ALPS Mountaineering Mystique 1 AL

[SMSP]

Awhile back, I bought an ALPS Mountaineering Neptune 4 for family camping. I like the quality and vaule of the ALPS, so I decided to try out one of thier 1-person tents. I have always been a fan of free-standing dome type tents, but I have wanted to try a non-freestanding tent. From what I have researched, free standing tents tend to weigh more than non-freestanding tents.

From ALPS website for the Mystique 1 AL:


features at a glance
• Lightweight 2 Pole Design with 7000 Series Aluminum Poles
• 75D 185T Polyester Fly resists UV damage and stays taut
• Factory Sealed Fly & Floor Seams give best weather protection
• 75D 185T Taffeta Floor with 2000mm coating
• Extra Large #8 Zippers on Door and Vestibule
• Single Door Design minimizes weight
• Great Ventilation with large areas of mesh & Adjustable Fly Vent
• Weatherproof Fly provides a Vestibule over the Door
Materials:
• Fly: 75D, 185T, Poly Taffeta, 1500mm Multi-pass Urethane coating
• Floor: 75D, 185T, Poly Taffeta, 2000mm Multi-pass Urethane coating
• Walls: 75D, 185T, Poly Taffeta
• Mesh: Nylon No See-um Mesh, 40D
• Frame: 7.9 mm & 8.5 mm 7000 Series Aluminum Poles

Included:
Rain fly, 7000 Series Aluminum Poles, Pole Bag, Stake Bag, 6061 Aluminum Stakes, Guy Rope, Repair Swatches, Mesh Storage Pockets, and Tent Bag with Drawstring


If you need a lightweight, one person tent, the Mystique 1 will be a great choice for you. With all the combined features and affordable price, this tent is going to be hard to pass up. The non-freestanding 2 pole design, allows the Mystique to be the most lightweight tent in our line. There is one door and one vestibule, which forms a “porch” to give you a place to store extra gear. The ventilation is fantastic with the large mesh sides and the end mesh door panel. The full coverage fly keeps you dry even in the biggest rain storms. A vent is placed on the end of the fly to increase ventilation even further. It has the option of being zipped open or closed, depending upon the weather. Instructions are sewn into the tent storage bag so you never have to worry about not having them with you.


Specs
Base Size: 3'6 x7’10
Center Height: 3’
Vestibule Depth: 15"
Tent Area: 21 sq. ft.
Vestibule Area: 4 sq. ft.
Tent and Fly Weight: 3 lb. 6 oz.
Total Weight: 3 lb. 11 oz.
Packed Size: 6" x 16"
Pole Diameter: 7.9 mm & 8.5 mm
Color: Sage & Rust
Style: Two-pole Non-Freestanding
Use Rating: 3 Season
Sleeps: One

__________________________________________________ ___________

Total weight of my ALPS Mountaineering Mystique 1 AL Tent Set-up: 3lbs 13oz, which includes:
l Main Storage Sack
l Tent Body
l Rain Fly
l Mystique 1 Footprint
l Tent Poles w/ storage sack
l 14 – Tent Stakes (Shepherd Hook Type) w/ storage sack
l 4 – Nite-Ize Figure 9's (plastic) w/ Tent Line x4
l Small piece of Tyvek to use in the Tent's Vestibule
Advertised weight: 3lbs 11oz


So far, I have only been able to set it up at the house for a few days and had some lite rain. I plan to backpack with it soon. It appears to be roomy for 1 and the vestibule appears to be somewhat small. I will follow-up with more information once I get some use with it.

SMSP

[SweetAss03]

I have an MSR 1.5 Void and the ALPS Mountaineuring equivalent. ALPS compares very well for a heck of a lot less.

[SweetAss03]

That would be Zoid of course.

[Deb]

It reminds me of my little Swifty Walrus tent. I still use it, but once I went to a side-entry tent (Eureka Spitfire) I realized how awkward small front-entry tents were. It seems like I was always crawling over something to get in and out.

For car camping, I have an Alps 7x7 tent that I like just fine.

