User Review: Mountain Hardwear Trango 2

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

Reviewed November 28, 2004 by Griffo

Rating:
Design: four season
Sleeps: 2
Ease of Setup: easy
Weight: 9lbs
Price Paid: $300 USD

Sweet tent. I have used it climbing Mt. Shasta a dozen times, peak bagging in the Sierras, and just backpacking through the Sierras as well. Every aspect of this tent far surpasses all other tents, less the weight. If it weren't so damn heavy it would be perfect.

The fix for this is to leave the tent body at home and only bring the footprint, fly, and poles. If you have set up this tent a dozen times with the tent body then setting it up without the tent body isn't much harder. It cuts the weight of the tent in half and still provides a great shelter. I have sat out days worth of rain with the tent in this form without any leaks. Granted, you have to have the forthought not to pitch the tent in a future little stream, but with some common sense, it works out great.

The only con to this is that it is a little colder, and during the summer there is no way to keep out the vampires. But this feature is far overlooked and makes this tent extremely versatile.

I bring the body when I am going to set up a base camp to peak bag or ski out of, or when I am going on a trip with friends where we won't be going too far too fast and I don't mind bringing along some luxury items.

I leave the body at home when I want to go light because we are going far fast or I am going with a psycho group of friends that are in better shape than I am and I need all the help I can get.

Anyway, to sum it up, this tent rocks.