Marmot Catalyst 3P

The new Marmot Catalyst 3P - a three-person, three season basic dome tent from the US outdoor gear maker that I love so much - arrived today. I bought it from Amazon as there was a good deal available on the site. The price works out to about Rs 1000 more than the current price of the same product on REI, USA. I have reasons to believe Marmot is testing the waters in India through Amazon before a full fledged entry into the market. Few of its useful products are available in India at almost their US prices.

The rolled tent is just out of its bag

Curiosity had the better of us and we decided to pitch the tent right away in our drawing room (without the fly sheet of course) and check it out. 

The tent is packed in a nice stuff sack that is fairly roomy. So if you want you can just stuff it in without carefully folding it up like the way we stuff down sleeping bags. There are five different items to be found inside. The blueish ground sheet, the actual tent or canopy, the flysheet, 3 poles in a thin sack, in another small sack there are 6 copper colourd stakes, one small repair kit for a broken pole (if and when that happens), some guy line and tensioners. I didn't open the guy line ball because I wasn't going to use the flysheet this evening. 

Setting up, as usual for a dome tent, is fairly simple. A matter of few minutes really and the tent was up in our living room with no fuss. I think even Mampu can do it alone perhaps. It's that simple. 

Now a few basic first impressions about the tent. 

First the ground sheet. It's deep blue in colur and slightly smaller than the tent's footprint. Apparently this is done to ensure water does not seep in. I felt the material is a little too thin to take care of rough rocky surfaces. We will have to see how strong it is in real life situations in the field. It might well be strong but it certainly is not thick. 

On top of the ground sheet you spread the canopy. The canopy is half mesh and half opaque material. This is not a four season tent mind you. It is not meant for extreme cold or heavy snow. I do not know how warm it will stay in sub zero temperatures but ventilation will certainly be good due to the mesh. I like feeling well ventilated even if it is very cold. Four season tents aren't that great for ventilation and I feel a little suffocated in them.

Monisha peeping out on the first night

However, for places like Chadar where you own breath freezes into droplets of ice on the ceiling of your tent, this tent might not be ideal or you have to spread a tray (I think gear loft is the technical term for it) above you (there are provisions for doing that). 

The canopy has various clips strategically placed around it to attach to the poles. The tent has two D shaped doors on either side on the longer sides. One on the opaque side and another on the mesh side. 

We engaged the two orange poles of equal length and put their ends in the four corners. After this it is just a matter of pulling the clips up and attaching to the poles. It's fairly intuitive. After this it was the turn to set up the third and much smaller pole. 

It's grey in colour and shaped like a gentle bow. There are two pockets on the two sides where you insert the ends. This pole is meant to add more stability to the tent and make the awning create a porch kind of place outside the mesh side door. It also adds some head room in the tent so that you don't feel claustrophobic while sitting inside.

The canopy material is 40 denier polyester mesh and taffeta but the floor material is slightly thicker 48 denier taffeta. The stitches are seam sealed. I am hoping (from various reviews) that it will not leak on a rainy night. In Himalaya you cannot trek and expect not to have rains, regardless of your season.

I did not spread the fly sheet because my room is not large enough and one does need to stake the fly sheet. So I do not know how large it is. The material has a nice feel and is very colourful. Electric orange, to be precise. I do not know if the guy lines are attached to it (probably not). Will have to check it out next time I take it out.

The inside of the tent isn't very roomy. I have a Coleman Sun Dome. That is much larger (but nowhere close to this in terms of quality and modernity). The floor has a fancy name called "catenary cut". What this means is the edges go up vertically and not inclined. Inclined edges have a problem. They touch you (typically on your side or arms) and if it rains it might make you wet where the tent touches your body.

There are a few side pockets to store this and that. The zips are very good quality. The commercial reviews make a big deal of the pocket on the ceiling where you can keep your torch for diffused ambient light. I tried that out with my Petzl. No great shakes. Just hype. I would rather hang it from the centre hook.

Overall I guess it's a nice tent. I love it. I hope it comes to some real use. I intend to take it to my Nanda Devi Sanctuary trek and then add further points on how it fared in the field.

A screen shot from the REI website for the features

Field Report After Stok Kangri Hike (Sept 2018) 

I recently went hiking to Stok Kangri with Tashi as the tour guide cum operator and Chadar friends for company. I took the tent along and used it for about ten nights in various conditions. Stok village was sunny, Mankarmo was cold, Base Camp was cold and it rained and snowed heavily one night. So this tent has already seen it all (except terribly windy conditions). Here are my reflections on the tent after actually using it in the field.

1. Pitching Ease -  child's play really. Any one can pitch it alone within minutes. I did not tie all the guy lines as the conditions were not very windy. The six stakes (four corners plus two doors) are enough to keep the tent in position. I ignored using small guy line loops and two more stakes to pull the two side panels off the canopy. This stupidity resulted in a little water seeping into the tent.

