enemy of unnecessary but innovative trail invention gadgetry
Eddie Valiant: "That lame-brain freeway idea could only be cooked up by a toon."
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While you have made your decision, I wanted to comment on this. I bought the Squall 2 for 2 reasons. 1, In my car camping experience, I like to spread my stuff out inside my tent, and 2, because I thought perhaps I'd share the tent with a hiking partner some day.
I've had the tent a couple years now, and never shared it. Spreading my stuff out inside the tent isn't as important to me as it used to be. After sleeping inside my sleeping bag with all the things I didn't want to freeze, I'm not as concerned with being crowded by things. Large (dual) vestibules would be great - both for storage and for ventilation.
While I don't exactly regret my choice, I would buy a different tent today if starting over.
2 person tents typically have a larger footprint, which can make finding a place to pitch challenging in some sites... and carrying the extra weight of a 2 person tent for hundreds of miles... well...
If you like the SS design, there seems to be a newly available copy of this design available on the market, in between the SS1 and SS2 in size, and designed for a known ultralight hiker. Dunno what it is worth and would be hesitant to use a blatant industrial-grade copy though.
Minos
There are two shelters that share the offset pole design of the SS 1/2 however that is about all there is in common with those three designs.
Skurka has explained that he was not aware of the TT SS when himself and Sierra Design made the first two prototypes and really once you see the exact geometry they are not all that much alike.
For what is worth, I think that the end supports of the StratoSpire offer a lot more leverage and internal room than having the fly corner down to the ground all around as well as having (in my opinion) a better windshedding shape .
footprints-tt-yama-hr1-615x224 (1).jpg
Note bthe hexagonal shape of the SS vs the rectangular High Route.
Henry Shires himself was accused of having copied a Phoenix tent when making the Rainbow when in fact he had never heard of Phoenix (a defunct British brand) and the Rainbow was inspired by 3 different single hoop shelters one of which was the Mac Pac Microlite.
However if you saw the Rainbow and the Microlite side by side you would know that they are not all that much alike...
franco@tarptent
Here is a side view of the SD High Route vs the Notch and SS1 :
high-route-unique-pitch-615x411.jpgNotch-SS1-open_zpsgcw1mohu.jpg
Well, as an SS owner, it does really look like an SS design without the vestibules. Pole arrangement, ridgeline, detachable fly, net-only setup and door design are probably all too similar to be pure coincidence. Of course, it does not share the fancy corners. Maybe that would make this too obvious? Or are these IP protected? In the end, like many chinese copies, the "evolutionary copies" are not as good as the original... This being said, I do not care.
Yeah, I just slept outside for first time in my SS1 last night. It happened to storm in the middle of the night. Overall very comfortable. So that's that.