Packrafting – Bedrock & Paradox

Essential Skills: Garment zipper replacement

Replacing a zipper, generally in a full zip jacket, is one of the most common and thus, most essential serious gear repairs you’ll do. Serious in this case being roughly defined as requiring more than tape or glue to manage. The zipper on my 4 year old Haglofs Pile hoody recently died, providing a good tutorial on how to effect this repair.

The first step in any repair is preventative maintenance. With jacket zippers, the first step here is to buy garments made from good materials. #5 YKK zips are a good place to start (# refers to size, bigger meaning larger, and the number can generally be found on the back of the slider, bottom stop, or both). #3 zippers are in full zip jackets a invitation to a short product life. Zippers fail when the materials wear, so keeping the teeth clean and not yanking too much both go a decent way towards maximizing function. When separation begins to occur (see above), often a worn slider is at fault. The metal of the slider wears ever so slightly, enough that it doesn’t fully engage the teeth when pulled up. Engage the zipper, and bend the two halves together with pliers (this page has good photos).

With my jacket, this did not get the job done. Wear to the plastic teeth, combined with fraying on the bottom stop, prevented things from seating properly, making total replacement the only option. As I outline below, this isn’t too difficult or time consuming, but it is also not the most basic repair. Companies with good warranties and repair policies (e.g Patagonia) will replace zippers, often for free. Companies with mediocre policies (e.g. OR) will usually send you a new jacket). Companies with less good policies (e.g. Arc’teryx) will often give you the run around before replacing the garment. For me repair is both better style and better for the environment. Knowing I wanted to put a beefier zipper into this specific jacket (packed size and weight not being a concern), I ordered up a #8 YKK coil zip as a replacement, and got out the knife.

Haglofs did a good job making the zipper both well sewn in an fairly easy to remove. The strip of grosgrain is the key here: remove the little bartack on either end, cut out a few inches of stitching on one end, and at this point the thread is thin enough you can just rip the rest of the stitch line in a good yank. The zipper itself is sewn directly to the fleece with another line of stitching, similarly slowly cut out a few inches with a knife or seam ripper, then give it a rip.

The only tricky part of sewing the new zipper on is the tendency of fleece to stretch, especially if your machine doesn’t have a walking foot. Pins aren’t a bad idea to prevent this, or use stitch lines in the garment as reference marks, sewing 3-5 inches at a time and making sure the fabric doesn’t stretch. If you let the fleece stretch, the zipper will get longer than it should, and the fit will be weird. Once you’ve stitched the zipper in on either side via a plain seam, and in this case reused the zipper flap, again via a plain seam, flip the garment back right side out (top photo) and top stitch through the folded seam to lock everything in place.

Simple, easy, and now you can fix your own stuff. Once practiced this is a ~20 minute job.

The Maah Daah Hey

The US, and I imagine the world, needs more trails like this. Strictly speaking the MDH has national park caliber scenery, as it passes through two units of a national park. Theodore Roosevelt is an obscure national park, getting as many visits in a busy year as Glacier does in an average June, and probably wouldn’t have been designated at all had it not been so intimately associated with the most important conservationist in American history. And that is the point. The terrain of the Little Missouri badlands is subtle and immensely nuanced. It is an easy place to overlook, and as the huge increase in gas pads and roads between this visit (in April 2019) and my first visit (October 2005) indicate, an easy place for the wild mind of the nation to forget, and by extension, neglect. Long, immersive trails in other such locations would go a very long way towards fostering appreciation of and interaction with the many wild places that are still left, sandwiched between civilization.

That trip two years ago was a big deal. It was an idea that had been rolling around in my head for over a decade, and is still unfinished. It was the first big trip after a difficult winter acclimating to life as a parent of two kids, rather than one. Due to fitness, I elected to walk rather than bike, and that slower pace, in theory less stylistic, made for a slower and more contemplative journey. There isn’t much flat on the MDH, but even so the walking is easy and relaxing. Floating the Little Mo is similarly simple right up to the edge of dullness, and thus all that trip I had hours to look and think, even more than usual on a solo backpack.

I’m looking forward to getting back, sometime.

Packraft forecasting

It is that time of year; orders for straps and the guidebook start increasing, as do emails about trip planning. Those messages generally involve a ~7 day hiking and packrafting loop in the Bob, and almost always revolve around attempting to plan well in advance and hit a reliable flow window. This is especially tricky for something like the South to North Loop, which for less experienced packrafters requires balancing enough water on the North Fork of the Sun with not too much on the South Fork of the Flathead.

