X-Dome 2

The X-Dome 2 floor is longer than average at 88" (2.24 m) and has steep end walls so the length is highly useable. Typically users up to about 6'4" will find this to be a good amount of length, but your individual experience will depend on several factors including how bulky your sleeping equipment is, how straight you sleep, and how much room you expect.

The X-Dome is simple enough that you can probably just lay out the tent and figure it out, but for the best results we recommend watching our pitching video.

Briefly though, the most common approach is to lay out the fly, assemble the pole set, clip the pole set to the 4 corners of the fly and then connect the rest of the clips between the fly and poles. The interior may already be connected inside, but if not, lay it out with the wider end to the left and then connect all the buckles. If you want to pitch inner first, clip the interior to the poles instead of the fly.

The regular pole set is designed to be as light as possible while packing to a reasonable length of 18". This gives a reasonably sized package with the lowest weight.

Some users place more of an emphasis on a short packed length, such as bikepackers and hikers preferring to store the tent horizontally inside their packs. For these people we offer a "short" version of the pole set that divides the length into more sections so it can pack shorter at 13".

Both pole sets have the same strength. The regular pole set is lighter (330g vs 365g) while the short pole set can back shorter (13 vs 18" / 33 vs 45 cm)

For most people we recommend the regular pole set, but the short version is nice for people who don't mind some added weight for a shorter packed length.

The X-Dome 2 is a doublewall tent with a waterproof fly and a separate interior. We offer two types of interiors: regular and solid.

The regular inner of the X-Dome is mostly built of mesh but with a strip of solid fabric around most of the lower walls. This is fully bugproof and provides good ventilation in hot conditions while also blocking some drafts in colder conditions. The solid inner increases the solid fabric so the entire interior has solid walls with mesh window that can optionally be opened on the upper half of the door.

The regular interior is a good all-around choice for a blend conditions. Where the Solid interior improves is that it is warmer and less draft in cold conditions, and also blocks blowing sand and dust better, with the downside that it can be too warm in really hot conditions.

95% of the time either interior will work fine but the regular is recommend for all around use while the solid is recomended or colder areas like Europe and for winter use. If you frequent both hot and cold areas, we will make the inners available separately so you can have both.

The goal with the X-Dome is to make a very capable backpacking tent at an ultralight weight. It offers above average strength for this type of tent, and can be strengthened further for tough weather with the optional trekking pole supports, but we do not call it a "4-season" tent since that applies it is rated for severe winter conditions. It can do well for winter camping including some alpine use, but it's main focus is 3 season backpacking.

The X-Dome 2 places a huge focus on weight efficiency (rather than saving weight at any expense) so there may be lighter tents that make additional trade offs to save more weight but for a nicely sized, fully freestanding and double wall tent, the X-Dome 2 is about as light as the lighter models while being more spacious, sturdy and protective than comparable tents.

We obsess over every gram to make sure we are getting the most performance possible for the weight so we can create a tent that is both ultralight and capable. The X-Dome 2 does that through weight efficient geometry and by using perhaps the world's lightest polyester fabric and premium carbon fiber poles. But still you can find other lighter tents if you are willing to accept something substantially smaller and less protective. For a fully freestanding tent this spacious and protective there is nothing lighter, but you can find lighter 2P tents if they are much smaller, singlewall, or semi-freestanding.

The only exceptions to this are tents that use much more expensive Dyneema based fabrics (which we offer in our other tents and hope to introduce to the X-Dome series but not in 2025).

Our tents and passionate advocacy have been a major reason for the modern movement towards polyester in ultralight tents. When we introduced the X-Mid with polyester in 2018 it was controversial. Many other companies were initially skeptical of our fabric choices before later switching themselves after our tents demonstrated the strength potential of polyester and set of standard of fabric sag being unacceptable.

As background, in the 1980's only nylon was available in the lightest weights so it became popular in lightweight tents even though it absorbs water and expands - making the tent loose, structurally unsound, and slow to dry. With modern advances in polyester to reduce the weight and increase the strength, polyester can now be similar in strength while being a much more suitable tent fabric because it has much less water absorption, dries faster, stays lighter, and remains taut in the rain.

With the X-Dome we are again moving things forward with a new generation of high tenacity polyester fabrics. These may exceed all other lightweight polyester in strength:weight.

The X-Dome uses a new high strength version for polyester for the floor. It is a fairly durable tent floor, but still is a balance between low weight and durability so some care during use is recommended.

We have selected this material for the floor because we think it is as light as possible while still being reasonable to use without the added weight and hassle of groundsheet. However, that does assume you apply some care to avoid sharp objects like sticks and sharp rocks on your tent site and that the site is a normal surface (e.g. dirt). Many people will prefer to be careful and not use a groundsheet, but a groundsheet is recommended for harsher surfaces like gravel, pine needles, or bedrock, and also provides a cleaner floor and added peace of mind. We expect about half of owners will opt to use our groundsheet. We suggest being careful and not using it, but you may wish to have it for harsher surfaces or times when lightweight is not a priority.