Silex - A 13,628 foot peak in the San Juan Range of mountains in Southwest Colorado. The Silex is a large single person trekking pole tent that pitches easily with four primary stakes and has two doors and two vestibules. Sized to be large for one person with a lot of gear, you can squeeze two into the Silex sleeping on the offset instead of diagonal. With two people a nest cannot be used.

The Silex pitches very tight due to subtle catenary cuts hidden in the seams and this gives it very good performance in high winds. We recommend stout and sturdy stakes for the four corners, and if you expect rough weather pegging the additional four stake loops is a good idea.

One of our Zipperless Tents, the Silex solves some pain points associated with zippers in ultralight tents - zippers leak, zippers are heavy, and zippers wear out. Ditching the zipper improves performance in all these areas.

The Silex fills the niche of backpacking tarp, tarp tent, trekking pole tent, and lightweight hunting tent.

We believe the Silex is an easy to pitch, easy to use, and very stormworthy shelter at a tempting weight.

Handmade in Grand Junction, CO.

FEATURES:

Pitches with two trekking poles (not included)
Ultralight trekking pole tent with excellent storm coverage
Zipperless Doors
Fabric - 30D Cordura spec ripstop double coated silnylon. Sage green has a bit of PU mixed into the coating to improve performance in sandy areas. Hydrostatic head rating 3000-4000 mm.
Solo sleeping centering the poles, sleeping on a diagonal. Two person sleeping arrangement offsets the poles.
When used as a hot tent, you can't use the nest and a stove at the same time.
D-rings on both peaks for additional guyout points, or to pitch with a ridgeline between trees.

ORDERING:

Fabrics - fabric is a 30D Cordura spec silnylon. Sage is a lighter color and allows more light to pass through
Seam Sealing - the shelter needs to be seam sealed. It is simple to do yourself, or you can pay us to do it.

COMES WITH:

Shelter canopy
6 Stakes
Stuff Sack
Seam Sealer (If you don't have us seam seal it.)
Does not come with poles. This shelter is intended to pitch with two 120 to 140 cm trekking poles.

SPECIFICATIONS:

Average Weights:
- Canopy - 17 oz / 1 lb 1 oz
- Canopy, stakes, stuff sacks, & cordage - 21 oz / 1 lb 5 oz
Dimensions:
- Height - 50"
- 7' W X 7' L, slight diamond shape - one diagonal is 6" shorter than the other.
- 49 sq ft
- Large percentage of usable space. Sitting height above 36" is close to 18 sqft.
Fabric - 30D Cordura spec ripstop double coated silnylon. Sage green has a bit of PU mixed into the coating to improve performance in sandy areas. Hydrostatic head rating 3000-4000 mm.

PITCHING:

Pitching the Canopy

The Silex is a rough square with a slight diamond shape due to catenary cuts in the central seams. This makes it very easy to pitch by eye.

The canopy requires a minimum 4 stakes and has an additional 4 stake loops for a total of 8 that can can be used in rough conditions. Guyout loops are provided for optional guylines.

Make sure you have slack in the stakeline cordage.
Stake one of the triple seam corners.
Pull the other triple seam corner out taut. Use the first guyout point up from the corner as a setback point. Mark that location and insert a stake there. Place the cordage loop for the triple seam corner on that stake.
Pull out the two doors and stake, making sure you don't pull the centerline off center (this is easy to do when staking the first door).
Insert the poles (make sure to use the pole handle keepers)
Check tension and adjust stakes as necessary.
Drive the stakes home and tension the stakeline cordage as necessary.
Stake out the guyouts and guyline if needed.

Tips:

The Silex can be pitched with as few as four stakes. If you expect rough weather, use beefy, sturdy stakes for these four (such as our Twisted Stakes), and fill in the other stake loops as needed.
In high winds you can dedicate the downwind door for entry and exit and stake out the upwind door.
You can double stake the primary stake positions easily by using a short piece of cordage with loops on both ends. Run this cordage through the stakeline loop, then stake both loops. The stakeline will look like a “Y” if you do this correctly.
A Tautline Hitch tied on the ends of the vestibule guylines isn’t necessary, but handy to add tension. The same goes for guylines on the sides. Read “Knots You Should Know” on our website to learn this and other useful knots.

SEAM SEALING:

For best results we recommend seam sealing your tent. You can do it at home or have us do it for you (adds up to one week)(if we seal the shelter it will be shipped without extra tubes of sealant):

We send our shelters with enough seam sealer to seal the entire shelter.
Pitch the shelter normally and seal the outside seams.
The easy way to seal is to run a thin bead of sealant along the seam, then press it in with a finger, wiping the excess on a paper towel.
Alternatively, you can use an acid brush from a hardware store to spread the sealant.

Silex 1p xl With Stove Jack

Q & A