"This is turning into reminiscences by wrinklies (polite, posh argot for geriatrics)."

LOL I hope not, I'm only 26!!.........................I just happen to have an interest in most thing's 'tenty'.

I've heard people mention Ultimate tents before and I've googled for them but cant ever find much info.

It would be nice to see some info on these tents in here Find me a tent

I've got a fleece by Ultimate, got it 14 years ago when a student and was my first ever fleece. I used to walk in big wooly jumpers in those days and I went to a small shop in Headingly, Leeds on a late opening for student clubs with 20% discount. I got a full set of gear needed for walking including a full set of paramo waterproofs (they still called them waterproof in those days).

Spent £200 and got fleece, trousers, paramo Alta tops and trousers, expeditions 4 compass (still going), gaiters and some other bits and pieces.

By the way I still have the ultimate and wear it in winter when giving my Dad a hand cutting trees and hedges. the 200 weight fleece helps keep thorns out. Unfortunately a sad end to gear that has seen many good hill days, but is as good as new. Not the same as newer fleeces that have started to fail at seams. Shame the good, old, traditional qualities are no longer around.

I wanted a phoenix phreerunner or Ultimate tent when I was young and got my first Field and Trek catalogue. I remember thumbing the tent pages and saying I want one of those. Still do it now and still can't afford to get everything I want.

By the way I am not an old wrinkly, but guess I must have been a child prodigy with some of the old stuff I remember. By the way I remember UK based factory shops for all the main outdoor gear manufacturers. I remember there used to be quite a ferw factories in the UK. I lived near to Karrimor and liked to pick up cheap seconds and end of lines. The seconds used to have things like extra line of bar stitching on the straps that was hardly negative faults. Are there any factory shops left in the UK??

Lowe Alpine had an office in Kendal and sold end of lines or unusual colour lines in the Kentdale Rambler, but this has since shut down.

I met Bill Wilkins a few times but was never an Ultimate consultant. I was only starting out back then!

The problem with googling Ultimate is that the word has so many uses. Hilleberg is much easier!  

If you google "Ultimate tents" there are  1,760.000 results. None of the first ten refer to Ultimate the company. "Ultimate Peapod" brings up 119,000 results, the first one of which is for a tent called the Ultimate Peapod - made by Marmot!

I still use my peapod now , it's24 years old  ,and still does the the job intended ,including a KIMM a few years ago .  I changed the front fibreglass pole sections for an alu shockcorded pole from Bulldog  (a birmingham company ) but not the rear one ,because they couldn't bend the tubing that tight .Mine is the original peapod ,and not long after it came out they brought out the peapod 2 ,which was a bit more spacious .

  For all the young-uns , the peapod 's poles were made up of individual pieces that you had to put together (no shockcord) and it was a work of art to get the flysheet taut enough .Despite this it was a revelation in lightwieght tenting and even got high praise in Footloose magazine ! I regard it as the granddaddy of the flexible pole tents that we see today .

Peapods were good tents in many ways, but as for some absolute degree of "performance", my recollections of seeing my Peapod-using pals in them in the snow suggest to me that they did have their shortcomings... 

Pete. 

Pete

certainly my old Ultimate Tramp was far more suitable for use in snow than the Peapod. 

Pics of Ultimate Peapod can be found here:

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=ultimate%20peapod&w=24764178%40N08

bring back any memories???

Me and Wayne Ashton doing a fortnight of backpacking in the West coast of Ireland in 87 ish. Glorious weather. Tents faired very well.