A well-built, comfortable, dry tent...

By WJS Ranked #1326 - 3-Season Tents July 7, 2009

I recently purchased the Manta Ray 33 tent from Backcountry.com to gain a little more useable floor space over my two older backpacking tents. I had a chance to put it to use over an extended 4th of July weekend in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho that saw temps ranging from the mid-30’s to the low-90’s, some fairly high winds at times, and a number of thunder storms and downpours. I can say that the tent is very well-built, is fast and easy to pitch, stable in winds, has great ventilation/lack of condensation, and is completely waterproof (except for one design issue I’ll mention in a minute). The “doors” on either side allow easy entry/exit without having to disturb the other tent occupant (three people in the tent would be a very tight squeeze unless they’re really skinny folks). The “wings” of the floor layout add a perfect amount of reachable storage space right where your shoulders, arms and head are while lying in the tent. The vestibules and misc storage pockets add plenty of additional dry storage.

The only quibbles I have with the tent are:
1. If it’s raining or the rainfly is wet and you unzip it, water drips from the zipper cover-piece for the rainfly through the mesh doors and onto your sleeping bag/gear. Not a lot, but just enough to be annoying. I tried staking out the fly in every imaginable configuration, but still couldn’t avoid this.
2. If you want to really properly stake out the tent and rainfly/vestibules, you will need at least 16 stakes and as many as 18, but the tent only comes with 8. (barely enough to stake out the tent without the fly).
3. While the tent packs light for its size, it takes up a lot of space at a roll of 2 feet long and 7” diameter. My 15-year-old Peak 1 Apollo packed at less than half that length at the same diameter, but has only maybe 35 percent less floor space. Maybe I’ve just been spoiled for all these years, but it seems like an awful lot of pack real estate to give up.

In all, I would recommend this tent for anyone looking for a well-made, comfortable tent, and not-going the minimalist route. And, Backcountry.com offered it at a great price and the shipping time really was “wicked fast”. Thanks!

View Details: The North Face Manta Ray 33 Tent 3-Person 3-Season

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