Marmot Grid Plus Review

Excitement as the delivery man knocks on my door.

"A parcel... for me? Why thank you kind sir"

Upon opening the box I'm not entirely sure whether the tent bag is overly large or normal.

First impressions for definite however are that the material used for the bag is quite thick/hefty so I'm sure I'll be transferring the tent into another bag when it comes to actually using it out Wildcamping.

Next to the bag I used an A4 sheet of paper I had to hand as a reference of size. It was my self-made research document for my tent purchase where I'd not only documented weights and prices of verious tents but also their layout, dimensions etc. It was done in an effort to better compare the living areas of each tent.

Having used a Terra Nova Ultra Quasar before and having led in a North Face Tadpole in the Chester ranch of Ellis Brigham it better aided my decision making process.

I was dying to pop the tent up in my garden so I indulged myself and did just that. It would be rude not to as I go away tomorrow and won't see it for 2 weeks. On returning I'll plan my next Wildcamp.

With the tent comes the usual gumph:

- Pegs 18 'v shaped' spikes.
- 2 Alu 'Nails' (seemingly as the tent it free-standing the nails are for if you only want to peg out the porch area)
- Repair patches for all materials contained in the tent.
-  Repair sleeve for temporary fixation of a broken pole.
- Spare buckle for either inner attachment or unsupplied footprint (I'll come to this later).
- 2 Elastics with brass grommets (I suppose these are for if any of the pole attachments fail)
- Spare clip attachment for the poled porch area.

Putting the tent up is relatively simple. The 3 pole sleeves that form the main semi-geodesic structure of the tent have 'blind' ends much like alot of Hillebergs do I believe. Added to this the fact that the grommets that receive the end of the pole on the non-blind side have ladder-lock adjustment (meaning that last push to bend the pole into it's final resting place is simplified) has made it relatively easy to put up solo.

If you look at the tent side on you can see how the poles are pre-bent at the foot end, this is unlike anything the Tadpole or Voyager has and means that in the inner theres plenty of room at the foot end in terms of height but the important thing as far as I'm concerned is this lessens any chance of my sleeping feet pushing the inner onto the outer and getting a condensation-rich helping of water on my down sleeping bag.

Looking from the rear the pre-bent boles can be seen again along with the large rear vent that can be accessed from the inner tent via a zip beneath a mesh panel. One other thing you've probably noticed for yourself is the abundance of guy lines.

Let's go around the front....

If you look closely at the porch door it looks as though I haven't fully unzipped the door. This is in fact as far as the door opens, it is deceiving. My thinking behind this is that if the door opened any more there is potential for rain/residual water on the flysheet to drip into the inner tent.

As can be seen there are more guy lines and from here you can see the remaining external vents: One at the head of the porch and one (of a pair, it's brother on the opposite side) where the poles cross near the ground. Each of the vents has a short pole with 2 velcro attachments. One is to stow it to one side and the other to hold it in placce. I will post more detailed pictures of these and the adjustable ladder locks at the foot of the poles at a later date. I simply got too drawn in playing with the rest of the tent.

And inside....

The inner is a beautiful orange. I was always destined to get the green version as opposed to the one with orange flysheet as its intended for wildcamping so I'm content with a splash of orange inside.

                       Left: View from the foot end.                                                  Right: View from inside the porch

The next picture confirms something I already knew about but unfortunately not the full extent of the 'issue'.

As is visually represented by a Regular Airic and Wee Airic (with normal blue roll mat underneath to show full length) the tapering down to the foot end causes an overlap in normal length sleeping matts. In real terms there is plenty of room for legs/feet however I use a Thermoarest NeoAir and should my camping buddy invest in something similarly thick I feel it could become quite a tricky affair.

The final thing on my tent tick list was to find a tent with an extended porch which could easily contain 2 packs and leave enough room to cook if need be.

I didn't have a gas canister at hand for my mock up but I'm sure you get the gist. Out of interest the pack furthest away is 70 litres and the one to the right i 50 litres.

I am impressed with the tent, I'll be able to give more constructive feedback once I've had a trip away. Hopefully that will be sooner rather than later. One disappointment I have already is that there are only 2 'anchors' on the roof of the inner tent. There is one at the tip of the mesh vent at the foot end and one just above the door of the inner tent as yet I don't know if they're upto the task I intend for them as I usually like to hang a light up in the evenings. The potential for any type of drying line is also reduced.

I am understanding enough to know this would add more weight, it is just a observation at this point.

