A mildly inconvenient featherweight - Zpacks Altaplex review
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- čas přidán 13. 07. 2024
- When the sealing tape comes right off of an expensive tent the first time you use it, you're allowed to be disappointed. But 15 months later, I've got a more nuanced opinion about the Zpacks Altaplex.
00:00 - Intro
01:45 - Con #1: Quality control
03:26 - Con #2: rain protection
05:19 - Con #3: Sizing and liveable space
08:30 - Con #4: Opening and closing
09:29 - Con #5: Price
10:37 - Pro #1: Weight
12:20 - Pro#2: Ease of setting up
12:58 - Conclusion
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Current prices (some affiliate links)
- Zpacks Altaplex: zpacks.com/products/altaplex-tent
- Zpacks Duplex: zpacks.com/products/duplex-tent
- Lightest tent pole for the Altaplex: zpacks.com/products/60-carbon-fiber-tent-pole
- Lanshan 2 Pro: s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_AkxbAn
- Telos TR2: amzn.to/3Dg14ck
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Filmed with (affiliate links)
- Sony A7IV: amzn.to/329AyCi
- Sony 24mm f1.4 GM: amzn.to/3Yfsl82 - Krátké a kreslené filmy
That was an excellent review of the Altaplex! The list of cons together with examples was very honest and useful. Now I understand how water can potentially get in during rain while you're sleeping. It's also good to understand about a potential condensation shower with a single wall tent. I currently have a Big Agnes Copper Spur UV UL2 which I love, and it's really a bombproof tent, but it's heavy, takes up a lot of room in my pack, and after a hard day of hiking and I'm tired, it's more cumbersome to set up, especially if it's windy. I've been seriously considering adding an Altaplex to my backpacking options for longer, multi day hikes to lighten my load and enable a fast setup, and it's good to know the cons so I can at least be forewarned and better prepared to manage them. The cons won't deter me from making the purchase, but I'm now able to do so with my eyes wide open.
Had mine for two years now and reluctantly I'm in agreement. Any uneven ground (and it's always uneven) and the bathtub floor edges outside the sides and you start the collection of water, Not had a wet/outside dry/inside night. Also to add another con, as I tend to stealth camp, this is not a stealth tent: a high, shiny, bright plastic bag. Mine was supposed to be brown so a bit surprised by how bright it is. Find myself using my (OR Helium) bivvy bag more.
i consider 100 days camp in a year also a life🤙🤙🤙
Haha, can’t disagree!
X MID SOLID 1P from my part.
My ultimate tent: double roofs ! light, I will never come back to single roof.
And sooooo fast to set up.
AH ! and nice for tall people., i am 1M87 tall (i think about wet sleeping bags when you wake up, you never touch the wall)
By the way: nice review.
Regards from Lux.
Thanks, the Xmid solid seems like a great option too!
I also think that real customer service would be that they would pay you back the second customs tax. It is absolutely normal that you had to pay it the first time, but it is not your fault that they did poor qualitycontrol. Not OK that you had to pay it again because of their mistake.
That would have been ideal, but to be fair: I didn't ask them to pay it, and I doubt they know how much Belgian customs charge in cases like these.
great review, i'm loving my big agnes tiger wall 2 just love the space, and how wel it preforms in storms etc, and while still being damn light for a conventional tent, as of now the issues with the real, ultralight tents is the stuff you mentioned in the video
Nice review, honest too.
I got mine sent over to the uk 5 years ago, was pretty expensive, thought we had a trade deal with the US.
I've used it a lot over the years up in the highlands of scotland and various other places and on the whole it has performed quite well in bad weather, the condensation is a big issue and i ended up using a bivvy bag with my sleeping bag to protect it.
Its definitely not as long as advertised, im 6"2 and find once i have my sleep system set up my head and feet almost touch the walls, dyneema is slippery too, i have found my big agness sleep pad slips from under me at night which is a bit annoying.
I guess the biggest selling point is how light it is and the fact its only a shelter, not designed to spend a lot of time in.
I have another zpacks tent (free trio) and have stopped using it because the bathtub floor got always kicked out from under the tarp in the middle of the night. Have a durston pro now and so happy about it.
Funny that the first three comments are from Durston owners. 😆 I checked them out before buying the Altaplex but they always seemed to be out of stock. Probably a good sign...
Great honest review thank you, my friend who has this tent and the Durston x-mid pro1 convinced me (@6'2")to get the Durston, and I'm extra glad I did now!
Yeah, a premium price and the looks of a trash bag. Same with some ultralight cottage backpacks. They look like they are designed by twelve year olds. There are one or two good reasons to buy them. But it makes me also realize that hiking is more than transportation of lightweight weather protection products. It’s a dream, it’s emotion, atmosphere, even nostalgia. I can’t see how a trash bag fits into that. 😊
Zpacks leads in innovation. Unfortunately, it also leads in awful quality and equally awful quality control. On the Altaplex, I’m 6’5 and on a 3” pad my feet touched and my head was about 2” from the canopy. My quilt was in constant contact throughout every night. More irritatingly was the fact that if I leaned up, the canopy was very much on my shoulder. Bluntly, it was impractical for someone my size. Marketing this to tall people is non-sense. That said….I’d love a one-trekking pole shelter, just longer and wider. Good video.
