REI Co-op  Half Dome 2 All-Season Tent with Footprint

So, my partner and I really loved this tent when we used it on our trip to the Boundary Waters. I’ll go over what I loved and share some annoyances about it. Unfortunately for you, reader, we didn’t have long periods of heavy rain, not that I would expect it to fail brand new, but we did have some rain then a healthy bout of light rain so it did get pretty wet. We mostly camp in the fall in MN so our biggest weather considerations are that we can have a lot of heavy rain and anything from 20-degree to 65-degree nights. First, shout out to Beth (pretty sure her name was Beth) at the Lincoln Park Chicago REI store, who gave me excellent customer service on the phone then coincidentally helped me in-person when I came in to snatch the floor model.  Likes: Our old tent’s and fly’s glue decided to die last year and we forgot, so were scrambling to find a tent with very specific features before our trip. I’ve set up a three-season tent with exposed mesh in the rain in the BW before and I will never buy one like that again. Again, because we can have heavy rain while we’re out there I wanted a full coverage fly that goes down to the base. Since this tent has those features, here’s what else I loved or really liked about this tent: 1) the fly has multiple fly extenders not just at the center points, but also mid-level, low-level and at the corners as well, so that was great for helping make sure we’d have good rain runoff; 2) the vestibule is nice and wide; 3) the vestibule fly doors have three zippers so you can change how you open the door or create a bit more airflow; 4) there are multiple loops inside to attach lamps or gear organizers to, so I was able to have my lamp near my head while laying down to read; 5) the weird poleset design gives you a ton of extra inside space, so you can sit up comfortably and not have the wall *right* next to you; 6) there is a large amount of mesh considering so you can create a good amount of airflow; 7) those “gear trays” in the vestibule are the bomb for when you have rain (but see annoyance below); 8) the stakes hurt to put in with my hand, but they did not bend when I used my foot to push them in and they were super easy to pull out, and it comes with a ton of them; 9) the ability to have the fly securely fastened while rolling it to expose half of the tent was a really nice feature; 10) it was incredibly easy for me to set up the pole system and whole tent by myself; 11) it has lots of pockets (but see annoyance below).  Did not like: The majority of my annoyances stem from the fact that they made this tent with the idea that the two people will only sleep head next to feet, so this meant you have opposite facing vestibule doors, tent doors, base inside pockets, and gear trays. That was so, so stupid and here’s why: 1) you can never flip the fly to switch up the direction of your vestibule doors, so like when I had a tree in the way one time I couldn’t just flip the fly around to make the vestibule door be where it needed it to be for easy entry, if that makes sense, I basically had to get in and out with a tree right there; 2) if we had torrential rain it would have been ideal to be able to swap around the gear trays (you can only fasten the gear trays in one specific side of the vestibule), so that means water would flow into one gear tray in a good rain; 3) because my partner and I sleep in one direction that meant one of us didn’t have the nice big pocket by our heads and that was annoying, if you had to save money get rid of one of the top pockets. My other annoyance was that there is about a 1-2” gap at the top tent where the mesh wall protectors aka “convertible panels” don’t reach each other when zipped up, so if I had to set up the tent in the rain water would absolutely get it, and considering my partner only uses a down sleeping bag that is no bueno. Other comments: 1) the fly attaches via plastic clips so I’m concerned that the plastic will not outlive the tent, but also I did quickly fasten one clip without paying attention and it jammed incorrectly so I had to gently mess with it to finagle the clip out without breaking it; 2) the size just fit my partner and I and our clothes stuff sacks, but by “fit” I mean he is 5’10” and he pretty much was touching the base of the tent with his feet, so our stuff sacks were parallel to us at the base of the tent so he had some space to extend his legs while sleeping; 3) this tent would have been even better if it had low mesh/vent option by the base near your head to help with airflow; 4) we still used a second footprint because the footprint it comes with exposes some of the tent to the ground; 5) we had one wet corner of the tent on the inside one time, but I really think that was just science sciencing because the outside of the tent in that spot was dry.  Hope this helped!