User Review: REI Half Dome 2

REI Half Dome 2
Above: The current Half Dome 2, which may differ slightly from the version reviewed.

Reviewed June 19, 2006 by Frazier

Rating:
Design: three-season, two person, free-standing dome
Sleeps: 2
Ease of Setup: very easy for one person
Price Paid: $175

This tent is an excellent choice for two-up motorcycle travel and camping. The tent, rain fly, footprint, and poles take up less than half an Electra Glide saddle bag.

I have tried several other tents in the past, with some success; but each trip I was unhappy with the large amount of space required for packing the larger tent and the corresponding lack of space for packing other things. The REI Half Dome 2 seems to be the perfect tent. It provides adequate space but packs small.

For several years, I thought that I had to have at least 50 square feet for helments, boots, and personal items. Although the larger tents took a lot of packing space, I was afraid to try a "two-person" tent. But after repeated frustrations and inconviences related to other larger tents, I decided to try this REI Half Dome 2.

Our first trip was to the Smokey Mountains National Park. I was immediately pleased with the result. It is exactly wide enough for two 25" air matresses, and it has additional length (I am 6'3") for clothes and personal items.

Some of the other desirable features are: aluminum poles, simple but sturdey grommet holes for holding the poles at each corner, easy clips, two doors, lots of tie backs for the doors, and two vestibules to store helments and boots in dry bags.

Some other observations are: Gear lofts, in general are not helpful for me, so I immediately removed it and hung a small micro light from the center tab; a string was looped through the four corner tabs and used as a clothesline; there are no inside pockets but that isn't a problem for me; the center pole hub is intended to give additional stability but it requires a little more time to set-up and take down; ventilation was ok but this tent really holds the heat in (there was a noticible temperature difference in the cool early morning; both doors are at one end and it took a few nights to figure out which end was best for our heads (we finally decided to have our heads at the door end), even though this arrangement made it a little more difficult to get in and out of the tent; I am not able to comment on waterproofness yet.

Overall I am very satisfied with this tent and plan to keep it in my saddle bag for a long time.

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