The Jack Mountain Expedition Tent, designed by Tim Smith and Peter Marques, available from Tentsmiths.
Jack Mountain Expedition Tent Details
- 8’6″ x 11’6″. Sleeps 3 comfortably, can squeeze 4 in, luxurious for 2.
- Single center-pole design
- Gable entrance
- 3′ vertical wall
- Stove jack through vertical wall next to door
- Available from Tentsmiths
I’ve had variety of different canvas tents over the years, all of which had certain aspects I liked and certain that I didn’t. Having spent several years living in them, both at our field school in a fixed camp setting and on the canoe and snowshoe trail while guiding, I feel comfortable saying my first rodeo took place a long, long time ago.
A few years back during a snowshoe expedition, I sat down by the light of the candle one evening with a notebook and sketched out what I would like to see in my ideal winter tent. It should have a single center pole so I could use in in places where cutting poles wasn’t an option, only four sides so it would be simple to set up, a short vertical wall so all the space to the wall was useable but would still maintain a low profile in case of high winds, a stove jack through a vertical wall so the stove wouldn’t hiss from snow and rain coming through the roof, a gable entrance to make it easy to get in and out, and a way to tie up the top of the door to an exterior pole or tree so as to keep it as a single pole design. In a nutshell, it included the best properties of all the tents I’ve owned.
Armed with my design, I sat down with Peter Marques from Tentsmiths, who had made most of my other tents. Together we talked about the particulars of the design for an afternoon, and a short while later it was done.
After using it for several years, I couldn’t be happier with the design. It does everything I wanted, is easy to set up, comfortable to live in, and great on the trail.
