User Review: Mountain Hardwear Trango 2

Mountain Hardwear Trango 2
Above: The current Trango 2, which may differ slightly from the version reviewed.

Reviewed March 2, 1999 by Ian Litmans

Rating:
Design: 4 season
Sleeps: 3
Ease of Setup: very easy
Weight: 9lbs6oz
Price Paid: $420

I have owned this tent for a year and a half and have been very happy with it. I have had the tent on three mountains, including winter ascents of Mt. Rainier and Washington. The tent is easy to set up with two people in high winds and very easy for one person to set up in mild conditions. The features and well thought out design seperate it from other mountain tents.

First, the interior of the tent is easy to keep organized with pockets around the long sides of the perimeter. The tent will comfortably sleep two people with some gear or three people without gear. The two doors on the tent are easy to use and do a good job of ventilation. The two exits in the fly are also good. The rear door provides an easy exit when the weather is nasty and the front/main door is being occupied by equipment or cooking. The vestibule on the front provides ample space for organization and easy cooking. The clear uvx window is still soft even at -20f but it fogs up so quickly that it really does not provide much utility aside from the increased light it lets in. The fly on this tent is superb. There are more than enough guy lines on the fly and each guy point is backed by a clip to secure it to the main tent body.

I have had this tent in extreme weather conditions and it performed flawlessly without the need to set multiple guys. One very useful and appreciated feature of this tent is the way the fly clips to the tent body at the pole bases. On Rainier I had the misfortune to break a plastic clip with my axe only to realize that the strap can be fed through the clip attachment point and then routed back into the fastex slider. This secondary attachment method will provide me with a lot of piece of mind on future trips. One feature that I would have appreciated in the tent would be interior guy line attachments on the tent's floor. So far guying in the tent horizontally has worked, but I would appreciate the extra safety in horrific conditions.

Generally this is a superb climbing tent. It would be hard to do better by any other manufacturer.