I provide guidance on flows in the guidebook, as well as guidance on when those flows are most likely to happen, but for a specific year doing specific research is invaluable. The main Snotel page is the place to start. I like to use the percentile compared to POR option in the interactive map, and especially the water year chart for individual Snotel sites. These charts reveal both how water is accumulating relative to the historical average, and when over the span of variability total snow water equivalent (SWE) peaks and, thus, meltoff begins. In short, big snowpacks can make for big and or late flows and or sustained streamflows, but how the spring months (starting now) play out is almost more relevant. Temps cold enough to have April and even May storms fall (above 5-6k) as snow can make a below average winter into an exceptional spring and summer.

The next step is the streamflow pages, specifically the monthly averages. This gives you a good sense of the potential for variability, something that you can then go back and correlate with past snotel graphs, which is the best way to cultivate a depth of context. The North Fork of the Sun, for instance, has a reliable period when it is floatable, and a reliable period when it is not, without a massive amount of variation. What variation there is directly correlates with overall low snowpacks (eg 2016). The South Fork of the Flathead, by contrast, has a similar degree of predictability when the low limits of floating are concerned, but much more variation when higher flows are concerned. My standard threshold for when the lower White River ceases to be good floating is 5000 cfs on that South Fork gauge, and when that boundary gets crossed (usually in July) is highly subject to conditions. The trick here is that there is not a snotel site within the main South Fork headwaters. You’ll need to look at places like Badger Pass and Noisy Basin and extrapolate, again based on specific comparable instances from the past.

Flow planning such as this can make taking a trip in early July versus late July an easier choice to make, when the choice is being made right around now. Closer to the date of a trip, say a month out, possible flows can be more reliably forecast, making it possible to (for example) route from something like the White over to the Danaher if flows will be lower, or to plan on portaging the lower Youngs Gorge if flows are higher than a group might like. These two tools can also be used in other locations, though local idiosyncrasies* will always throw in curveballs.

*The only gauge on the Middle Fork of the Flathead is 50+ river miles downstream from relevant wilderness sections, with the highest altitude headwaters (Park, Coal, Nyack Creeks) coming in below the wilderness bits. In July and August the wilderness Middle Fork is consistently lower than the gauge would suggest.

A mystery classic

I didn’t even write about this one two years ago which, on reviewing and editing the footage, was serious restraint. One of the better alpine and packraft loops in the Bob, easily doable in 3 days. See if you can guess what and where.

The B&P mentoring program

Donald Trump has shown, more starkly than almost anything else one could imagine, how deeply structural racial bias and discrimination has been and is, and how it remains in many or even most cases the pivot point for social power in the United States. After the past four years we know more about this, which is to say more about ourselves, than we would under any other circumstances. Structural bias will in many cases erode away in the face of history, but very slowly, and with the potential for retrograde progress. It is our responsibility to bend the curve of history, to help social justice along, in consistency and speed.

I’ve been guilty, for a long time, of thinking about wilderness ahistorically, as something which is a precondition for social justice. I still think this is true, but all too often my assumptions have jumped from wilderness and wild pursuits being physically democratic, insofar as accessibility is concerned, to that accessibility being literally effective. I grew up spending time outside with my family, going hiking and boating from a very early age. It wasn’t until I started rock climbing at 12 that I felt ownership over my own learning in the outdoors, and that experience, supported by my family background (read; privilege) allowed me to move on and teach myself canyoneering, mountain biking, hunting, skiing, packrafting, and so forth. Making the venue and information of and for a given wilderness pursuit accessible is one thing. Making the self-certainty necessary to teach oneself out there in the wild is another.

That matter is something I would like to help address.

So I’m looking for mentees in 2021, for a small handful of people with aspirations for the backcountry whose background and situation will make achieving those goals more complicated than would be the case for someone like me. I’m not placing definitive restrictions on the race, orientation, class, or ethnicity who I hope to work with here, but white men are not it. Yes there has been a lot of attention given to minorities in the outdoors and to social justice within the industry, and a lot of that verbiage has been monolithic and cliched, but the broader point about social justice, that we are neither the agent or architects of the more profound influences on our lives, stands intact. My hope and intention is to use my experience, something both created and expedited by the circumstances of my birth, to provide an analogous bit of assistance for folks whose place in history would not do the same.

