is useless and horrible and every other negative adjective I could attach to a tent. Every morning on the GT while I had this tent I woke up to find everything in the tent to be wet. It can also barely take 2 people, nevermind 3. Otherwise its a good tent Its able to withstand gale force winds, storms, and it didn't collapse or even look like it might collapse under snow.

I complained about it to a worker at Cape Union Mart - they replied by saying "I never said it was waterproof!".

My new tent is the 360 degree 2 man 4 season tent - its lighter, cheaper and based on the few nights I had to share a tent with John on the GT, its very waterproof...

The big problem i have with any K-way tent is the fact that non of them have a one piece un-stitched bathtub ground sheet. Most of them will withstand modest wind/rain/snow from the top and are really cheap. But if the taping on the stitching on the groundsheet goes (after a year or two) ANY water underneath the tent will come in. And their taping is stuck on, not properly fused.

Was helping a mate choose a tent a while back and made the sales people pitch 2 different k-ways (makulu or something and the treklite), both had taping that was already starting to come loose = no longer waterproof.

Remember that you are putting a fair amount of surface pressure on anything underneath your tent with your body weight and you mattress is spreading it nice and evenly too. If the ground is saturated the water will find a place to go to (inside your tent ), even if it is not raining.

I have a ferrino stardust syncro 3, got it at outdoor warehouse for R2299. Its a proper 4 seasons. Used it in the berg last winter in snow. A tad heavy but built to last. I had to modify it thou. To set it up you have to thread the exterior skeletal poles through the rings. = no no in high winds and cold hands. Replaced all the rings with small alu carabiners, specifically the niteize s-benders. Now i can pitch the tent in 30 sec flat.

E3 tents are also worth a look, cheap but solid. i have a eclipse and it is marvelous.

Anyone looked at the new first ascent traverse 2?

Hi. Can someone please advise me. I have read almost all the threads from front to back and then again. I am looking at Purchasing a Hi-Tec Tybet 2 4 season tent. It is very well priced and I am concerned that its not really a 4 season tent. Does anyone have knowledge on these tents. My budget is very tight and in fact need it for this long weekend.

I posted the question about Hi-tec tents the other day, after much internal,debate I decided to to buy the tent and if all else failed I'd take it back, well after buying it on Friday afternoon before my hike up Gypateus Pass with Ghaznavid and Hobbitt, I can safely say it is not a 4 season high altitude tent it states it is, without knocking the brand or the tent I definitely would not recommend it to anyone that plans to hike in the berg or anywhere else of the equivalent.
On night2 of our hike the wind picked up on the escarpment to around 20kph or thereabouts and on numerous occasions the tent was bend at almost 90degrees, I didn't hear any snapping sounds of tent poles in the night. when packing it away in the morning 2 poles had snapped.
So conclusion: great tent for normal weekend camping and nothing else above that.