Tnx for the review. Bonfus Middus 1p is like Altaplex but double wall and modular. Its a little more costly and slightly heavier but avoids some drawbacks you mentioned, and its European company. If they were doing a fraction of marketing that Durston does, Bonfus would be a much bigger deal. Selling xmid pro...
Interesting! Yeah, Dan from Durston is super active (and very helpful) in a lot of online ultralight communities. That really helps with marketing. It's a small UL world...
I sold my Altaplex and bought an X-Mid. Love it! Solves all of the problems you mentioned. Thanks for the vid. Great!👍😃
Nice! I would love to get my hands on one of these Durston tents, they seem pretty awesome! My wallet's still recovering from the Altaplex though 😅
@BelgianHikers xmid pro is a pain to pitch on uneven ground. Selling mine.
@@semo7566Another honest and helpful remark to compare with an Altaplex!
Any review planned for the new Decathlon MT 900's?
You mean their new white ultralight model? Yeah, I'm tempted! I really do have to stop buying tents though, making YT vids is more expensive than I anticipated 😅
Thanks for sharing. Cons can be fixed, pros are great. I don’t mind what others think of me. Looking like trash is actually an advantage. Non hikers won’t target you to steal valuables. In a beautiful tent I had a night visitor who picked my car keys from under my pillow and I had to fight for my keys and my car until my neighbours and police arrived. So, trash looking of dyneema is actually a pro.
Stealing your keys while you were IN the tent? Some people are just plain crazy.
@@BelgianHikers Yes. Pulling my head to get them from under my pillow. This was the moment I woke up and started to fight for them. The unknown person blinded me with a flashlight, passed the keys to the 2nd person who started the engine trying to run away while I opened the driver’s door and extracted him from driver’s seat in desperation while shouting out loud for help. My camp neighbours came out and called the police. The intruders ran away. They have been caught: they were 3: one was watching ready with the car, and 2 hands on. I had front and back dash cams and solid solar screen sticking strongly to the front shield which couldn’t be removed. Otherwise my car with all valuables (which I don’t keep inside of my tent) would be gone. It was midnight. While explaining what happened to my camp mates and strongly keeping the bunch of keys in my hands, one noticed that the car engine was still running. At my surprise half of the car key was still in the ignition and half in my hands. That was a fight!
😲@@lilylelob
Excellent review! I appreciate your approach to dissecting the components/structure of this tent based on your field experience and exterior information gathering. I am planning a Northern section hike of the Arizona Trail for Fall 2024 and have been wrestling between Zpacks, Durston, and Tarptent. I want to avoid large foot prints and want to be somewhat stealthy. I live above 7000ft (Flagstaff,AZ) so my concerns will be wind, rain, and maybe early snow at the higher elevation of 9000ft. So I'm being cautious as to my selection of shelter. Honestly, I do not want to seam seal...perhaps I should accept this as a possibility? I have time to sort this dilemma...If I'm going put out $700, I want to make sure I'm getting the appropriate kit. Currently I have the Alps Mountaineering Lynx1. This tent is holds up excellently in the elements mentioned above (50 m/h gusts of wind in Death Valley, but, its full package weight is about 4lbs. My goal is to keep the base weight (not including the pack) plus variable weight at not more than 30lbs. The water situation on the Arizona Trail is unpredictable, so I will be carrying at least a gallon to be safe. Any thoughts you or anyone subscriber hear can share is appreciated. Thanks much!
You should check out a Hilleberg Enan tent.
Tempting, but having to carry dedicated long pole is put me off. My lanshan 1 pro is still lighter :)
The Altaplex is by no means perfect, but I honestly doubt the Lanshan 1 Pro is lighter: it's advertised as 690 grams for the body only, while the Altaplex is 437 grams (mine is 739 grams including the pole, trekking pole jack and the stakes). If you already have a pole, the trekking pole jack is a good solution at only 34 grams.
@@BelgianHikers Yes, sorry, just measured mine, it 750gr with silicone seams sealent applied and some extra guylines, and conressions sack. plus 140gr for the pegs with some sand on them :) My biggest problem apart from condensatino is that its pretty difficult to setup this tent in tight uneaven surfaces.
@@EdgarSnowSki Either way, the value for money on the Lanshans is amazing.
@BelgianHikers pretty good tent indeed, but for me I found that pyramid tents are hard to setup un changing terrain when you have only small pitch of even surface. So I'm looking now for bivaq style tents like nordosk lofoten.
yall are a bunch of girls caring about the looks. The QC on the other hand, is an issue