What will this look like? I don’t know, but am eager to go on a journey with a few folks and find out. I envision folks having significant and extensive access to my time, over the phone or via Zoom, regarding their hopes, goals, and the personal and skill development they’ll need to get there. If someone wants to climb the Grand Teton, for example, or packraft the Middle Fork of the Flathead, it is easy to write up a list of hard skills they’ll need to master. It is less simple to even define the mental aspects and less tangible skills that will be equally essential. Things like dealing with loneliness and fear; managing layers and bedding during a 48 hour rainstorm; finding a layering system that works to your tastes and physiology. I envision my roll as having more to do with helping people figure out the most important questions, rather than the more basic process of defining answers. Perhaps, schedules and COVID concerns allowing, some combination of us might be able to go on a trip, or a few. If you are based in the vicinity of Helena, Montana, that convenience would allow for more instructional options.

So, if you fit the above criteria and have some adventure goals you think might dovetail well with my knowledge base, send an email to dave at bedrockandparadox dawt com, with Mentorship Application in the subject line, and tell me what your hopes are and how you think I would be effective in assisting you. This last part is important. Any reader who has been around a while should be quite familiar with my style, and I think I can assure everyone that my writing does a decent job of representing who I am as a person. Like any teaching relationship, the person to person dynamic is as important as any more direct factor, and neither of us should waste each others time if it doesn’t seem like we would be a good fit. That said, in applying I ask for no commitment save to me reading and you writing your words, each with care.

I have no basis for evaluating the interest, but I don’t envision the application period being open for long. I will update in this post, and notify everyone via email.

Patagonia Stretch Terre Planing hoody

I’ve written an enormous amount about windshirts over the past decade, their importance in a layering system, and the associated subtleties. To recap; outdoor clothing in general and wind layers in particular have over the past decade explored the range of breathability and overall weather protection in a comprehensive fashion. Specific to windshirts, the frontier over the past few years has been in making a breathable fabric which is both acceptably light and acceptably tough, and most significantly does not suck up and retain too much moisture. This last has been the primary liability of the otherwise category defining Alpine Start since in was introduced in 2014.

My 5 year old Alpine Start was getting long in the tooth, with the stock DWR all but gone and a few rips and holes. I wanted to try something different, perhaps from a company with less evil/capitalist overtones. The STP (Stretch Terre Planing) hoody is made from 90 grams/meter polyester, with a 4 way mechanical stretch. Compared to the Alpine Start, which has an 80 grams/meter 93/7 nylon/spandex fabric. 7% spandex is a lot, and all things being equal, poly should absorb much less water than nylon, while potentially (all thing being equal, which they never are) being less abrasion resistant. Dry time and moisture retention was my priority in a windshirt, so the STP fabric had my attention.

Virtues of the fabric put aside for a moment (and it is a really good fabric), the STP hoody has a bunch of virtues that well suit backcountry activities, and a few major caveats. The first and by far most significant downside is the torso volume, which as discussed here is positively huge for the size. I don’t think I could live with the STP without modifying this, making it a big caveat for folks who can’t or don’t care to cut up their new 125 dollar shell. The other caveat is the pockets, which sit right under a hipbelt. They are nice pockets, with the interior side being mesh and the zippers well anchored and smooth running. They are useful any time one is not wearing a pack, and I both don’t find them a problem under a hipbelt (so long as they’re empty) and don’t mind not having pockets on a windshell when I’m using a big pack. Around town, skiing, day hiking, or biking the pockets are useful and useable, so there is the argument for that, and it is a good one.

Otherwise the fit and detailing are excellent. The torso and arm length are both above average. The minimal cuff detailing, with just a little bit of elastic sewn in, leans in to the strength of the fabric being fast drying. The little cord thumb loops, unlike so many shirts, are actually big enough to fit over a (gloved!) thumb, and due to this and sleeve length are both useful and easy to ignore when you want to. The hood is big (not helmet big), and while it lacks a rear draw cord the patterning and soft fabric work to keep it out of your eyes, and the drawcords are external and easy to cinch. The cords are non-stretch ribbon, and the cord locks anchored bits of neoprene. They are not easy to loosen, requiring two hands, but the whole interface is secure, and very low profile. A similar system on a hardshell might go a long way towards solving the dreaded blizzard induced cord end to the face.

