Mountain Hardwear Trango 2 Review

Likes
The Mountain Hardwear Tragno 2 is a time tested, strong, and highly livable mountaineering tent. Along with the MSR Asgard, North Face Mountain 25, and Hilleberg Tarra and Jannu, it falls into the class of expedition worthy tents. The Trango’s pole design is strong and symmetrical: four Atlas Scandium XL poles cross seven times to create a low profile dome tent. A fifth pole attaches to one end and supports the front vestibule. The poles connect with a combination of non-locking and locking plastic clips. These clips and reinforced panels provide a strong and reliable method to connect the poles.

The Trango’s inner tent has two identical doors and a large zippered vent on one side of the ceiling. When pitching the fly, line up the inner tent’s vent with the corresponding polyurethane window on the fly. Then attach the 32 plastic clips on the underside and bottom of the fly. These clips are one of the tent’s most significant features because they add a tremendous amount of strength to the tent. But the setup process takes a while. We clip the fly on very thoroughly when on multi-day adventures in harsh conditions, but not when car camping in well-protected areas.

The Trango’s pole-supported vestibule (8 sq. ft.) has two doors, one on either side. Both of these curve at the top, providing ventilation that reduces condensation and makes cooking in foul weather safer. The rear vestibule (3 sq. ft.) has a door that also curves at the top for ventilation and provides enough space to stash one pack.

The Trango 2 is tremendously spacious inside. It has the greatest amount of floor space of all the four-season tents we’ve reviewed (41 sq. ft., or 20 percent more than the average of 13 tents reviewed). The Trango’s low angle walls contribute to its bombshelter looks and provide a low profile, aerodynamic shape that sheds the fiercest winds. Lower angle walls make it stronger than the North Face Mountain 25 and MSR Asgard, but they also reduce headroom along the sides. To compensate for this, the Trango is wider and longer (92x58), giving it a significantly greater space-to-weight ratio than the Mountain 25, Asgard, and Hilleberg Tarra. Of all the four-season tents reviewed here, this is the most comfortable to go fast and light with three people. We easily fit three six-foot testers in the Trango 2.

The inside is also highly livable. Three gigantic pockets on each side and four in the ceiling provide ample storage for water bottles, cameras, wet gear, etc. The ceiling pockets are especially nice when three people are in the tent because the middle person can claim the ceiling pockets. Many loops in the ceiling make it easy to rig up a custom clothesline.

In our assessment, the Trango ties with the Tarra in first place for livability. It has a more spacious interior and better pockets, but the Tarra is much stronger and has two gigantic vestibules.

A few minor details: the door zipper pulls are color coded, red for the nylon door and yellow for the mesh. This is a wonderful unique feature. The clips that attach the fly to the base of the inner tent are great, too. They’re made of burly plastic and lock tight unlike the grommets on the Mountain 25.

We also appreciate the polyurethane window. This makes heinous stormy days in the tent brighter and allows you to easily monitor the changing weather. We prefer the placement of this window (in the roof) to the Mountain 25 (in the vestibule).

Dislikes
The most significant drawbacks to the Trango are its heavy weight (nearly ten pounds) and large packed size. Carrying this tent is less than desirable, but its strong and livable protection makes it well worth it when the weather turns foul.

The next greatest drawback is its long setup time. Dozens of clips take a long time to attach. The guylines are not as good as those on the Mountain 25 or Hilleberg models (not reflective, no camming adjusters), and guying out ten to twelve points with trucker’s hitches can be laborious.

Another minor complaint lies with the Trango’s locking clips used at the inner tent’s pole intersections. These are plastic with a wire gate that pops out, not inward like a carabiner. While they work fine, we recommend that Mountain Hardwear replace then with carabiner style clips that open inward. This would be easier to set up (you’d just snap the poles in), but as is, you have to press the plastic spine down to release the wire gate, then press it down again to close it over the poles. Similar clips lie on the exterior of the vestibule, but these are smaller, a bit stiffer, and work better than those in the inner tent. Nonetheless, carabiner style clips would be better here, too.

Best Application
Mountaineering, basecamping.

Value
Great value.

Personal Stories
Of all the 13 four-season tents reviewed here, our testers have probably used the Trango the most. Combined, we’ve slept in the two, three, and four-person versions everywhere from base camping in the Red River Gorge, KY to expedition sea kayaking along the Maine coast and expedition mountaineering in Chilean Patagonia and up Kilimanjaro. In all of this time, likely a combined six months, our only durability issue was in Patagonia, a place known for its relentless winds. We were camping alongside the Campo Hielo Norte (Northern Ice Field) during a heinous late spring storm that left us tent bound for four days straight. The winds were so fierce that we spent most of each night and day sitting up supporting the tent walls. All guy points were tightened as best as possible and one person would go out and retighten them every hour. On the last night that person fell asleep, neglecting their maintenance duties, and a vestibule guy line came undone, causing the vestibule to be picked up by the wind and ravaged. The vestibule pole broke and two other poles were very bent. We patched the vestibule pole with a foot long section of a larger diameter pole and ventured onwards. It’s hard to tell how fast the winds were that night, but our site (at the toe of a glacier amid hilly moraines, surrounded by large peaks) created an environment that blew in winds from all directions. Our repair job lasted for two more weeks then, when Stateside, we replaced the poles. The Trango is expedition worthy, no doubt.

After extensively using the Hilleberg Tarra, a much stronger tent, we can say with good confidence that it would not have broken if pitched in the storm described above.