Gear

Thats interesting on the elastic problem.

 I had my tent up in the backgarden in -6 last week and didn't have a prob. Obv not an issue when putting it up as the poles were room temp, but didn't notice anything weird when taking it down either (and still around freezing)

Mine's an 08 tent, bought last May I think.

I just seen a good price for one of these banshees at Kendal Camping.

They also sell a 2 man tunnel tent called a spectre 200 for £69. Is this a good price? Also, since it has poles on the outer pitched first flysheet can it be used without the inner? What weight is the fly, poles and the minimum number of pegs used on there own?

All questions of interest to me at the moment. Any help?

Some further thoughts on this tent.

Mine only weighed 1.9 when i first got it, and by the time i lost the bag, pole bag, and spare guys it was down to 1.8 Admittedly that weight doesn't include the repair pack, or the 2m of paracord that is in my emergency kit for boot laces, guys etc. I've also swapped out teh pegs for some titanium ones as teh alloy ones were ratehr bendy, so lost some more weight there.

For cooking i just attach the pegging point at the bottom of the door to the top of my collapsed walking pole and then peg out using some para cord to hold it up (I've explained that very badly but I hope you get the idea)

Its got good ventilation ofr a small tent, not to say it won't have a fair amount of condensation on teh fly in a still mist, but a bit of a breeze and its fine. unfortunatly as so much of the inner is mesh its pretty cold in winter even with the vents closed.

It looks like Vango have ceased to make the tent, or it was made by a third party and Vango branded. At Argos you can now buy the same tent as a Lichfield 200, although it doesn't seem to appear on the lichfield site. Looks the same, and has same stats. But costs £97.86 versus the roughly £62 including p&p I paid for the Vango version.

Thats interesting, they've added it back on their website. It dissapeared off there for most of 2008. Plus most shops that listed it showed it out of stock by mid 08 so I wonder if they didn't buy the 08 stock and lichfield did instead?

The Banshee was part of the recommended kit for the DofE in 07 and I think that Vango lost prefered DofE suppliers in 08 they stopped buying/making it for a year? They are preffered suppliers again now, and the Vango website says "Find out how Vango recently teamed up with the DofE " which supports my thought that they lost it for a year.

The porch and the hight are larger in the banshee 300.

Anybody tried one of these?

The Banshee 300 seems a bit disappointing now that it's up in the garden. It has a bigger floor area than its counterparts but because it is very sloped in shape it seems to have less room. Same applies to headroom - it seems on paper to be high enough for a shorty like me but the sloping means I can't really sit up and the way it pitches makes the inner droop quite a bit which can be a shade claustrophibic. Also I can't seem to peg it out any way that stops the outer touching the inner at the feet end (although it's been up for a week now in some pretty bad weather and not leaked).

Haven't used it in anger yet but I'm hoping to take my 10 year old away in the next few weeks and I'll post a review after that.

In the mean time if anyone has any advice for me on usage I'd happily take it.

I've just taken my new banshee 300 on it's first outing to Patagonia. We ended up camping in snow more than once. My waterbag froze on more than one occasion so it was well below freezing and I did not have any issues with the elastics. I am 6ft4 and it is a tight fit, luckily the missus is tiny!No idea how you will fit 3 people in the 3man version. We had both backpacks in there though. We cooked in the flysheet cover and my MSR - Dragonfly only just fitted so yes it is cramped, but this tent was not really designed for family holidays so I found it just fine! 

 The weight of the tent is excellent and was no bother on 5day hikes in the El Chelten area which is pretty demanding at times. They keep the weight down by using a lot of mesh panels - so I would not have attempted this without a proper goose down sleeping bag. We were toasty although you notice breathing in pretty cold air! We were also in some pretty impressive rain storms and the seams held up just fine. Don't even need to mention wind, Patagonia is renowned for its 60mph plus winds and we had no problems.

 I changed the pegs before we left for some titanium ones, to shave off a couple of grams, but you don't really need this.

 Hope this helps.