Tent Musings

I started the month with a criteria. This criteria was to finally buy a tent to service my wildcamp needs, however, with all those on offer what exactly would prove to be the right one for me and my requirements:

-Stable in the wind

-Roomy enough for 2

-An extended porch so I could whip out the Jetboil if the weather outside dictaded as such

-Green (to blend in despite my Orange fettish)

-Relatively lightweight (current tent 5.1kg.... OUCH!)

I didn't have an unlimited budget yet I wanted something that was right.

I started with the North Face Tadpole. I knew of its weakness; an abundance of mesh so not so clever in the winter climes. Yet with the addition of a Nylon inner to their line-up in the last few years along with a zipped vent at the rear of the inner for ventilation this year I thought this warranted some looking into.

Indeed it was and for a while it was the forerunner culminating in me finding the 2011 Tadpole 2 DL for £169 (campfour.co.uk) last week. A bit too much dithering ended with a 'Out of stock' notification on their website. DARN!

In the meantime I'd looked into the Terra Nova Ultra Quasar having used one before with a friend. At 3.1kg I've no qualms when its potentially bombproof. It's a great tent, the dual porches really appeal to me (great for packing up at each end in your own time and not only that but for toilet trips n the night). Alas it's price tag really did leave it out of reach.

The Terra Nova Voyager perhaps.... tipping the scales beneath 2kg really appealed and knowing the quality Terra Nova produce put it in the running for sure but sadly it suffered the same issues as its cousin: I was out priced in this tent war.

On my searches I fell in love with the Crux X2 Storm. What a tent! I didn't care about the weight whatever it may have been. Posting on a German website showing it standing up to 120(ish)mph winds produced by a huge fan really got me drooling. Plus the cheeky vestibule at the back could come in handy surely! I found it for £350 which would have been a real push but searches found a few second hand ones. However I'd narrowly missed out on these meaning my search had to continue.

The Vango Spirit 200+ had alot to offer. I'd come across one some time in the past and loved the cavernous porch area. The weight was realatively low, mainly due to the fact it's a tunnel tent. At just under £200 it was an achievable winner and the tent I kept coming back to when others were potentially ruled out. Ultimately it's tunnel design is what worked against it for me, I have nothing against them truth be told bit when others I'd looked at were semi-geodesic at the least I did'n like the idea of making sure it was pegged and tensioned to the nth degree in an effort to try and prevent those long expanses of flysheet flapping in the well-renowned Lake District winds.

A few other tents came and went then something cropped up. It was an American brand previously dismissed, I'd not paid too much attention and if I'm honest was dismissive of it. I'm talking about the Marmot Grid. It actually had some pretty good write ups. For me, it's upper hand on the likes of the TNF Tadpole and Terra Nova Voyager was that it went up outer first. Luckily I'd never been forced to put up my friend's Quasar in any sort of inclement weather but I for sure didn't fancy any heavy rain leaving the inner a sodden, soggy mess.

Weight wise it was somewhat comparable to the Tadpole yet the Voyager won this battle hands down.

Price wise the cheapest I could find was £220, not a particular bargain. BUT... I stumble upon the Grid Plus, an extended porch version. There is a weight penalty for extra flysheet but only a £30 penalty to my wallet over the normal Grid. It's a relatively unknown entity and searches didn't bring much up in the way of reviews. A handful of comments on outdoors forums were useful and generally positive and strangely a japanese website contained an abundance of pictures some kind soul had taken and posted. Problematically my Japanese isn't so good so I don't know if what they were saying was positive or negative.

Google directed me to Amazon for £250 and with my Prime account in tact it could be here the next working day before 1pm for no extra penalty. Woohoo!!!!!

My Filofax Deco A5

So I thought it time to show off my Deco A5. Granted it's probably not far different to most other Filofax users out there but I'm hoping to pick up some extra ideas along my journey.
It's a Black Deco (was hoping for the Brown but I was unable to find one at a reasonably reduced price).

Nothing exciting from this view, although the Deco isn't leather I like the elasticised closure system. The normal flap and button closure usually gets in my way when it comes to writing in my Filofax. As yet it's part-full despite the fact that the only part I'm fully using is the diary.

The 4 colour Bic pen brought me back to my youth whilst proving to be 4 times more useful but only taking up 1 pen loop. The second pen loop is occupied by a mechanical pencil, I've had an obsession with mechanical pencils for as long as I remember and for me proved the perfect foil alongside the Bic in my arson on the paper-based world that is the Filofax.

