• Atlas Scandium XL poles
• Conduit FR 30D fly fabric
• Evolution tension arch
• Integrated vestibule
• 2 SVX windows
• Welded zipper flaps
• Watertight door zippers
• Reflective zipper pulls
• Welded mesh storage pockets
• Watertight zippered snow port
• Superlight 1/4 inch buckles and webbing
• 5 Welded adjustable flysheet mesh vents with zipper
• Floor Area 31.00 sq ft / 2.88 sq m
• Length 8.76 ft / 267.00 cm
• Width 3.90 ft / 119.00 cm
• Number of doors 1
• Number of poles 3
• Number of vestibules 0
• Floor fabric Superlight 2000 Nylon
• Body fabric Conduit FR
• Number of mesh windows 0
• Exterior height 3.67 ft / 112.00 cm
• Interior height 3.41 ft / 104.00 cm

Normally when I review an outdoor product I base my judgments on my own personal experience. After spending over 14 Alaska Range days in a Mountain Hard Ware EV single-wall "breathable" tent I felt that my personal view of the product might be biased. So like any good sleuth I did a review of reviews on the Internet to see if my opinion was out in left field, that the tent I tested was damaged in some way, or if a 20$ tube tent made from a plastic bag really has less condensation issues than a 650$ EV.

For starters the EV is supposed to be designed and used by the famous 8,000-meter climber, Ed Viesturs. When Tiger Woods endorses a golf-club people buy it. Thing is just because Tiger can hit 400 yards with an over priced stick, doesn't mean Joe Shlump, with a wad of cash burning a hole in their pocket, can. My point here is that a lot of the reviews I read pointed out Ed's experience and proclaimed use and love of the tent as evidence of it's worthiness. I'm not saying the tent hasn't worked for Ed at high altitude where there is not a lot of moisture in the air and he wasn't spending a week sitting in the thing during a storm. I am saying that just because a famous person likes a product doesn't mean it's the product for you.

That said, I did find numerous reviews that pointed out some of the issues that I had with the tent. Thing is most of these reviews blew off their own personal complaints with statements like, "Well Viesturs designed the EV, so I guess having condensation issues is par for the course in single wall tents." The number of users mentioning the moisture issues has me doubt that the tent I tested was sprayed with waterproofing by accident or some such.

I used the tent in temperatures ranging from 10 degrees F to 70 degrees F, in rain, light snow, heavy snow, and on a few crystal clear blue bird days. In every single situation my partner and I were awoken by drips hitting our face. We kept all the vents open as instructed. Even on gorgeous dry nights the walls of the tent would get covered with moisture. This soon led to there being puddles on the floor.

The unnecessary windows were constantly covered with moisture and the re-enforced pole strips also were even wetter than the VXO2 panels. It might have helped to be able to open the door to help with venting, but the two zipper design means that you can only open the tent from the bottom and thus can't vent from the top of the door (unless you keep the whole door open). Don't even get my started on the fact that the tent door doesn't have any mosquito netting. For me that means I cannot use the tent for summer alpine trips that have approaches below 6,000 feet.

Luckily the tent had a drain-hole to poor the puddles of moisture out of: I mean the built in "vestibule." I can't help but assume it was built in as a drain because it served no purpose as vestibule what so ever. I guess the logic behind the thing is that you can reach down and grab snow to cook in your tent with. I always fill a stuff sac with compressed snow before I get in the tent so it never occurred to me to reach under my tent and undermine my limited platform by excavating.

The tent poles elastic plastic ends, during my 14 days of use, had failed 1/2 a dozen times sending pieces scattering across the tundra. Luckily so far I've been able to recover all the pieces and thread them back together.

On the bright side, yes there is a bright side to the EV. The tent performed almost perfectly in a three-day, strong windstorm. The only issue was a couple of the clips popped off and the tie-off cord that came with tent broke. Trying to stand up, while getting sandblasted, to fix these issues in the midst of the storm was not my idea of a fun interlude to staring at the dripping ceiling. The tent is also very roomy for its weight. This actually might be the tents condensation problem. The VXO2 material might actually work if the tent was smaller. Overall the EV did perform better than an old style plastic tube-tent, but the tube tent definitely has better Norman Rockwell value.