Bushwalk Australia

NB: I already posted this is the AAWT section but thought I’d spread the net wider, sorry for the repeat

I have my ducks in a row for a full solo journey north up the AAWT starting in a couple of weeks.
One final dilemma I have is which tent to take. I have a well used tarptent rainbow solo, I love this 1 kg tent and it has always held up and kept the rain off - but I worry about it’s durability over the journey and it is not warm in cold windy weather. I also have a less used mont Moondance solo, more cramped and 700g heavier, but it has been tested in cold, rainy and super windy Iceland this time last year. Can’t decide which one to take. Any suggestions ?? Cheers
Luke

I can't speak for the mont, but having owned Tarptent notch (and an aliexpress tt rainbow clone) I'd be more than happy doing the AAWT in a Tarptent. Plus with the weight savings you can afford to take a polycro groundsheet (105g) and a light fleece (250g) if you're worried about durability and warmth.

I’m in the NSW/ACT alps nearly every weekend, year round, in all sorts of weather, armed with a Tarptent Notch or a Moment. They can both handle pretty decent wind, snow and rain.

Site selection is more important than the tent imo.

I’d save the weight and stick with the Tarptent.

BTW, if your tarptent is a bit tired, give it a good wash (with soap not detergent) and then once dry spray it with a can of waterproofing silicone.
Some do that with their shelter every season or two.

Once dry it adds 30-40g to the tent weight.

Also worth remembering that there are huts for emergency use scattered across both knp and bhp that can provide a safe refuge in extreme weather across most of the alpine/sub alpine country. In knp you can go from the Vic border to the ACT border with only one major gap, that being on the Main Range between Dead Horse Gap and Schlink Pass. Similarly on the Bogong High Plains you can traverse from Hotham to Mt Wills with huts to back you up. For the rest of the walk you are at lower elevations in forest or woodland where, as Zapruda mentions, site selection can ameliorate the worst effects of bad weather.

Ok thanks for the advice folks. i was leaning towards taking the tarptent anyway for weight saving; the other thing i didn't mention is that I can have the TT up in under 5 minutes, whereas with the two-piece mont I have found myself stuffing about trying to get the fly on while it pisses rain and everything inside gets wet. The mont is an excellent tent, I think i just prefer to go with what I have more experience with and know how to set up quickly. the TT does have a small tear in the fabric, patched with some cloth tape which has miraculously somehow bonded with the tent fabric and now looks like a professional fix. I also recently picked up a repair kit from TT so with that I guess some peace of mind. I'll take some extra guy rope and pegs for windy times, and I have a tyvec groundsheet too which I've never used but provides extra backup for dodgy sites.
was kind of expecting the advice to favour the more solid tent, a lot of people diss single-wall tents, but I've yet to see a major disadvantage in the conditions I've camped in.

Take a cloth to wipe the walls down in the morning. You’ll find it gets very damp overnight in the alps. That’s why I lean more toward the double wall Tarptents. I have used several types of single wall shelters up there over years and it’s generally fine but much better with a cloth. Mark F suggested a Vileda (spelling?) cloth a while ago and it does the job.

I won’t speak for VIC but nearly everywhere you camp in NSW and ACT along the AAWT will have soft grass to camp on. You could leave the Tyvek at home. I never use footprints and haven’t ever had a hole in the floor of Sil or DCF tents. I’m not particularly mindful of clearing sites as either.

Inner first tents are the weirdest things. I have a Goondie that I rarely use because of the way it pitches. Can’t stand dealing with an unruly fly while the wind is blowing a gale. Integral pitch or single skin for the win.

Lukec wrote:]...]I also have a less used mont Moondance solo, more cramped and 700g heavier, but it has been tested in cold, rainy and super windy Iceland this time last year. Can’t decide which one to take. [...]

The Moondance 1 would be an excellent choice, and Iceland's a bugger-all in terms of its often-bleak, wet and cold weather: on my visit last year over 3 weeks, the sun was shining on only 3 days, and only in Reykjavík!!

Meanwhile in Oz, October is a highly variable month in terms of weather and so far this October in SE Australia all manner of seasons have come and gone, with snow still falling on and off in Victorian and NSW alpine regions! My Moondance 1 was bought on speculation in 2009, yet easily withstood a terrible blizzard at Mount Feathertop camp, a flood in Bright not long after, torrrential storms and horizontally-driven rain at Wilsons Prom, and an unfortunate experience of being frozen in minus-6 degrees at Mount Clear in 2010! All up, it didn't flinch and kept me warm, dry and comfortable every time. I would not sacrifice a few grams of weight when you have no idea what the weather will be doing (certainly not a tarp tent), not just now, but into November (which can also see very bad alpine conditions). The AAWT is not a place to experiment with risk. The protection afforded by a more substantial tent (the M1) cannot be denied.

The fly of the Moondance was never a hindrance or hassle in my long experience, even when it is raining. The newer models have worthwhile improvements to securing the outer fly, but it has always been a simple, quick and fuss-free attachment, so I don't know, among many users of this tent, what the problem is. I sold my Moondance 1 to an New Zealand expat, because I found it being so small now that I had to get out of it just to change my mind...

Tarptent is a brand of tents not just a tarp as you think - https://www.tarptent.com/

They are tents, and I fail to see how a hubbed pole tent like the Moondance is any stronger.

I spend 50-70 nights a year in the alps. They aren’t as scary as people make them out to be.

My Tarptent Notch in snow.

My TT Notch under snow (and not the fluffy type....)

Hi Biggles,
Thanks for the response, it's good to have a bit of balance to the debate. I wasn't meaning to start a tent war, but as in all things, people will have some strong brand loyalty to what has worked for them in the past. the mont certainly stood up for me in Iceland, where the exposed camp sites really copped some fierce winds (though the weather overall wasn't too bad when I was there). I hadn't used it much so the delay in setting up was probably down to 'user error', but it still seems more complicated than the tarptent rainbow which I've gotten used to. And I found it a bit cramped. the tarptent has been with me on the Five Passes route in NZ (extreme bad weather at times, but we stayed under rock bivvies during the wort of it) and on the Mt Anne Circuit in Tassie (some high winds at shelf camp). Plus it's bigger and a fair bit lighter.
tarptent at mt anne:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1FZIlRDJp1LLkpQlTEVVH0pQt8MmUeS-t

moondance in iceland
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1H3n-72xKTregYWkl2_S1R3AErIwaeFd3


seems this thread has become a bit of a "portrait of my tent"

Another vote for the Tarptent Notch with the solid inner. It's certainly one of the easiest tents to pitch (especially in bad weather), has been in close to 100kph winds (sleepless nights at this intensity) and weighs only 850g.
I'm quite tall at 1.88m and I have good head room.

If you already have a TT Rainbow, just take that. It will be fine . Maybe give it a spray with silicone, as suggested.

The TT double rainbow is great as a roomy one person tent. Pitched correctly in the right spot it can take quite a hammering.