gear advice: Mountain Hardwear EV2 or EV3?

[Bombadil]

I was wondering if any fellow gear junkies have either the Mountain Hardwear EV2 or EV3 mountaineering tents and would care to share their opinion. Both are reviewed very well, are light, but expensive. Mainly my concern is on the integrated vestibule. I've had a hard time digging up photos detailing the vestibule from the inside. Can anyone comment on the difficulty of cooking in the integrated vestibule (with a whisperlite/xgk style liquid fuel stove) versus traditional vestibule?

Thanks in advance!
Pat

non-VFTTers please feel free to email me with input too:
pcushing21 at yahoo dot com

 

[Chip]

Can anyone comment on the difficulty of cooking in the integrated vestibule (with a whisperlite/xgk style liquid fuel stove) versus traditional vestibule?

a) What's a traditional vestibule, the small extra material of the fly you stretch out front of the tent ?

b) I love tents. I'd really like to own one of these and have come close several times. I don't because I almost never camp above treeline. You planning an excursion ? Where're you in the Avatar ? Rainier ?

In snow deep enough it's great to dig out the space under the vestibule so that you have real working room. I've used white gas stoves there then.

 

[Bombadil]

a) What's a traditional vestibule, the small extra material of the fly you stretch out front of the tent ?

b) I love tents. I'd really like to own one of these and have come close several times. I don't because I almost never camp above treeline. You planning an excursion ? Where're you in the Avatar ? Rainier ?

In snow deep enough it's great to dig out the space under the vestibule so that you have real working room. I've used white gas stoves there then.

Precisely, an extension of the fly that gives you a few fairly protected square feet outside the tent. Perfect for digging down into the snow to do some sheltered cooking and a nice place to store gear during the night:

Good educated guess on the avatar. It is indeed from Rainier--traversing above the Emmons Glacier with a sweet undercast.

I'll be using the tent almost exclusively for mountaineering. Maybe on the presis once or twice a winter but I need a good tent for a course in the cascades this summer, Orizaba in December, and Denali '13.

My biggest concern with this tent is it has a zippered floor opening in the integrated vestibule. If it completely opened up it'd be perfect, you could have your pit to cook in/store gear and you wouldn't really miss having the main door to the tent (other than a larger area to heat so it would be a little cooler). However it's not clear how big this zippered opening actually is and how realistic it is to cook on snow in the vestibule if it's a really small hole. While I'm pretty confident in my whisperlite priming abilities, I'd be very wary of firing it up inside the tent unless I had a nice safe hole in the snow in the vestibule. I can get a really good deal on MH tents, but the EV is the only one I'm interested in (Trango is way too heavy). This issue is big enough I may opt for another line of tents unless I hear back that it's a non-issue :*(

 

[hikerbrian]

I camped in my buddies EV2 a couple of winters ago on Shasta. The tent is bomber, really well constructed and light. But the vestibule design is a deal breaker for me, for exactly the reason you mention: the floor. In my buddy's model (a few year old now), there actually was no zipper in the floor, but I don't think it would have helped anyway. There wasn't a good way to partially open the vestibule to let out steam and such - you basically have to open the tent to the full elements if you want to cook in the vestibule (which I would not do because of the vestibule floor). Also very difficult to get extra ventilation when it's humid without, again, opening the tent to the full elements. The only way around it is to have a hanging stove. This could, in theory, work great - in fact my buddy had fashioned a hanging stove out of his Jetboil and we used it, but because of the hassle involved in that setup (take down, fill with snow, hang, boil, take down, fill with snow, DON'T SPILL OR BURN YOUR TENT DOWN, hang, boil, repeat many, many times), we ended up braving the elements and using my Whisperlite.

I find it much safer and easier to cook in a vestibule on snow. Just my opinion and ymmv. You'll definitely want to see it set up though, and lay in it and try to imagine how you'd cook if it was raging outside.

 

[Chip]

Good educated guess on the avatar. It is indeed from Rainier--traversing above the Emmons Glacier with a sweet undercast.

I took this pic of part of our group on June 3rd, 2008;

I think a floored vestibule adds weight and creates more issues than it solves.

 

[TomD]

I have an old EMS Pampero. It has a zip off vestibule in front. Looks like this-
Vestibule folded back

Vestubule closed

It is pretty big, but I wouldn't want to be cooking in it,regardless of what kind of stove I was using and I have both canister and white gas stoves.

 

[jfb]

I used to own a Sierra Designs Glacier tent which had a semi-circular cookhole in an integrated vestibule and have cooked in it many times with my Phoebus 725 stove. Never had a problem. I prefer the integrated vestibule over my MH Trango Assault's "traditional" vestibule.

 

[Bombadil]

I camped in my buddies EV2 a couple of winters ago on Shasta. The tent is bomber, really well constructed and light. But the vestibule design is a deal breaker for me, for exactly the reason you mention: the floor. In my buddy's model (a few year old now), there actually was no zipper in the floor, but I don't think it would have helped anyway. There wasn't a good way to partially open the vestibule to let out steam and such - you basically have to open the tent to the full elements if you want to cook in the vestibule (which I would not do because of the vestibule floor). Also very difficult to get extra ventilation when it's humid without, again, opening the tent to the full elements. The only way around it is to have a hanging stove. This could, in theory, work great - in fact my buddy had fashioned a hanging stove out of his Jetboil and we used it, but because of the hassle involved in that setup (take down, fill with snow, hang, boil, take down, fill with snow, DON'T SPILL OR BURN YOUR TENT DOWN, hang, boil, repeat many, many times), we ended up braving the elements and using my Whisperlite.

I find it much safer and easier to cook in a vestibule on snow. Just my opinion and ymmv. You'll definitely want to see it set up though, and lay in it and try to imagine how you'd cook if it was raging outside.

Sounds like we're on the same page--considering how much time goes into melting snow a hanging stove would be pretty miserable, especially with any snow/water spillage going onto the tent floor. Ability to cook in the vestibule is definitely a requirement for the tent I'm looking for. I think I'll can the idea of the EV2 and keep looking. I may just end up sucking it up and going with the heavier Trango. We'll see.

Thanks guys for your input, very much appreciated!
Pat

 

[sun=electric]

my take

I have an EV3 which we use it with 2 persons. Gear and packs go in the far end from the door. Zippered floor opening is a waste. It would be better left out. We use it to sweep out snow tracked in. We have always cooked or melted snow just out side although this has always been in true alpine conditions in South America at 13,000 to 15,000 feet. I can't imagine two people and gear in an EV2. Condensation was no worse than my very old NF VE-25.