Anecdotally the STP fabric has been very fast drying. On colder but not frigid, humid days I get a bit of bogginess in the Alpine Start which has never been ideal. My first attempt at quantifying this difference did not endorse my intuitive conclusion, so I’ll be using the STP as a platform for further investigations there. My assumption is that I’ll use it a ton this spring and summer, and report back.

The counter argument is that pricey, esoteric windshirts like this are chasing minute performance gains which may or may not exist, and that something like the standby, nylon windshirt is the more versatile option and better investment. And it is hard to argue against that. No question, something like the Windveil (or Patagonia Houdini) get too sweaty for a lot of activities, particularly winter activities, when the balance between enough protection to not get chilled but not too much is very fine indeed. On the other hand, when the Windveil gets wet it doesn’t suck up too much water, dries fast, and still blocks the wind. My sense is still that a more breathable option better fits into the performance sweet spot, but there is also no arguing that most if not all of my windshirt acquisitions over the last half decade have been about geekery, rather than strictly about function. My aspiration this spring is to make that idea more objective.

Windshirt dry times mini-study

A crucial attribute of windshirts, particularly for backcountry (which is to say, multiday) use is moisture retention and drying speed. If the most common, indeed only criticism of windshirts as a concept is that they can be viewed as redundant relative to a waterproof hardshell, the rejoinder to that criticism is that unlike a hardshell, a windshirt can be left on almost all the time. A good windshirt will have an ideal blend of breathability and weatherproofing for the given user and use case. Drying quickly nicely accompanies breathability where garment utility is concerned, and minimal moisture retention reduced the penalty of using the windshirt as an extra layer when true waterproof protection is required.

My benchmark for a number of years has been a static soak and dry test. In this case, I took four windshirts I regularly use, immersed them in a sink of water, vigorously kneeded them to ensure total saturation, then allowed them to sit drapped over a metal rack in a 62 degree (F) house for 3 hours. Weight, dry, soaked, and at one hour intervals post soaking, was taken to the nearest 10th of an ounce. The test subjects were: a Patagonia Stretch Terre Planing hoody, new three months ago, with significant potions of fabric removed from each side to bring in the torso diameter; a 2014 Black Diamond Alpine Start hoody, heavily used; a 2016 Rab Windveil, extensively used but with a good DWR still active; and a 2018 Patagonia Airshed pullover cut down to a vest, and with the chest pocket removed.

windshirt

Dry time and moisture retention are, as will be discussed shortly, closely related but not the same thing. Similarly, this test is not reflective of common field conditions, and ignores the more realistic metric of dry time while under the influence of body heat (i.e. while worn). Years ago I ran the same test with both static and dynamic (worn) dry times, and found that while wearing the windshirt significantly accelerated dry times it did so at rates which hewed closely to those observed under static conditions. Variations in the heat an individual can put out in a given situation, be that due to variances in metabolism, weather, or circumstances (i.e. how tired and depleted they might be) are going to be more relevant here than anything else. A static test, such as this one, is more comfortable, less time consuming, and in my experience provides just as much actionable data.

On the face of it each of the four windshirts behaved similarly, soaking up a significant amount of water weight before taking 3 hours to become almost totally dry. There are a few significant aberrations, the first one being that the Airshed gains significantly more than the other three when taken as a percentage of dry weight. The Airshed gained 140% (2 oz up to 4.8), while the rest were in the 75-80% range. This is surprising, and the difference cannot be entirely blamed on the double layer of stretch fabric at the back hem, which as the dry test went on stayed drastically wetter longer than the main Airshed fabric. Indeed, the .4 oz from dry at the 2 hour mark was by feel due entirely due to this strip of fabric. So I need to replace this bit soon, and maybe that extra ~60% of gain was due to this little detail.

The other noteworthy variation is how much slower the STP hoody dried at hour 2, relative to the Alpine Start. Judging by feel, this was due to the more elaborate detailing, namely the two lower hand pockets and associated layers of fabric, zipper, flaps, and so forth. My biggest take away, or reminder, from this little project was that under those rare field conditions when things are getting soaked and resoaked, details like cuffs, hem complexity, and the number of pockets and flaps add up to make a big difference in dry time, and thus, warmth and overall functionality. The project also taught me that advancements or changes in fabrics may have not amounted to substantive improvements in this area. The Airshed fabric, on its own, may perhaps dry faster than similarly light fabrics, but I do not have the data to say so. And while intuitively the STP fabric seems to retain less moisture in use than the Alpine Start, I need more information before I can say that is anything other than confirmation bias.

