Black Diamond Oasis

Summary

This tent serves well in all weather. I would strongly recommend this to anyone backpacking with a tentmate.

This tent is easy to setup and quick. The Oasis is stable in rain and wind.

The only water I got in was from being lazy and not tying down fly. This let fly flapping in to the screening and letting water drip in. My fault not the tent!

As far as only three tie downs there is an additional five places where you can tie on to the fly. That gives a total of eight tie-downs which is way stable. I carry an additional 20 foot of tie-down rope in the tent bag which is used in high winds. I just throw in an X pattern over the fly and use the existing stakes.

Best tent around for the price!

On initial appearance, this tent looks very nice, 2.7 kg weight, very roomy for 2, good access, easy to setup up. The 5 pole design is nice and gives for a very tight frame.

Why I've given this tent 1 star, is that the first night I used it in the mountains of Western Australia (not very big about 1000m/3000F), it was turned into a complete bin job.

Wind was strong with big gusts, but we were camped in between some trees.

This tent soaks up wind nicely from the back end, which is where the wind initially came from. However, when the wind started swirling and hitting from the front and sides, this tent could not take it.

It held up for most of the night, but a small rip occurred in the fly of the vestibule by morning. That was ok, but at about 6am a big gust came from the lateral side and broke the poles, ripping a huge hole in the fly as well.

To be fair, conditions probably were extreme and I don't know how well other domes would have stood up.

I'm giving this tent 1 star because I think that having 3 guy points is completely inadequate and does not give the vestibule and the sides enough support. This tent should have 2 guy points on the sides as well as 2 on the vestibule. This may have saved it.

I'm not sure what this other reviewer is talking about. pPerhaps he got a lemon (?). I have not experienced any of the problems or shortcomings s/he mentions. This is a really great tent and I've owned more than 6 backpacking tents over the last 10 years (and used two others that belonged to friends) and this is MY FAVORITE.