Skylight Tent - 3 Person

Comments about Black Diamond Skylight Tent - 3:

Use this tent in the Sierras regularly. It is perfect for a couple and even better for a small family of 3- I have a 4yr old. Its lightweight and packs small, I already have enough to carry with a kid. Handles storms and wind great.

Comments about Black Diamond Skylight Tent - 3:

Easy set up, light weight, great room for two. Does well in heavy rains. Some condensation after two days of precip, although ventilation seems good.

Comments about Black Diamond Skylight Tent - 3:

I expected more from Black Diamond...The design seems like a modified version of a Bibler tent. I own a Fitzroy. As far as I am concerned that is almost the perfect tent. This tent...not even close. Thank god they labled it a three season tent and not four. I just spent the weekend at Whitney Lake near Vail Colorado...Very wet weekend. Unfortunatly, even though I spent more then an hour seam sealing this tent not including drying time, I missed the a few. Funny thing is though that the seams seemed to shed water and so did the material, until the third hour in, where the inside of the tent felt like it was sweating. I almost packed up and went home.

On the up side the tent was extemely firm in wind and the yellow color makes great in rainy weather.

One last thing...the zipper kept snagging...over and over and over again. Luckily no one else was up at the lake, otherwise they would have heard some crazy man yelling and swearing.

Not the best but in the right direction.

Comments about Black Diamond Skylight Tent - 3:

[...]but feel the previous review deserves a rebutal. I have not taken the tent out on a trip yet, but have set it up a few times.

Regarding the tent not being big enough for 3, I think nearly anyone who has had much experience with tents should realize that the capacity of nearly every tent out there is rather optimistic. The buyer needs to look at the dimensions and figure out if they can fit the required number of people or not.

I also own a Black Diamond Lighthouse, which is definitely easier to set up, but not nearly as roomy. The Skylight weighs slightly less than the Lighthouse if the optional vestibule is carried with it and provides substantially more room, but the Lighthouse when carried without the vestibule weighs substantially less than the Skylight. My intent is to carry the Lighthouse when it will be just me in the tent and the Skylight when I need to share the tent with someone else.

My only concern with the Skylight is that the vestibule flap will make setup on tent platforms more difficult, but otherwise my initial impressions are very favorable.

I agree that Black Diamond should include more seam sealer than they do - I have no idea how anyone could properly seam seal the tent with what is provided.

Comments about Black Diamond Skylight Tent - 3:

Had extremely high hopes from Black Diamond, the new Skylight!
First off, yes, it is light.
Comes with two silnylon stuff sacks, one for tent, the other for your tent rods, stakes ect.
Out of the package and commence to set up! I must mention that I have watched the BD videos on set up and seam sealing. I’m really careful about my gear, I want it to last forever. Especially at this price.
The setup was (as described in "Gear of the year") very fussy. When you are placing the first two poles in their grommet like holders, they slip out easily as your going for the other end of the tent pole to bend and place in the diagonal pocket. In other words, they are not deep enough to hold the pole securely. It is advised you keep a very sharp eye so that when you are bending the pole to set in the other corner you don't punch a hole in your new tent. I personally prefer “pockets” that hold your rods securely.
After the initial diagonal poles the tent is free standing. The third pole holds up the front mesh. It is rather long and has to be put on the ground, you then walk to it and grasp the other “end”. You then enter the tent backwards. You need both hands to set one end of your last pole into a “pocket” (pockets are good). As you are setting one end of your pole into a pocket, the other end of the pole is free riding on the other side of the tent; please God, no wind, no holes.
It would help if a small tab was stitched onto the pockets which you could grasp to open the pockets. This would help immensely.
Sooooo – with that done my camping partner and I studied the tent! It is a nice sun catching color of yellow. We then proceeded to put in our InsulMats and Moonstone 800 Lucid bags, and then, of course, us. Wow! I would hate to put another person in here!
This is a TWO person tent. I guess three if you don’t mind pushing the outside walls.
Not a heck of a lot of room for gear. That could go in the vestibule, so we got out packs.
We were able to set our packs up, leaning like a pyramid outside in the vestibule, Nice, but, now we can’t get out of the tent without moving our packs. OK let’s try putting one of the packs inside the tent! Not much room. Now we are both pushing the outside tent walls or we have the option of being real cuddly. (I prefer pushing the tent walls.)
As my pack has a built in rain cover, I conceded to leaving my pack outside.
Soooooooo – everything out of the tent and onto seam sealing. Man, this thing has a multitude of seams! BD includes a 1.5oz tube of Silnet and a syringe with a curved applicator – not bad! We watched the video off the Net on sealing BD’s one more time – (expensive tent) so let’s do it right.
Using the syringe we loaded it with Silnet, prepped the seams with alcohol swabs, and we were off and running.
You cut the end of the applicator so it has a “small” opening. Then you run a "small" bead the length of the seam. You can use your finger, sponge, or brush to even it out and get it into the stitching of the seams. According to BD not only does the seam have to be filled but the sealer has to extend ¼ inch on either side of the seam. We realized early (even after being extremely careful) that we were NOT going to have near enough sealer. Man, we were going to go out this weekend! Soooooo – off to the stores we went! Nobody carries this stuff, and with the Epic fabric we didn’t dare to use something else! Sooooo – onto the internet and we ordered another tube. Well, maybe the following weekend.
We finished up what we had and then went over the tent again to check out what was left to do. There is a seam in the floor that I insist we do “both” sides of. We then realized that the anchor points were flush with the floor of the tent (and ground), no tape, just stitched, and that these anchor points (eight of them) would be constantly under strain from setup and wind, and at water level. These anchors are also stitched “under” and on the sides of your bathtub floor. Sooooo – these too will have to be sealed inside and out.
The Zipper on the vestibule also has no flap.
Two things I absolutely hate, and getting wet IN a tent are both of them.
Some points on the tent seem to have loose stitching, the consistency is not there.
As I am writing this I realize that I am getting mad. My buddy and I are not new to the camping game, both of us work in the Forestry Service, so, we are in a tent quite often, and, we know our tents. This wa supposed to be an upgrade. Enough said.
I am getting the impression that BD built this tent with very good intentions – then threw it at the consumer leaving the “waterproofing and figuring out” to people like you and me. I also think they HAD to know that one tube of sealer wasn’t enough, or didn’t care.
I am soooooo disappointed, and I haven’t even been out in it yet!
And by the way – if you fold your tent, the seams stick together because the sealer seems to remain tacky.
Then when you carefully pull them apart, well, guess what! I’ll leave that to your imagination.
This was after more than a week of curing time.
Do yourself a favor, don’t walk – run away from this tent. It may be light but I’d rather carry an extra pound of “real” quality.