Hiking_Gear_Specs

REI Half Dome Plus-2

Dana:

REI Half Dome Plus 2- My current tent, and most favorite piece of gear. I had specific criteria in mind for my first "real" backpacking tent. It had to have aluminum poles, be less than 6 lb., have ample room for my 6' 3" inch frame (no toes or foreheads touching a wall), have at least one vestibule and be under $250. After pouring over spec sheets, buying and returning two other tents, surfing the Internet and generally deliberating for at least a month, I picked the Half Dome Plus 2. It features two doors, a nice amount of mesh, a gear loft, two pockets, two sizable vestibules, a nice rain fly with two roof vents and a clear window, aluminum Featherlight® poles, factory sealed rain fly and floor seams and it's rectangular shape with not so tapered walls give me plenty of room to stretch out. It was awarded Backpacker Magazine's Editors' Choice Award for 2002, proving that I'm not the only who thinks this a cool tent. All of these features come at a bargain level price of $149! I've used it several times now in conditions that range from dry dessert heat in Utah to a freak 8" overnight snow fall in Colorado, and it's stood up as good as I could expect. 8" of snow really put a strain on its three season rated construction. This biggest problem being that the heavy wet snow blocked the ventalation at the bottom of the fly and also sunk the fly in a little (I didn't have it guyed tight enough). Overall, I can't recommend it enough.

Upside:

Features, ease of set up, a lot of "usable" interior room, dual vestibules, dual doors, storage pockets, gear attic, vented fly, light weight, price, etc

Downside: A couple of sticky zippers.