Our mountaineering reviewer, Kirk Watson, climbed high in the snow-covered Cairngorms to review the best two-person tents. On test MSR Dragon Tail tent
The MSR DragonTail is the lightest tent reviewed by a good bit. It is lighter because it is single skin. The tent is large inside with plenty of room for two plus kit, and you have loads of headroom to sit up in to and a reasonable porch to put stuff in and cook. It was pretty easy to put up and peg out.
Being a single skin tent, it can be prone to more condensation inside than a dual skin tent. The first night in it I kept the vents closed and I woke up with puddles inside! The second night, which had a very heavy dew in the morning too, I opened the vents and I only had moist inner walls (similar to dual skin tents) and everything was dry. The vents might let some rain in during a storm so maybe you could open the downwind vent? It doesn’t have many guys so I would add in a few extra guys of my own as the tent moved a bit in the wind.
It is fully midge proof and is lightweight and a bit cheaper than dual skins. It would be a great tent if you had to carry it further and probably deals with dryer weather perfectly or snowy cold weather.
Reviewed in May 2015 Issue
