Mountain Hardwear Alcove 3 GT

Generally a good tent with some design flaws. Roomy and with good porch space.

Pitched the tent in horrendous weather on Dartmoor in the dark and in heavy rain in December. The  boast of an impenetrable fly and ground sheet are largely accurate as in the morning there was only a small pool of water in the tent.  This is not not bad as it sounds bearing in mind in the morning we realised we had pitched the tent in what was a dry riverbed that was not dry In the morning!

I don’t believe the fly leaked, which is impressive and it held out well to the strong winds.  What did let the tent down dramatically is the flimsy velcro attachments for the porch poles. All of which had ripped off completely from the fly sheet possibly causing irreparable damage.  This is a serious design flaw if you intend to put the tent through its paces.

I am going to e-mail the company and find out if a modification has been implemented and request a replacement. I will add later comments. Dan P.

Background

Military mountain Leader

We got this tent at a great price from Hilton's Tent City www.hiltonstentcity.com and used it in the BWCA. We almost bought the Haven 3 because of the weight, but the Alcove was preferred because of size and so much mesh (we do warmer weather camping, and with the fly it stays plent warm).

Only thing that stops me from giving 5 stars is the weight. For canoe camping it's perfect, though, and I love the space. It has a large alcove, and it is very tall inside, and with the extra backside pole it's very comfortable for us and our 90 lb Doberman Pinscher we take with us.

I highly recommend this tent. We also compared it to the Hammerhead 3 and REI Taj 3. We did a ton of research and this tent was definitely the best one for us.

I have read the other review of this tent and I don't think it is the most intuitive tent to set up. I have been hiking for years and had several high end tents. The two poles that give the tent the large vestibules are different sizes and the holes that they attach can be confusing, especially at night.

I also don't like attaching the front fly the the pole using the velcro tabs. Once you have the fly attached don't worry about the rain, it hasn't leaked a drop. The tent ventilates well with no fly, but still provides adequate privacy.