2. Waterproof - The tent was tested in severe rain fall and snowfall and it came off with flying colours. Not a drop of water seeped in, once guy lines on the side panels were properly tied. One issue with the tent is that, if water spills out of a bottle or some water seeps in, one has to mop that up - either with a mop or with some newspaper or something. It is best to carry a piece of rag for such emergencies in future. There is no way the tent material is going to soak up any spilt water. 

I must say, in the mountains it does not rain as heavily as it does in the plains during monsoon. I am not too sure how this tent will hold up against such severe monsoon rains of the plains. But for Himalayan rains it is fine. Listening to the pitter patter of the rain on the fly sheet had a wonderful soothing effect on the nerves. 

3. Snowproof - This tent is not meant to be a four season tent. It is not supposed to be pitched in a snowfall prone region like the Stok Kangri base camp with an altitude of above 5000 meters (I saw a few Polish trekkers with their Marabut tents which looked pretty robust at one fourth the cost of North Face). But it snowed quite unexpectedly that night and despite my lack of experience with such nights I managed it pretty well. First of all, the tent fought the snowfall (through the evening and well into the morning) quite valiantly and never collapsed. Several tents in the base camp area had in fact given way that night. I went out once and shook the snow off the fly sheet. I should have kept a small plate to scoop off the snow from the top of the tent (a must take item for future). I did not do this. The tent lost its shape temporarily. The poles got twisted under the weight of all the snow. Later in the morning, once all the snow melted, I corrected the shape of the poles. They were instantly back to normal. 

4. Windproof - The tent is one hundred percent windproof. In fact unless you keep the chains of the two doors a little open you might find it suffocating. Of course the area I went to isn't that windy but the nights were cold and there was some gentle breeze. But nothing entered the tent at all. I do not know how it will perform in a place like let's say Pathar Nachauni on the Roopkund trail where conditions are always extremely windy. But for normal conditions this is fine. 

I must also mention that the portion of the tent's canopy that looks like mesh isn't actually mesh. It's a see through material but not mesh. So keeping the ventilation going is the responsibility of the owner of the tent. If you pull all the zips all the way, there is no way any wind will enter the tent. 

5. Features - I don't know if these features are important but it has four pockets in the four corners of the tent to keep this and that. I would keep my medicines, flash light, mobile, charger etc in these pockets. I later realised that keeping the mobile and charger exposed to the cold is not a great idea. I started packing them up in the down jacket from then on.

There is one pocket kind of thing on the ceiling. You can keep a flashlight in it and it will diffuse the light for an even lighting. I would have preferred that pocket to be on either side of the tent. It was only on one side. If I get a tent lamp like the Moji from Black Diamond, I don't think I will need that pocket. I can then hang it from the central hook. 

6. Quality of Materials and Accessories - I had earlier expressed certain doubts about the strength of the ground sheet. After field test I take back whatever I said. The ground sheet is light but must be very strong material. Despite sleeping on rough terrain for ten days there was absolutely no abrasion anywhere on it. My only problem is I cannot seem to be able to get rid of the mud stains from it. Another of its quality is that it dries really really fast. Like in 5/10 minutes if the sun is even moderately strong.

The materials are all polyester of various grades. Polyester is a superior material for tents as opposed to nylon and most manufacturers use it except North Face. They use nylon.  I don't know why. Perhaps to make them lighter.

The three poles worked very well through the stormy night and stood their ground well. The elastic cord inside is great. But the question is for how long they will retain that elasticity.

The stakes are really light and very good. They were hammered in using stones of various shapes and sizes. So most of them lost their shape a bit. But I am fine with that. Stakes should look used.

Tashi and his partner Rowdy Rathore were very happy with the tent and particularly the quality of the stakes. I am glad that all of them came back in tact and I didn't lose any of them.

7. Space - This is supposed to be a 3-person tent. Well, unless they are three really slim people it will be difficult to accommodate them in this tent. Also the weather has to be absolutely cold so that they don't mind being really close. Additionally, these three people can only sleep together in the night. They cannot do anything else together. For example, if person 1 was organising his bag, the other two will have to stand outside.

Realistically speaking, this tent is fine for two people. For me alone, this was luxury. For three one or two nights is fine but to go on a ten-day trip with this will be really difficult.

The vestibule area of the tent is a little small. Also, if it rains heavily, there is some possibility that your large sack might get a bit wet on the outside. 

The quality of the zips is also simply great. Except when the tent was deshaped, the zips worked flawlessly.

Is This Tent Recommended? 

If you are planning to regularly go out to the Himalayas, I would suggest go for a 4-season tent. This can take some amount of snow, but I doubt it will be able to take a really bad snowfall for let's say a couple of days. You might need to clear the snow every now and then.

The tent is certainly affordable compared to big brand 4-season tents. But for a final word on its dependability I would love to sleep in it through a night of monsoon rain in the Sahayadris.