Mountain Hardwear Ghost 2 Sky Tent Review

I totally have to give Mountain Hardwear props for their great customer service and standing by their products with their limited lifetime warranty.  I'm on my third tent which has been replaced twice for free under their warranty.  This tent is my lightweight backcountry 2 person tent I have been using on many of my adventures.  I bought my first tent in 2004 or 2005 - it was an Airjet 2.  This was a single wall lightweight tent that I liked quite a bit.  I had it for 3 or 4 years and the seams started to degrade and fall apart - something to do with the chemicals in the material or taped seams breaking down.  I sent it in for warranty at the time and they replaced this tent with a Skyledge 2.1 tent for free, as the Airjet was discontinued. The Skyledge was a standard two wall tent with two entrances and two vestibules, which gave lots of real estate for stashing gear and easy entrances if you happen to have towo people in the tent (I only did once and it was cramped).

Now the Skyledge 2.1 I have had for the last 8 years and it served me well those 8 years.  I was car camping just a month ago with it and noticed the bottom side of the fly getting sticky when it has never been sticky... along with the taped seams flaking.  At one point while just zipping up the fly, one of the taped seams just peeled off with little force.  Seems like a degradation issue again, but this time the tent lasted much longer.  I contacted Mountain Hardwear and they told me to send it in for assessment. I didn't really expect much from them. After all, 8 years for a tent is quite enough already.  There's certainly not much other pieces of gear, especially ones containing some kind of fabric that you would expect to last much longer than that.

Mountain Hardwear Ghost Sky 2 Tent

Mountain Hardwear/Columbia Sportswear (they are the same company) called me after receiving the tent to say they would replace my tent for free under warranty!  Great stuff.  They even gave the the option of either getting the newer model Ghost Sky 2 tent or the Ghost UL2 tent.  I chose the Ghost Sky 2 tent.  Although the Ghost 2 is slightly heavier than the Ghost UL 2 tent (4lb 1 oz vs 2lb 9 oz),The Ghost Sky 2 is just is much more practical - with a square footprint instead of a trapezoidal footprint, 2 entrances and 2 useful vestibules instead of the 1 not-so-useful (as reports say) vestibule of the UL 2 tent. For super ultralight expeditions I could also use my Hennessey Hammock, so I chose the Ghost Sky 2 tent.

The Ghost 2 tent is really a newer version of my  older Skyledge 2.1 tent.  It amazes me that tents continue to evolve so much.  The improvements on the Ghost Sky 2 tent are noticeable andd welcome.  The two main poles have a connector in the center.  This makes for much quicker setup and breakdown, as you can do both poles at the same time, and justclip the center of the tent to the attachment point instead of having to thread the poles through the c-clip on the Skyledge.  the shorter crossbar for the doors just clips into the top and attaches at the sides with a ball joint clip.  Fancy stuff and so easy to set up.  There are 12 pole clips that are quick and easy to clip to the poles as well.

The inner tent is almost all mesh, perfect for gazing at the stars flyless on non-rainy nights.  The two teardrop shaped entrance ports are large enough to enter with ease.  Inside, there's 4 pockets for storing gear and loop provisions in the upper part for a gear loft if that's desired.  The fly is easy to put on with some toggles that attach to the pole attachments on the 4 corners and velcro ties to the poles in the 4 corners as well, halfway up. 

I used this tent car camping, kayak camping and backpacking in Algonquin Park recently and it's a great tent, I would recommend it to anyone, for it's features, well thought out design, qucikness and ease of pitching, and it's light weight.

And again, props to Mountain Hardwear/Columbia for replacing this tent free under warranty with no hassles.  I'm sure i'll get a lot of use out of this tent in my future adventures.

Big Agnes Tensleep Station 4 Tent

I wanted a new car camping tent, so I picked this tent up for $425 at MEC.

I recently bought this tent because it has some unique features, and most of all it has more height for the size footprint it has compared to other tents with the same square footage.  I was looking for a roomy feeling yet compact footprint tent that is easy to set up and has nice features for car camping to very comfortably sleep two people, and I got that with this tent.  The front and rear vestibules adds some good features that other similar tents don’t have too.  This design has many elements that I do like, but unfortunately it does have what I consider some design flaws that I am surprised the manufacturer did not pick up on before going to production.
To make this short and sweet, here's a list of Pros and Cons I found about the tent.

Pros:
1)    Intuitive, easy set up with four poles. I only needed instructions the first time.
2)    High tent height and near vertical walls give it a very roomy feeling for its footprint.  It fits a queen size inflatable mattress easily.
3)    Front and rear large entrances for flexibility
4)    Many gear pockets to stash stuff in
5)    Vestibules give ample room to keep gear dry
6)    I really like the organized and easy to use folder/stuffsack/backpack/carry bag the tent stores in.  It’s very easy to pack up and gives options for carrying different ways.
 
Cons:
1)    Front door of the tent is mesh only – should be double door nylon and mesh to give the option for ventilation or privacy/rain protection.  With the way it is, if you want privacy and to protect from splashes when raining, the vestibule door has to be closed, and there’s not much ventilation when it’s like that.
2)    Rear door has a similar issue, it’s nylon only no mesh – it should at least have a portion that could unzip for a meshed window for improved ventilation.
3)    Way, way too many guy lines for the fly…   really, is it necessary to have 10 of them?  Even though they are nicely reflective, anyone walking near the vicinity of your tent other than the entrances at night is going to trip.  Trust me.
4)    All three main tent poles bent permanently in middle with the first use.  I didn’t abuse/force anything, excessively tie anything down and it wasn’t in high winds at all.  The material the poles are made of simply is not suitable for this design and should be made from a higher strength aluminum or fiberglass - period.  I have not used this tent in anything more than light-medium winds, but I would suspect there would be much more bending going on if there was more wind, especially due to the high tent profile.
5)    It’s a little heavy for anything other than car camping.  Possibly can be used for canoe camping without many portages.
Despite these shortcomings, some of which I think should have been obvious and addressed by the manufacturer, I still would recommend this tent.  It would be an awesome tent if Big Agnes fixed these problems.