Early Winters Omnipotent Tent Available :)

[olyclimber]

[video:youtube]snhiofL2Rh4

[num1mc]

And the OP still hasn't posted the price, location and SN of the tent.

[JasonG]

And the OP still hasn't posted the price, location and SN of the tent.

 

That's pretty surprising.

[num1mc]

Now there's this tent, which I don't think is an omnipotent, but rather a winterlight

http://www.ebay.com/itm/EARLY-WINTERS-OMNIPOTENT-/262392012741

[num1mc]

Now there's this tent, which I don't think is an omnipotent, but rather a winterlight

http://www.ebay.com/itm/EARLY-WINTERS-OMNIPOTENT-/262392012741

 

Figured it out, it an SL [img:left]http://cascadeconnie.com/images/gear/early-winters-catalog_omni.jpg[/img]

[olyclimber]

In 1970 when I was an adolescent, a guy in his 20s enthusiastically recounted a summer back-packing trip he'd just taken in the Sierra. One of the main things I remember was a glowing description of his high-tech tent, which was coated nylon, and very small.

 

I recall the (NY-based) Camp & Trails catalog of the era sold them (also "Reevair," a failed precursor to Goretex). Nylon tents were considered fairly advanced and somewhat novel.

 

Soon after, I purchased a cotton REI pup tent, which featured a coated nylon floor and which tapered drastically in height and width toward the rear. It may have weighed about six pounds.

 

After a couple of years, I replaced this tent with a 9'x 10' REI tarp which I used almost exclusively for tentage for nearly a decade. I eventually gained the (pretty fancy) knack for setting it up as a fully enclosed pyramid and learned, very much the hard way, about banking snow around its edges.

 

Six weeks' summer camping in Europe, ending with a week in Iceland, convinced me, however, that I might like to purchase an actual tent.

 

 

I paid $19 at the time at a K-Mart-type store for a coated nylon pup tent, sealed the seams and immediately set out on a two-month bicycle trip in New England and Canada.

 

Once, during a raging nor'easter on a Nova Scotia beach, it leaked.The insect netting was extremely effective and welcome throughout the trip, which often required camping in unplanned and bug-infested locations.

 

Several years later, in a very warm and unexpected spring snow-storm, condensation along with dragged-in, melting snow collected on its coated floor, and made for an excruciatingly cold and perhaps even dangerous night in a down sleeping bag.

 

 

Eventually, due to a heavy beach-camping phase, the floor of this tent began to resemble mosquito netting. After more than ten years, I gave it to a friend, who apparently abandoned it in a Central American jungle during a tropical downpour.

 

In the years since I've come to rely almost exclusively on "tarp shelters." Recently, I've again purchased one of these cheap-as-dirt pup tents, mainly because of the virtue of insect netting. It's extremely light and compact.

 

[olyclimber]

Ray Jardine describes spending a number of seasons camping mostly at or above treeline with neophytes in Colorado, using builders' plastic in lieu of tents.....two or three decades ago.

 

(For the historically challenged, please do look up Jardine's record).

 

Today, many (sadly not most) people are over-paid (or wish desperately that they were) and have an increasingly unhealthy fascination with boutique camping equipment as a means of signalling manliness and bravery.

 

They'll tell you that camping at tree line in Cascades in Summer is act of death defying bravery that can only be accomplished by spending thousands of dollars.........

 

They feel that those who drive a Ford rather than a Lexus are less manly or intelligent.

 

This defines cretinism.

 

Er.. Mountaineering tents certainly have their place, but speaking realistically, they are mainly used by the uniformed (more money than brains) for circumstances where building plastic would suffice.

 

Of course, the Hillieberg Rajd is not a mountaineering tent.

[ivan]

i slept like a hobo in the mountains last week - just a pillow n' a blankie n' a pad n' a tarp - i might have been defying death - several times mice crawled across my poor sleeping face - the buboes could sprout at any moment now