Over past months, I’ve been stoked to have the opportunity to review one of the tents out of Black Diamond’s line. Skylight is comfortable in the summer, reasonable in rain/snow, but not quite 4-season.
The tent comes with one very cool feature in my opinion: the way the rainfly works. The fly is permanently attached to the tent and folds back for those nice summer nights when you’d never worry about weather. This makes for a very airy and comfortable sleeping environment while still being protected from bugs and dirt. Skylight is lightweight (4 lbs 2 oz), roomy for 2 people, reasonable for 3 people. (Black Diamond calls it a 2 to 3 person tent).
I've enjoyed using the Skylight tent in the summer and spring here in Colorado -- especially during a dumper sleet storm up high in Montezuma basin this spring. It worked.
At Montezuma last spring.
Fast forward to this past weekend. We’re headed for Montezuma again — out to harvest backcountry skiing powder — and what better way to test a tent than to get up in the snowy alpine and see how the rig holds up.
We stomped out our platform and made it level enough for sleeping up around 13,500 feet in Montezuma basin. The moon and stars were out and lighting our little campsite.
Skylight enjoying Montezuma Basin a few days ago, and so were the people inside.
After enjoying a sip of cocoa & ‘Beam, it was time for sleep — so into the tent with our carcasses to test out this single wall gem. Though really just a roomy 2-person tent, Skylight has a reasonable amount of room for three guys (although with our two balloon-like Exped pads there was little room for Jeff’s Thermarest). We all slept well save for the occasional wind burst that would send spindrift through the mesh door. This is the one thing missing from this tent, a small flap that can be zipped up to allow the tent to be made snow-proof. But really…who can complain about face shots as that is exactly what we headed for next!
Morning, preparing for backcountry skiing face shots.
Face shot preliminary.
Faceshot, Montezuma Basin, October 2009.
(Guest blogger Jordan White finished skiing all 54 Colorado 14ers in spring of 2009. He’s one of the WildSnow Denali 2010 crew, and works as a construction project manager out of Carbondale, Colorado. Check out his blog.)
Jordan White is a strong alpinist who finished skiing all 54 Colorado 14,000 foot peaks in 2009. He guides, tends bar, and lives the all-around perfect life in Aspen.