Seems like I need to do more laps around the block with drenched clothing.

Grand Juan Honaker logistics

This is a logical extension of classic loop we traveled five years ago; down the Honaker trail, packraft the San Juan River to Grand Gulch, and hike that and some association of side canyons back to the mesa top. Riding a bike from any of those trailheads down the highway and Moki dugway to the Honaker trailhead is an enjoyable and expeditious way to shuttle with only one car. In my case, I left my bike at the Bullet Canyon trailhead, which made for a 26 mile bike shuttle.

You need two separate permits for this loop; one for the river, and one for Grand Gulch. Between November 1 and February 28 the later are unlimited and self-serve at trailhead kiosks. During the warmer parts of spring and fall there is a 20 quota per trailhead, per day. These can be reserved, online, 90 days out. Looking through March and April of this year, availability is widespread, save for Kane Gulch and Bullet Canyon on April weekends. San Juan permits are unlimited outside the lottery season, April 15 through May 15. I had ~670 cfs (at Bluff) for this recent trip, which for a packraft was more than adequate, if notably slow once morning headwinds kicked up. Looking at historic averages, I think this part of the San Juan is floatable year round, though isolated evidence of shelf ice suggests it might start to freeze up during the coldest depths of winter.

The top of Cedar Mesa is above 6000 feet, making snow in the upper sections not uncommon and potentially problematic, especially on north facing aspects. Pictured above is the “crux” of Bullet Canyon, after 2 inches of snow fell the night before. I went through around 3pm, after the midday sun had melted things down, and before the snow refroze and ceased to be sticky. A few hours earlier or later would have made the going trickier, as the people and dog (!) ahead of me seemed to have found (zoom in for the flail tracks). It is certainly possible that sections like this would have enough snow to be impassable without a rope and/or specialized experience. That said, the river straddles 4000 feet and overall daytime temperatures during November and February are usually quite pleasant. I did bring a drysuit, which made floating during 3 hours of steady rain tolerable.

At low flows the San Juan is mellow and accessible for almost any level of skill and any boat. I brought my small boat to save weight on the hiking, which was a good choice. The character of the river does change notably below Slickhorn Canyon, transitioning from a muddy mountain stream, with a gravel and cobble bottom and sequential riffle where you’d expect, to a true desert river with a sticky sand bottom. Much like with the Dirty Devil or Little Missouri, the San Juan could be 50 yards wide with only a small floatable channel right against either bank. I’ve long since passed the point where negotiating such things have novelty.

Grand Gulch itself is a unique canyon, and a somewhat odd companion to its neighbor, Slickhorn. Slickhorn climbs steeply and moves through its phases fast; Grand Gulch is at least 4 times as long, climbs gradually (save at the very start and very end), and has a spectacular number of bends and abandoned meanders. For varieties sake I couldn’t help climbing out the northern fork of Water Canyon and walking the plateau over to the Government Trail, which I took back into the canyon. This was a highlight, both the rugged route finding and big views up top (one can see the Bear’s Ears, Monument Valley, Navajo mountain, and Mount Ellen all at once). Grand Gulch from the Government Trail up to Bullet is remarkably uniform, with a 10 foot wide sand bottom windy between brushy banks with almost no breaks or obstacles. There is a lot of cool canyon architecture and rock art to see in this stretch, but the scenery and walking impressed with their uniformity and general turgidity. My legs were heavy after the Water Canyon excursion, and the day after, going past Dripping and Step Canyons, I had a struggle keeping in the moment and a generally positive mindset.

It is also worth highlighting that, due to limited visibility down amongst the trees and the lack of outstanding features, keeping track of your location/progress is more nuanced than usual in canyon country (that is, assuming I’m not the only backpacker left who avoids GPS).

I did find the scenery and walking up Bullet to be exceptional, a fitting highlight on which to end the trip. The history here, to be addressed later, is absolutely something to return to, even if the additional floating and walking of Grand Gulch, relative to Slickhorn, does not make it the highest quality of additions.

Black Diamond Hilight review

I’ve used the 2 person Hilight quite a bit in the last year, with performance quite as I expected it to be, perhaps one or two things surprising. This makes for something of a dull write up; it is a quality tent, well conceived, with defined limits. There a few things that could be done better, but so long as one chooses it wisely, the Hilight will make for a good shelter.