[SMSP]

This was my first use in the field. A buddy of mine invited me to go hunting and I decided this would be a good opportunity with the weather being forecasted for cold temperatures (by South MS standards). The lowest temperature was approx. 32 degrees around 6AM on 11/28/2010. Once the sun began to set, the temperature fell about 1 degree per hour. This field experience was pretty much a car camping trip. I basically camped in a deer hunting lease with no water source, electricity or buildings. I arrived at the deer lease property around 3:30PM. I originally planned to have camp set-up before dark, but due to needing time to hunt, I set the tent up in the dark, which really wasn’t a big deal as I had a headlamp. This was my first overnight spent in this tent. I did not use the guy lines because the weather forecast was for calm winds, 5-10 mph.






Sleeping Gear used inside this tent for this trip:

Big Agnes Encampment 15 degree sleeping bag. I decided on this bag due to the extra width for my shoulders. This bag is wider than most bags.
ALPS Mountaineering foam sleeping mat – 72” x 20” x 0.4”. This mat was used as insulation between my bag and the bottom of the tent due to the forecasted cold temperatures.
Therm-a-Rest NeoAir sleeping pad, regular. This was used in conjunction with the Big Agnes.

Setting up this tent is easy, but again, very time consuming. Because a non-freestanding tent must have a minimum number of tent stakes in order to stand, then one can not skip the basic staking down of the this tent in calm, rain free weather. There is a minimum of 4 stakes required for the tent body and 2 for the tent’s rain fly. The ground I had to work with was very sandy and soft. I made myself use the supplied tent stakes, but I wonder if the 3-sided blade type tent stakes would have done a better job.


I wonder if the Vestibule on the side wouldhave been more practical. Also, I was having some issues with tautness with the rain fly in the front with those tent stakes in the sandy ground I was located in and the front of the vestibule was not as taut as I had been able to get it in my yard at home. This resulted in the vestibule area sagging some. I used my shoes as improvised tent poles to lift up the vestibule. A picture is attached showing this. The vestibule rain fly door does not completely tie up out of the way, resulting in it being snagged by my body when entering/exiting the tent.



The main aspects that I have seen and read about the benefits of a non-freestanding tent is that it offers some weight savings. The Mystique is about 1 pound lighter than my Kelty Teton 2 (dome type tent) set-up. Due to the versatility and time efficiency of a dome type tent, I am undecided as to if the 1 pound weight savings is worth the trade off. More field experience will tell.

[Roche]

Nice review.

Y style stakes are a must in sandy soil - more the sand, larger the stake. And nothing beats a tautline hitch knot for the guylines.

[SMSP]

I am in the process of writing a review for ALPS on this tent. My previous post was only an excert that I copied/pasted to this thread. Since this was a review for this particular tent, I wanted and needed to use what was supplied from ALPS. So thats why I didnt use my 3 bladed tent stakes.

The guy out points on this tent were not used. But, in order to set-up the rain fly correctly and to have vestibule, one has to stake out the front corners of the vestibule. What happened, is that I had to pull one of the corners of the front of the rain fly up and re-stake causing (trying to gain the right point of tautness) the ground to not be as solid, so I had to move the tent stake inward as a trade off. The other option was to move the entire tent and start over.

I plan to use this tent in about a week when I am in the Nashville area. I will be doing an overnighter in Long Hunter State Park and plan to use this tent again. It looks to be forecasted with some wind, so I plan to guy out the rain fly as well. I'll post a follow-up again at that time.

If I continue to use this tent regularly, then the tent stakes will most definitely be replaced!

SMSP

[mister krabs]

I'd trade it in on a zephyr. Same weight, free standing :D I love my zephyr 3.
Did you get a pro deal from alps for doing a review?

[jethro]

+1 on the Zephyr recommendation. My Zenith 2 (predecessor to the Zephyr) has weathered prolonged 50-mph winds and heavy rain. It's not the lightest 2-man tent, but I have yet to find another that hits such a sweet spot of performance, cost and weight.

[Roche]

If I continue to use this tent regularly, then the tent stakes will most definitely be replaced!

SMSP

Quite true - stakes are like shoe insoles, you usually need to upgrade them.