LUXE HEXPEAK First Pitch

First Garden Pitch at Last (7th March 2014)

This is a very short first impressions write up
A more detailed write up after Cairngorms trip is on its way

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ALSO..  SEE Later Blog Post for solutions to all these early problems I encountered

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Weather has been crap and garden a quagmire until now.
First NON pissing down day and not blowing a gale.

So having seam sealed the Hexpeak last week.
More on that later, but the supplied tube is NOT enough even mixing 3:1 with white spirit.

I seam sealed inside seams with a 2:1 mix using some existing silicon seal.
I also did the zip inside and the door zip outside.
Plus any exterior seams that had stitching visible.

There are a LOT of them.
Far more than on the Trailstar.

Looking at the seams while I seam sealed it, they were fine, but there were some loose threads.
This was not loose seams, just dangly thread.
It is a great value tent, but the finish quality is NOT up to my TS or the Warmlite.
But then it does cost a less and that includes the inner, so that is an observation, NOT a complaint.

Although, a bit more care Luxe!

I have done nothing on the inner though.

So how was it... ?

Outer only with tie (which WILL get lost)

The whole lot comes in one bag.

Personally I would keep the tent and pegs in one bag, and the inner in a different bag.

I will carry the inner in t e inside of the rucksack and the outer in the deep outside side pocket.

Take care putting it away.

You need to fold the guys in or they wiggle about and get knotted up

The Pegs are TOOOOOOO Small

 In my opinion, the 8 pegs that come with it and measure approx 5½" are too short.
And also you need to carry more. They may well be ok for the mid points but for the Main 6 points I would use Clamcleats Tornado Pegs and probably a large MSR Blizzard Stake for one point as I use on the TS.

Even on moderately dry ground with quite a breeze, the supplied pegs just came out of the ground with hardly any tension

Which brings me to the supplied guys.

They are too thin.

Under tension, they just pull through the runners and do NOT stay in place.

I am going to replace them all with thicker guy ropes

Also my advice is to use a different colour on the back two guys so you can easily identify them when trying to put the tent up in a wind, because it blows about like the TS.

So, in a wind and with TWO interested Labradors, I staked the tent out as in the instructions.

You will need to stake out 4 points as far as I can see excluding the door.
Then get the pole to it's 135 cm height.

Put that into the centre point, and then DO THE DOOR UP to secure the door entrance down, or it is never going to be right.

Now you can go round and tension up the exterior guys, once you have changed all to a thicker chord, so that they actually stay in place.

It is a slight faff to get the tension right, and I did not really bother on this first attempt getting all anally retentive about it, because I had not got the new guy ropes in.

This is also why I did NOT anchor it down lower.

Personally I think you WILL need the pole at 135cm, although I will review that opinion with time.

I also think that this is at the EXTREME of poles and would prefer to use a POLE extender.
Sadly BOB at Back Packing Light does not have one for the outer clip poles YET (fingers X)

The guys are quite long because I could NOT get them to stay in place.
If I could I would have got the outer lower down.
BUT I COULDN'T

With better guys, the overall tension would be better too.

Inside there is heaps of room.
Next time once I have done the guys, I will put the inner in and see how it really looks.

Watch this space

It is NOT pitched a a funny angle.
I just had the camera held at an angle OK

Having said that, this was my FIRST attempt and it went up easily.

I definitely need to practise a couple more times before I take it out in the real world though.

CONCLUSION

First impressions are quite good.
It is definitely good value for money.

How will it fair in a howling gale in Scotland I will let you know.

Was it a good purchase.

Appears to be a good little tent, but now it needs to earn it's worth in a proper test.

If it is OK in Scotland in April, and in the Lakes in April, then it will go on the Challenge. If not I will take Wendy Warmlite 

Now, I just need a name for her that begins with H

Cannot be Harriet though because that is my daughters name

Watch this space!