Comments about Eureka Eureka AlpenLite XT Tent:

Excellent tent!! This is an easy to set up bombproof shelter that can take everything you can throw at it. Snow, heavy wind, heavy rain, extreme cold. Bring it on! Ventilation is superb. This is a mountaineering tent that can actually be used in moderately warm weather. There are vents everywhere. There are four perfectly placed vents near the floor that when open, allow air to flow in from under the lower edge of the fly on all sides. My only complaint is that this tent is a little tight for two people. It's perfect for use as a roomy solo tent. This is an excellent tent for mountaineering, hunting, vehicle camping, and ATV camping. The retail price of this tent is amazingly low for what you get. Comparable mountaineering tents costing twice as much will offer little benefit over this superb Eureka tent. If you are looking for a compact four-season tent, look no further.

My recommended accessory for this tent is to buy some MSR Needle Stakes. For everything short of sand and loose soil, these are the best tent stakes ever made. Lightweight and extremely strong.

Comments about Eureka Eureka AlpenLite XT Tent:

I bought this tent to use for winter camping. It is a good tent and I will continue to use it but there are a few things to keep in mind if considering this tent. First off is that this come with alumnium steaks. When the ground is frozen, these steaks do not go into the ground without bending. Second, with the steak bending in mind, the rain fly may not get complety set up. The tent is free standing, but soome of the fly requires steaks. The rear, the front and then a place on either side of the tent in the center needs to be steaked down. I was able to do without steaking all these down simply becasue it is a 4 season tent (all the vents can be zippered shut on the tent) and I was using it for 1 night. If this was a three season tent and I was spending more than one night in it, it may be a dfferent story. When the ground warms up I can see this being a great tent. Their are enough zippered vents that should keep the air flowing on the warmest of days.

Comments about Eureka Eureka AlpenLite XT Tent:

I set this up in the backyard for a couple of days so I could practice using it before taking it out in the bush/trail. I used this in the atlantic winter storm on Dec 20-22 2008. We got roughly 15-20cm of snow/ice with sustained winds of 50-80kmh and gusts up to 120kmh, it performed quite well. This is a comfortable one man or cozy two man tent. If you don't use the vents properly you will get condensation. The last tent I used was like 20 years ago and they have changed quite a bit since so this only gets 4 stars due to my lack of experience with other newer tents.

Overall I slept really well despite temps. ranging from -1c to -12c and extreame wind with blowing snow/ice. The fly didn't really "flap" in the wind enough to keep me awake, I made sure it was quite taut and everything was fine.

It came with 12 7" lightweight alum. "J" pegs, 10 7' ish guy lines with tightners, pole bag, and stake bag. You will need to get some more pegs to fully guyout the fly.

Things I like:
Easy set-up.
Withstood 120kmh wind gusts without hardly moving
Sheds snow and ice pretty well.
Great ventilation.
Tons of extra guyout loops.
Decent weight, not heavy but not ultralight either.

Things I don't like:
Zipper on vestibule is too close to velcrow fly attachment and gets a little stuck sometimes.
The middle pole (not the backbone) hovers above the backbone and creates a half inch gap between the two poles, almost like the middle pole is too big (or maybe its just my setup), I wrapped a piece of velcrow around both pieces, pulling them together, works good and makes it more solid.
Rear vestibule, kinda usless.