Editors' Choice 2009: Sierra Designs Lightning XT 4 Tent

This tent is such a worthless piece of garbage that I cannot even describe it. Me and 2 of my friends spent two weeks in New England's backcountry, and even though we staked down our rain fly, put our tent on elevated ground, kept our boots out of the tent, and closed the doors, we were completely soaked. A huge puddle of water began to pool on top of the tent's FLAT roof, and it sagged down halfway through the tent, dripping water on the floor. We all had to take turns holding the poorly designed roof up with our hands so it would not collapse in on us. Puddles soaked right through the floor, and the tent took forever to set up, due to it's strange design. Overall, this tent is a festering, oozing pus encrusted hunk of rat bile that should never see the light of day. By the end of the trip, I wanted to riddle our tent with a minigun, throw it to a horde of rabid gremlins, and then burn it's torn remains before feeding them to a crocodile and shipping his excrement off into the darkest depths of space, where it would be swallowed by a black hole and blasted farther away then the dark side of the moon. This tent is a monstrous beast that hunts children in the night, smuggling them from their cradles and whisking them off into the woods, blood gleaming on it's tent poles. BEWARE!! THIS TENT WILL SCAR YOU FOR LIFE!!

This tent is such a worthless piece of garbage that I cannot even describe it. Me and 2 of my friends spent two weeks in New England's backcountry, and even though we staked down our rain fly, put our tent on elevated ground, kept our boots out of the tent, and closed the doors, we were completely soaked. A huge puddle of water began to pool on top of the tent's FLAT roof, and it sagged down halfway through the tent, dripping water on the floor. We all had to take turns holding the poorly designed roof up with our hands so it would not collapse in on us. Puddles soaked right through the floor, and the tent took forever to set up, due to it's strange design. Overall, this tent is a festering, oozing pus encrusted hunk of rat bile that should never see the light of day. By the end of the trip, I wanted to riddle our tent with a minigun, throw it to a horde of rabid gremlins, and then burn it's torn remains before feeding them to a crocodile and shipping his excrement off into the darkest depths of space, where it would be swallowed by a black hole and blasted farther away then the dark side of the moon. This tent is a monstrous beast that hunts children in the night, smuggling them from their cradles and whisking them off into the woods, blood gleaming on it's tent poles. BEWARE!! THIS TENT WILL SCAR YOU FOR LIFE!!

Last month I purchased a Sierra Designs Lightning XT4 from HumbleOutdoors. I'm happy with it, it stood up to a late spring snow in NH's White Mts. Came with a free footprint and free shipping.

I live/hike in WA and I, too don't care for the all mesh tents that are so prevalent. Because rain and mud is easily splashed up inside through the mesh. And, my wife is a cold sleeper. She insists on more nylon, less mess. How about a "Best 4-season tent" catagory.

Amanda: The Kelty Gunnison 4.1 is fairly light weight (under 8 lbs), quite waterproof and usually can be found on sale somewhere under $200.00. I often hike with someone 6ft 6in and we can sleep 3 men comfortably on the long dimension; or 4 shorter(ordinary) persons can sleep oriented the other way.

I am still looking for the perfect intersection of low price, light weight and waterproof. I still can't find more than two out of three.

So basically, everything you happened to bring to Wales this year is an Editor's Choice.

Looking for your impressions, the article with this spoke how well the tent performed in adverse weather. I am seeing more and more tents going towards nearly all mesh sides seemingly for improved ventilation and weight saving. I have experienced that rain during heavy winds is blown up under the fly and that mesh in that area allows water in (v/s nylon), does anyone else note this as a major problem? Thx for the input.