Gear Reviews: Tent

Mutha Hubba

Manufacturer: MSR

Reviewed by: onepaddlejunkie

My original Mutha Hubba rain fly turned to goo while in its storage container so I returned it to MSR at their direction to be replaced. (They knew the original rain fly had a defective coating.) The replacement fly arrived and I tossed it in a new storage container where it lived for several months before it was packed for a two week trip to southern Arizona. The first time I pitched the fly I started cussing a blue streak. The new fly did not have vents like the original. After I returned from the trip I contacted MSR, being somewhat cranky about the missing vents. They told me they did not include the vents in the new fly because they wanted to save weight and they didn't think the vents did much to help keep condensation down. Obviously, they had not spent much time in either iteration of the tent. I can assure them that the vents make a world of difference. If you want to look at the additional weight of the vents as a percent of the total weight of the tent, I don't think anybody would notice. I assume the real reason for not including vents in the new fly was to cut cost while charging the same for the tent. I spent months in the tent with vents and two weeks in the tent without vents and I can state with certitude that MSR turned a great tent into just another good tent. The woods are full of "good" tents. If I were in the market for another four man tent, I would buy a Big Agnes Copper Spur UL4. Lighter and still has one of those incredibly heavy vents. I do own a Big Agnes Copper Spur UL1 and love the fact that it also has one of those heavy vents. Very disappointed in MSR.