The REI Flash 3 is a freestanding, double-wall 3-person tent that’s light-weight and compact sufficient for backpacking however spacious sufficient for automobile tenting. Whereas REI charges it for 3 individuals, I believe it’s on the small measurement for 3 full-grown adults except your third companion is a canine or a small baby. The place it actually shines is as a 2-personal palace with an infinite quantity of ceiling mesh for air flow and stargazing, with loads of additional room to unfold out. Along with its beneficiant size, good for tall individuals, the close to vertical aspect and finish partitions on the Flash 3 present higher livability for occupants than the sloped partitions of many dome-shaped tents.
Specs at a Look
- Finest Use: Backpacking and Tenting
- Sort: Double Wall
- Construction: Freestanding Tent
- Doorways: 2
- Variety of Poles: 3
- Inside pockets: 4
- Claimed Minimal Path Weight: 3 lbs 7.6 oz
- Precise Minimal Path Weight: 3 lbs 11.8 oz (Interior Tent and Rainfly: 41.5 oz) (Poles (3): 18.3 oz)
- Most pole phase size: 18″
- Precise Interior Tent Dimensions: 85 x 68/61 (L x W head/foot) inches
- Peak Top: 42″
- Precise Packed dimensions (in stuff sack offered): 19″ x 7″
- Seam-taped: Sure
- Footprint: Not included.
- Minimal variety of stakes to pitch: 6; Advisable: 8-9
- Material: 20D Ripstop nylon
The REI Flash 3 is a light-weight, freestanding double-wall tent with two doorways and two vestibules. It has an enormous expanse of mesh making it excellent for stargazing whereas offering glorious air flow when used with or with out its rain fly. Absolutely seam-taped, the partial aspect and end-walls present additional privateness, wind, and mud safety whereas the big doorways allow quick access and exit.
Nevertheless, the Flash 3’s head and foot finish widths of 68″/61″ inches, make it decidedly slim for 3 full-grown adults. Whilst you might match three x twenty-inch vast sleeping pads aspect by aspect within the inside tent, it truly is a decent squeeze. You’d most likely be much more snug utilizing the Flash 3 as an expensive two-person tent with a canine or small baby as a 3rd companion.
The Flash 3 comes with three poles which slot into color-coordinated man out factors. In an effort to save weight and make the tent extra packable, the REI selected to not join all of the poles along with a number of hubs, which is commonly the case with different tent producers. The draw back of that is that it makes the tent just a little extra difficult to arrange and may result in a misplaced pole except you’re cautious to maintain monitor of all of them when breaking down the tent.
Whereas not troublesome to pitch, it takes a apply session or two to determine tips on how to arrange the Flash 3 and is greatest carried out in your yard a number of occasions earlier than you try and determine it out with a companion within the area, notably should you’re making an attempt to impress them along with your outside abilities. There are instructions included within the tent’s stuff sack, though you possibly can determine it out with sufficient endurance. 🙂
Whereas the inside tent is technically freestanding, it’s giant sufficient and underneath sufficient structural stress that you need to stake out the corners once you set it up. The rainfly snaps into the corners of the inside tent, so that you simply want one stake in every nook for each. Nonetheless, I’d encourage you so as to add a number of additional guylines alongside the fly perimeter for stability in wind and to maximise the interior quantity.
Not like a dome tent, there’s a distinct directionality to the Flash 3, with a head finish and a foot finish. Whereas the tent has an infinite quantity of inner quantity, it doesn’t have a variety of pockets inside, or the place you’d look forward to finding them. For instance, there are not any pockets on the within of the doorways and no gear loft pockets within the ceiling. There are 4 mesh pockets on the again wall of the tent on the junction between the strong cloth and the mesh wall, however they’re a bit excessive as much as comfortably attain should you’re mendacity in your sleeping bag.
There’s sufficient inner quantity, nevertheless, to retailer a variety of gear contained in the tent, however the Flash 3 is decidedly mild relating to the frills discovered on different tents of this quantity just like the Large Agnes Copper Spur HV UL3 or the NEMO DragonFly OSMO 3P. The Flash 3 is inexpensive for that motive, so that you’ll must determine whether or not the added options in these tents are well worth the value distinction.
Whereas the rainfly covers the inside tent mesh, it doesn’t present full protection over the ends of the inside tent however is scooped to allow higher airflow inside. The uncovered partitions of the inside tent are as waterproof because the fly, so there’s no internet loss in performance. NEMO was actually the primary tent producer to include this scoop design extensively throughout their product line and its been adopted by different producers since. It additionally helps scale back the burden of the rainfly as a result of there’s much less cloth required.
As talked about, the Flash 3 is a two-door tent with two vestibules which is a must have for consolation when tenting with two or extra individuals. The Flash’s vestibules are giant with loads of room to stow a backpack. The doorways have bi-directional zippers so you possibly can partially unzip one from the highest down or backside up, even in dangerous climate, to extend air flow by the tent to be able to offset any condensation formation.
Comparable 3-Individual Tents
Advice
Whereas the REI Flash 3 is bought as a three-person tent, it’s most likely greatest thought-about a excessive quantity 2+ individual tent with house sufficient for 2 adults and a younger baby or canine. One in every of its essential advantages is a comparatively small pack measurement resulting from the truth that its poles usually are not packaged collectively in a single big multi-hubbed array, however damaged aside so that they take up much less quantity. Whereas it doesn’t have a variety of inner pockets and options discovered on dearer tents, its size, vertical aspect partitions, and enormous mesh ceiling supply occupants a extra spacious feeling of inside quantity and star-gazing potential than most comparable dome-shaped three-person tents.
Disclosure: The creator owns this tent.
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