Marmot Alpinist Tent Review

[EastCoastBastard]

I purchased a marmot Alpinist singlewall tent in January and now that I've used it a bunch, I thought I would write a scathing review.

I orginally wanted an Integral Designs, but I could get the Marmot for a song, so I went with it.

 

Essentially, Marmot took a great design (ID/Bibler) and fucked it up.

 

Set-up: The tent uses a modified sleeve style design, with each end of the pole having a metal fastener, fastex buckle + webbing that clips to the guy-out point for extra stability. All of this junk gets caught in the sleeve when you try to thread the poles in – if you know that they're there, you can work around this, but it's still a pain. Also, the poles fit very tight and this can be a problem if you're wearing gloves and the poles are slippery – it can be very difficult to actually get the poles into the grommets. Some griptape at the bottom end of one end of each pole would help a lot and not wear down anything (as long as you were careful not to shove that end through the sleeve)

There is a third pole that goes over the vestibule that is also a bit of a pain. It needs to fit through two grommets on each side, oftentimes it is hard to get it through the second grommet, making it possible for the pole to poke through the other side of the fabric. Why the couldn't just use one grommet on each side, I don't know. There are several guyout points and these seem to be pretty bomber.

 

Ventilation: There are two roof vents supported by delrin rods and velcro. You can open/close the vent by velcro-ing the rod to diffterent poistions. The first time I set up the tent, the Delrin rods fell at my feet. They are enclosed in webbing, but the ends of the rod had not been rounded off, so the sharp edges wore through the webbing. I replaced the rods and wrapped the whole assembly in duct tape.

 

Stormworthy ness: Once set up, it's on par with other singlewall tents out there. Not suprising, since it looks pretty similar. Getting it set up fast in storms takes a lot of practice and coordination, though.

 

Workmanship: Pretty shoddy. I was sold the tent as a normal retail item, but it turned out to be a second (and was refunded approporiatly – Teton Mountaineering is a great shop) after I complained. So my complaints about workmanship should be taken with a grain of salt.

 

Overall Impressions: A decent tent. Once you get used to setting it up, it can go up fairly quickly, though not as fast as an ID or Bibler. Workmanship aside, the usability of the tent is boarderline. Yes, it keeps you dry, and breathes fairly well (as long as you're not boiling water in it at above freezing temperatures), But the vestibule is so small that it's almost pointless. Also- there is no buckle at the bottom of the vestibule zipper/door. I was always told that this was important to keep from stressing the zipper teeth, so I see that as a weak point. Also, the Vestibule zipper goes so far up that the weight gain to make the vestibule zip all the way off would be marginal.

The design could use some further design modifications to make the whole thing more user friendly. Would I buy it again? NO. Will it serve it's purpose until I can scrape more money together to get an ID? Yes.

On the plus side, the color is really good and the reflective tabs/ Marmot logo make it easy to see in crappy conditions.

[Blake]

don't forget that the mesh door melts easily!

[EastCoastBastard]

Yeah, that too. Mesh door got a little too close to the pot and melted in two spots. Not really the tent's fault though...