Scarp 2 First outing

We arrived on our friends farm in the Lakes around mid afternoon on Thursday and were greeted with quite a biting NWesterly wind.

The site was deserted except for one brave couple who were staying the night in their TN Quasar.

We were there to get to know the new Scarp 2 from Tarptent, to try out some new gear and to help out on the farm, separating sheep ready for tupping.

Please note! This is only the first time out and therefore it’s not a full review, i need to have used it quite a few times in all weathers to be able to write that, so more to follow.

The tent is amazingly quick to erect having only one pole, 6 pegs and with the inner attached. Even with a strong wind it takes only a minute or so to have a standing tent.

Another couple of minutes to make final adjustments to the corner poles and guys and its complete.

The Scarp 2 (that’s the one on the right.)

I decided that i would take the 4 season poles with me to check out the assembly. Here we found our 1st problem!

To assemble the poles you feed them both through a loop in the centre of the tent then pass the ends through a D ring which is located on the top of the 4 corner poles. 

Then you locate the poles into eyelets which are attached to the corner guy ropes, then fit the ribbon clips to the poles and tension the ribbons.

This is a bit of a fiddly job and took me about 4 minutes in total. The problem we had was the D rings, they had only been fitted on 3 of the corners, the 4th corner had a guy rope toggle clip fitted in error. Great. I am going to have to find out how to resolve this.

Guy tensioner fitted to a corner where  a “D” ring should be, 
and the velcro strip?

We found the excess ribbon to be a real nuisance as the wind picked up during the night. When it's windy the ribbon flaps against the taught tent and sounds like 10 sets of drums. Also the ribbon clips which locate onto the poles are not ideal and are quite difficult to undo when your hands are cold. This system will have to go. I will design something different myself that's easier to use and is silent.

The Pole clip and excess ribbon.

Also located on the 4 corners is a short strip of velcro. I don't know as yet what these strips are supposed to be used for.
If the 4 season poles are not used then a guying system needs to be found at both ends to maintain material tension. I have not done this yet as it was too cold to experiment.

Very quickly we found the next issue that had to be resolved. The zipper tabs are too small and impossible to grip with a gloved hand and are hard to locate at night.

This was resolved easily enough. I attached a loop of 1mm Dyneema reflective cord to all the tabs.

1mm Dyneema cord attached to the Inner zippers.

And to the outer zippers.

Having 2 doorways was certainly a big advantage and it allowed cooking in either porch dependent on wind direction.The porch area is quite narrow but adequate for our needs. ie cooking gear, shoes etc. Their is more than enough room to keep rucksacks inside the tent so it's not a problem.

When you get all your gear in the tent you realise just what a large space it is with generous head height. It's a very spacious 2 person tent and it kept occurring to me that something in between the Scarp1 and Scarp 2 would be the ideal for backpacking and weight saving for two.

It was great to have a lamp/torch clip in the centre of the roof. Although the lack of any decent storage pockets proved that i need to do something about it.
The pocket that is fitted wasn't used and is pointless apart from keeping some small change in.

After the first night, where the temperature had dropped down to minus 5 it was noticeable that condensation was covering the whole of the inner tent roof. This had occurred with the 2 roof vents and 2 end vents open and there had been a light breeze blowing. It didn't crystalise and it hadn't dripped onto the sleeping bags so that was good.

It was also noticeable that the bottom of the outer doors had ridden up the main pole. This had let quite a bit of wind blown snow inside the porch area. I shall have to look for a pegging point to stop this happening.
There is also a loop on either side of the main pole which can be used for additional guying if deemed necessary but no cord or pegs are supplied for this by the manufacturer.

During our 2nd night we had a blizzard with high winds and temperatures which fell to minus 7. The tent is very stable in these conditions and even though there is a lot of material, it didn't flap about due to the taught pitch.

When we came to packing the tent up it was quite damp especially with the condensation. It is an awkward tent to pack up with it having fixed poles and an attached inner. However if you get all the poles together first and then fold it extracting the air as you go. I was surprised that i got it into the bag quite easily, even if untidily.

I have detaching the inner from the outer to see if this would improve handling and packing, but it doesn’t. I don’t recommend doing it.
Re-attaching the inner is a fiddly job and one that i wouldn't want to do in the field especially if it was windy.
The clips used to attach the 2 together are the same clips as used on the pole ribbons. They are quite ridged and difficult to unlock and even harder when it's cold.

I emailed Tarptent regarding seam sealing and a i had a few other questions but they have not replied. I was hoping to attach the reply to this post.

In Summary, it's a smashing tent, a few initial problems to resolve annoyingly, but the use of the space envelope is 1st class and you get a good feel when your in it. It feels safe, solid and dependable.

There is room for improvements and quality control is not perfect. Would i buy it again now. Absolutely, yes.
My first impressions and more tent photo’s can be found here.