LIVE: The Gear Q&A (Spring ’23 Edition)

Ryan thanks for this timely discussion. In looking at Six Moon Designs Lunar Solo shelter I see the fly on the door side is lifted 1′ built in, as mentioned, for ventilation. With a low bathtub wall concern is heavy rain or hail bouncing into the tent and soaking the gear. Your thoughts?

I’ve not had any issues with the end flaps blowing open on the Dipole.

No problem with wind lifted stakes on the Dipole 1’s strut ends? Four stakes will hold it? It looks like it would benefit greatly with ridge lines. Looks like a very nice tent.

I’m returning my Zero chair. At 185 lbs., I felt like I was in a rocker. If I leaned forward, the chair leaned with me.
The fabric was the same as the LuxeryLite cots witch I’ve found severely overrated as far as maximum weight. I believe the chair is overrated as well.
The REI Flex appears to be the same construction. Instead of fore and aft, it appears like it would flex side to side. Have you found this to be the case?

I really wanted to like the Zero, but I couldn’t justify carrying it.

Yeah, Bruce, the denier dogma arguments…unfortunately, they don’t mean much. You can’t categorize fabrics by denier, there is too much variability from fabric to fabric, and you have to look at the individual properties of individual fabrics. The Slingfin 10d N66 sil/sil is one 10d fabric spec I’ve seen that has what it takes for a tent/shelter fly. And based on that spec, and how it compares to (some much crappier 20d fabrics that are in use today), a categorical rejection of “10d” for use in tents is probably not a wise claim to make.

Thank you Kelly.

I had the high back Zero. If you think of the back as a lever putting force on the hub, the high back is a longer lever. Then it seems to rotate on the middle strut. It was adequate, until I figured in the weight penalty and the cost. I don’t spend enough time in camp to warrant it.

If you want an uber comfortable chair for ~8.5 oz look at the Chammock.  Don’t buy their suspension…make your own with some spider web 1.5 strap and zing-it (all from dutchware). I have fallen asleep in it many times.

I’ve only found 2 cons to the Chammock. 1. Trees required. 2. Thus, it’s location is determined by tree location. It’s lovely that a free standing chair is infinitely relocatable, and if that is your goal then the Chammock might not work for you.

Honestly, if the trip is not fast and light I sometimes take both.

If I am someplace where there are views near the campsite, I like taking a chair and hiking up to the cliff or the beach, or whatever, and sitting in the dark, watching the stars, and listening to the sounds. But if not, I also enjoy sitting in the Chammock at camp swinging gently and watching the moon and star light filter through the leaves. Either way, it’s a beautiful thing.

Chammock apprently no longer exist as a company.

I spent an hour or two scouring the web for anything that was even remotely similar in design to the Chammock.  Nada.  Almost everything I found was pretty much simply a small sleeping hammock and retained the longitudinal orientation. IMO there are two features of the chammock that are key.  The first is the 90 deg orientation to the suspension.  The second are the side cutouts through which you can reach your arms.  That feature cannot be appreciated without experiencing it. There are many chair hammocks on amazon with a 90 deg orientation, and a couple look like the body might be somewhat light after ditching all the extra stuff (burly suspension, spreader bars, etc.), but they all lack the side cutouts.

ChammockCo’s failure not withstanding, it seems there could be an opportunity for some entrepreneurial spirt to take the design and run with it.