This tent is a great value for a 2-person, 3-season backpacking tent with some innovative features. The tent follows the popular half-dome design: square footprint, two poles, mesh and fabric interior, rainfly with two vestibules, and includes light and strong DAC aluminum poles. The green rainfly is day-glow bright and is visible from a long way off, so you won’t have trouble finding camp.
Reviewed by: Drew Thayer, Senior Contributor
Space: At 90.5 inches by 59 inches, this tent has ample space for two people plus room for some gear inside, which is a nice during foul weather. Having a vestibule on each side is convenient for storage and easy ingress/exit from the tent. Vestibule head space is limited since the tent tapers from its highest point and does not have a lateral ‘spreader pole’.
Versatility: If pesky insects and cold winds aren’t a concern, you can leave the mesh and fabric interior at home and just carry the rainfly and ground tarp. This drops the weight by 38% and provides a great streamlined shelter. I’ve slept through thunderstorms with the tent set up like this, and the rain fly, if staked out properly, provides plenty of coverage to keep you dry inside.
Weight: The Radama 2 is standard weight for a two person, 3 season tent. At 5 lb 7 oz it’s similar to comparable tents on the market: for example, REI Half Dome (5 lb 6 oz) or Marmot Limelight 2 (5 lb 0 oz). Lighter tents like the MSR Hubba Hubba NX go down to the 3 pound range, but cost up to $400 (over twice the cost of the Radama 2). This tent is a fantastic value in terms of medium weight and low price. Leave the interior at home and the weight drops to a light 3 lbs 6 oz. The optional ground tarp weighs 14 oz and is made of standard coated nylon.
Connectors: Peregrine tents use a unique strategy for securing the poles, tent, fly, and ground tarp together. While most tents I’m familiar with use a spike-and-grommet strategy, DAC has invented molded plastic connectors, ‘Jake’s Foot Clips’, that accept the poles in a ball-and-socket joint and also snap together with other components. The corners on the tent interior, for example, have a socket for the ball-end of the tent pole and also have two bars, one for the hook from the ground tarp and one for the hook from the fly.
The advantage of this system is the tent components snap together easily and don’t rely on stacking multiple grommets on one end of a tent pole, which in some tents doesn’t work very well. The hooks are swift to snap and detach. However, I am concerned about the long-term durability of these plastic pieces. The integrity of the tent completely relies on these snaps and ball joints, which would be very difficult to replicate or repair (compared to a grommet), so a broken piece could render the tent somewhat useless.
Bottom line: This tent is an amazing value, offering the performance of leading brands for about 2/3 the price. It comes standard with reflective guylines, a mesh gear loft, and high-quality stakes, so it’s ready to go for an adventure right out of the box. The option to set it up without the mesh interior makes it really versatile; it can fit in your gear quiver as a comfy tent to keep the bugs away or a simple storm-proof shelter for light-and-fast missions. Don’t feel like you have to buy a brand-name tent, the Radama 2 is a great choice with no sacrifice in quality materials and construction.
Drew Thayer blogs at Carrots and Peanut Butter. He is a Senior Contributor to The Climbing Zine.
In the vertical world, quality gear is as important as good weather or the right partner. At the Climbing Zine, we review gear that we put to the test in our personal climbing pursuits, over months of use. If we like it we’ll tell you, and if we don’t we’ll tell you. That’s our policy…If you have gear for us to consider for a review please contact us at luke@climbingzine.com.
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