Inside I have 2011 Horizontal Year planner which I have found useful for denoting my wife's holidays at a quick glance. Does anybody else use a year planner in this way. For denoting birthdays perhaps?

So far the Month on two pages is my diary type of choice as I like to see an overview of my month at a glance. In my job I carry out a variety of different shifts without any structured shift pattern so being able to glance at my month allows me to note what I'm working and more importantly the weekends I'm available to go camping. On my internet trawls I've not picked up on many (if any) folk using this diary style. Anyone out there?
One of my first purchases after the diary inserts were some pockets by Avery. I trawled up and down every isle in Staples in the search for ANYTHING with potential in my new Filofax world. They have an adhesive backing and I've attached them to particular tab pages where I felt they would prove useful for smaller items. From what I can tell they are removable.

As well as the Avery pockets I couldn't help but buy the official Filofax Zip Pocket which is currently holding items I'm too torn to allocate an official home somewhere else in the Filofax.

You can just about make out on one of the earlier pictures the A-Z tabs near the back. I have no intentions of using this for addresses, instead I intend on using it to file literature pertinent to my job.

Working in a medical profession I intend on allocating certain colours to different disciplines. I invested in extra White ruled paper along with a pack of orange and blue paper.

   White - Anatomy, Medical terminology, and anything remotely interesting.

   Orange - Notes on Magnetic Resonance Imaging; mostly physics related but also general information

                  necessary sequences Vs. Pathology.

   Blue - Notes on CT. Again Physics related but more about the radiation: Policies and dose reduction.

I'm hoping I can commit to really doing this Filofax justice as I have a phobia of writing on neat paper. I'm too proud to make it look scruffy although the problem being I'll never annotate my ideas for fear of ruining it. What is there to ruin? lol. Am I the only person to have this fear that inhibits them actually making any progress? It always proves a backwards step. I have a vast number of pocket-sized notebooks that I have thought looked perfect over the years but sadly they're resident on a bookshelf upstairs unused and as new because of my fear.

Well that's enough rambling for another night. Note to self... start writing!

The beginning...

If I was a woman I'd have a ginormous handbag full to the brim. As it is I'm male nor do I have a handbag at my disposal so I endeavour to accessorise my life with as little as possible whilst having all I can possibly need at hand. Basically I'm an "everything but the kitchen sink" kind of guy yet I dream of being minimalist. I'm conflicted!

Pair my enthusiasm to be prepared for everything whilst carrying almost nothing with an obsession with all things orange and you're starting to understand how my wage packet gets eaten away at on eBay, Amazon, and in Poundstores all across blighty in search of something that 'fits', that's dual-purpose (better still multifunctional) or even more dangerous for me 'that'll come in useful one day'.

All this in an effort to get my life more organised whilst quite often failing miserably.
Recently I stumbled across the good folk at http://philofaxy.blogspot.com/ and upon perusing their blogs I was persuaded to dig out an old Filofax my mum bought me for Uni. I'll be honest here and tell you I never used it. Who in their right mind is going to whap out some leather binder in front of their fellow peers as a young male in their 21st year of life. Not I. Firsly it was too stiff and cumbersome for my liking plus I felt seriously uncool so... in a box under the bed it went. And when I left Uni? Of course, in a box in the attic.

Fast forward 5 years and the stiff and cumbersome leather Filofax is understood to have its advantages but combined with the knowledge of the Philofaxy followers I am now in possession of an A5 Deco.
It's larger ring size, lack of fastening buckle and user friendly half-A4-size allows me to organise my day-to-day life and work papers with relative ease compared to the difficulties I used to face.

Part of me has come to a rather large hurdle now, I TRY to organise myself that much that I carry out research, google things I'd like to read into and such like. At this point my old disorganised self clashes with my organised self. I make the effort to do the research yet it then sits in the download folded on my computer for months on end lying there latently until I get a spark. This spark is converted into an urge. Not an urge to organise and act upon my findings but simply search some more, research even deeper only for this seemingly useful information to lie side by side with the old musings in some sort of dormant homage to life and times before Melvil Dewey came along and organised the library system. Oh how I could do with a Mini Melvil to carry round in my pocket and pop out when I come to a crossroads of organisational turmoil.

All in all I'm hoping that blogging may help unravel my conflicts and bring me to a long stretch of road bereft of traffic lights, crossroads and possibly roundabouts.

Good night, Monkey