The iGearList Blog

Flying Things. Also Known as Tents.

April 30th, 2008

A bird pooped on my just-filled coffee mug yesterday as I was walking to work.  Hit it right on the lid like some biological sharp-shooter from the heavens; no warning, no mercy.  That got me to thinking about things that fly.  Such as…tents.
 
A strong wind in an exposed location and - depending on staking - you’ve got yourself a fluttering hovercraft or a cartwheeling nylon polyhedron.  Thank god for those windsprints you did in college.  Total escapes may be rare, but you got to hand it to them, without even a hint of god-given wings tents still can’t stop themselves from trying. 
 
I have one such flying tent.  A wonderful Mountain Hardware shelter that had served me well for years, until that mountain-top wind tunnel in New Zealand served it a nice tall glass of physics.  Now its carefully engineered geometric shape has taken on the aura of crumpled paper; bent poles, un-zippable zippers and the like. 
 
But no matter how I try to keep that mangled tent in the bottom pile of gear-to-get-rid-of it keeps rising to the top.  Above my elite weight-weenie tarptent, above my fancy new gizmo gear whatever-else.   It gets used.  It gets used for anything and everything and gets thrown in the car even when there’s only a .01% chance of being used.  That tent is treated like the busted-up hovercraft it is and yet, it keeps on working.
 
That’s a good piece of gear.
 
What’s yours?
 
-Gear Queen

Entry Filed under: Ask Gear Queen