Dimensions are the first concern, and really the only area where I think Black Diamond went wrong in the design. 82 inches is simply too short for anyone of average (5’8″ or more) height. I fit in the Hilight, sleeping diagonally when using it as a solo tent, which is how I imagine 90+ of people use it. That is fine, but I think it would make more sense to stretch it a bit, while making it narrower, perhaps even symmetrical. Rather than being 82 inches long, 42 inches wide at the foot, and 50 inches wide at the head, give it the 87 inch length of the Eldorado, and a uniform 48, 46, or even 44 inch width. Two people are going to be in full bivy/alpine mode using the Hilight anyway, so going halfway to providing comfortable room doesn’t seem logical, when a longer and narrower footprint would only be better for both a duo and a soloist.

I’ve been quite pleased with the performance of the Hilight. Snowshedding is a natural strength of little wedge tents like this one, with the near vertical lower walls, and while I (somewhat annoyingly) avoided big snow storms on trips this past, modest snowfalls sluff off unnoticed. I anticipate performance in heavier snows to be more than acceptable. Performance in wind is a bigger question with wedge, and with the Hilight especially, given the wing pole over the doors. In sustained 30-40 mph winds the Hilight has proven very stable, especially when the side guy points are used. It is a very quiet tent under these conditions, with impressively little movement. I look forward to testing it, the wing pole especially, in harsher conditions, but realistically those don’t happen very often. I’d currently take the Hilight most anywhere, anytime in the mountains and be comfortable that with reasonable sight selection and prep I’d do fine.

Ventilation and condensation, and mild weather performance generally, has been an area of unexpected strength and satisfaction. Seeking ease of pitch and total bug protection I took the Hilight on a weeklong packraft trip down the Middle Fork of the Salmon, as well as on an early September elk hunting trip on the prairie badlands of eastern Montana. The former trip ended up being quite warm, somewhat rainy, and had a huge number of ticks. It was really nice to zip into my tent after an evening when I pulled half a dozen or more bloodsuckers off me, and nicer still to have good venting for a whole rainy evening and wake up with almost no condensation. The Middle Fork isn’t a humid environment, but on a permitted river tip one often camps out of necessity closer to the water than ideal moisture management would dictate, and in the Hilight this just wasn’t an issue, due to both the generous venting and the fabric. It was very warm on the elk hunt, and still buggy, which had me appreciating a full tent rather than a tarp, with a full panel of mesh I could leave open to the wind on nights that barely got into the 50s.

Because the venting is so effective, and because resewing and sealing will be a bit of a job, I have yet to get around to cutting the top tunnel vent out. I remain convinced the big, dual flaps make it redundant, but have yet to actually conduct that experiment. Even if I can drop 6 ounces from the canopy, the Hilight is never going to be the choice for truly light and fast trips, unless they involve multiple nights camped on deep snow. Being able to stomp a platform, then use your poles to anchor one side and your skis the other makes this type of tent the clear choice for deep snow camping and ski mountaineering. I would like the corner stake loops to be just a hair bigger. The 104mm wide tails of my spring skis just barely do not fit, though adding cord loops is no big deal.

The accessorizing of the Hilight is something I appreciated every time I used it this past year. As mentioned in the initial post, the stakes are excellent. It is nice to not have to replace, or augment, the stock stakes of a new $400 tent. The guyline is also high quality, and reflective, something I appreciated deeply on the second night of the elk hunt, when darkness and a final futile stalk caught me 3 miles from my tent on a very dark night. I had pitched it atop a knoll precisely to manage this eventuality, but with no moon each knob and ridge becomes like the others, and in my very tired state I was really psyched when my headlamp picked up glowing cord across the coulee, especially as my stash of food and water was inside. In gnarly conditions one could use more cord, but one might well go years with the stock amount being entirely adequate.

There are a lot of lighter, in some cases drastically lighter, double wall tents newly on the market which pencil out as functionally very close to the Hilight. For a lot of users those options, with less robust fabrics, fussier pitches, and worse weather resistance, are probably a better option. I just like the Hilight, added weight be damned, because it is both (surprisingly) versatile, and because it has every appearance of lasting a decade or more. Shelter options are interesting, but I don’t find them especially sexy, and having the Hilight available to tick every non-family tent box I require is both a practical and aesthetic virtue.