REI Co-op Half Dome SL 2+ Review

This fully freestanding double-wall tent has an awesome peak height of 42 inches and two vestibules that are each over 11 square feet, with plenty of space for packs and boots. All things considered, there is a lot to like here.

Performance Comparison

Comfort

You can spread out and get comfortable in the Half Dome SL 2+. Its 90-inch length is one of the most generous in our review and provides more than enough space for a pair of six-foot sleepers. With its 50-inch width, this tent offers over 31 square feet of floor space, and you can sit up in over 17 of them. There is so much headroom it is no problem for two people to sit up and even kneel at the same time. It's also easy to avoid touching the tent walls at night, keeping your sleeping bag dry, even if the tent itself is wet.

The Half Dome vestibules are roomy enough to stash your boots and pack. We don't love the triangle pockets at each corner of the tent, though. They're located on the wall open to the side, making it easy for your odds and ends to slide out, especially if it's windy. The shape works better for the large pockets on the ceiling, which are roomy enough for layers, a book, maps, or other gear you want to keep within reach.

We also appreciate that rolling the fly back to stargaze is easy. The privacy side panels aren't especially high, but they do provide a modest amount of cover if you remove the fly completely. The doors open in opposite directions from each other, which suggests that the tent is designed for head-to-toe sleeping, which may or may not be what you are looking for. However, they are easy to tie back, and if it's not buggy out, they offer excellent views when open. If you have to batten down the fly for foul weather, two kickstand vents in the ceiling keep fresh air flowing.

Weather Resistance

This three-season tent does well enough in the rain. Its large profile gives it a little bit of a bag-in-the-wind feel, though. The pole structure design isn't especially rigid, but it offers two stake points for each of the vestibules, which makes them easier to tension and less susceptible to flapping. The vestibules also have multiple tie-back options. Depending on the weather, the doors can be opened partially or fully.

The kickstand vents are covered and well protected, so unless you find yourself in a truly gnarly thunderstorm, precipitation won't find its way in. The all-mesh canopy also allows condensation to escape easily. The vestibule zippers aren't waterproof, but they do have a protective flap. The two-pitch shape of the vestibule door also makes it possible (and very convenient) to enter and exit the tent while it is raining without dripping extra accumulated water from the door on yourself or your gear.

The Half Dome SL 2+ also comes with an included footprint, which does a nice job of protecting the floor from seepage if you happen to pitch on some already damp soil. On the downside, the tent only comes with just enough stakes to hold down each corner and stretch out the vestibule. During a rainstorm, it's important to tension the head and foot of the fly to prevent condensation from wetting the tent walls. There are tie-outs for the job, but not enough stakes. You'll have to buy extras or fashion a few out of sticks or rocks.

Space to Weight Ratio

With everything included, this tent weighs more than most of the options we tested. At 4.95 pounds on our scale, this one is worth splitting between at least two people. And, while it's very roomy, it doesn't offer as much floor area and headroom per pound as our favorite options.

The Half Dome also takes up a lot of space in a pack. The pole structure has a lot of segments, and the hubs and clips are chunky. The fabric is also thick, which makes it feel sturdy, but doesn't do anything for its portability. In its sack, the tent measures 22 inches long and 7.5 inches across.

The tent comes with a footprint, which protects the floor but also adds weight and bulk to the set-up. However, if you are using this tent primarily as a car camping or backyard campout companion, its size is not a problem. That said, the thoughtful design makes the Half Dome versatile enough to be a car-camping workhorse and a backup backpacking tent. You can always leave the footprint behind when you head out into the backcountry.

Ease of Use

We like how simple it is to pitch this tent. The pole structure is symmetrical, and the poles, clips, and grommet webbing are color-coded, making it easy to orient everything correctly. The fly attaches to the tent with traditional buckle clips and stakes out at the tent corners and two points on each vestibule. It's very straightforward and relatively speedy to set up, even for one person.

On the downside, we found that the pole structure itself is unwieldy. This is the only tent we've tested that integrates a crosspole into the structure of the main arching poles. Usually, it is a short, separate pole that you simply lay across the others. Using hubs to connect them makes it impossible to lose one, but it also makes the whole structure difficult to control. When it comes to taking your tent down, we don't appreciate the tetherless stakes. The hook that keeps your tent from sliding off can hurt when you pull them up.

Since this tent is so large, the poles are long, and the whole thing puppets around in every direction. Getting the first two poles into their corner takes some extra effort. That said, tough it requires more wrestling than the average tent, it's still easy enough to stake out and tension.

The two massive side doors are easy to open and close, and the extra stake in the vestibule gives you room to enter and exit the tent relatively gracefully. As we mentioned, we find the corner pockets a little annoying to use, but everything else is straightforward.

Construction Quality

The floor and fly are 40-denier nylon, which is on the thicker side of tent fabrics. Though they make for a heavier overall product, they do seem hardier than the featherweight tents we tested — particularly the tent body itself. The floor and side panels extend up the walls high enough that they effectively prevent debris and moisture from getting through. And it comes with a footprint to connect the floor.

The fly is a little less confidence-inducing. When we staked the tent out for several weeks to test its weather resistance, we used the tie-outs at the head and the foot of the tent to keep the fly from resting on and transferring moisture to the tent inside. During that time, the fly ripped by the connection points on both sides

The crossbar lends the aluminum pole structure enough stiffness that it would take strong winds to buckle this tent, but it is tall and catches wind easily. It does come with a pole splint in case an on-trail disaster strikes, but in our experience with other broken poles, these splints often don't help. The other poles we broke were the same DAC Featherlite NFL poles that the Half Dome SL 2+ employs. When they broke, they folded, widening at the base so that the split no longer slid over them.

Should You Buy the REI Co-op Half Dome SL 2+?

The Half Dome SL 2+ is a comfortable tent at a reasonable price point. It can handle a couple of nights in the backcountry and provides enough space to make it worth taking on a front country car camping trip. Its largely solid construction also makes it a likely candidate to serve you reliably season after season. Its components and fabric are not top-of-the-line, but the design, execution, and quality are excellent for its weight.

What Other Backpacking Tents Should You Consider?

If interior space is a high priority, but you also want to reduce weight, then we suggest checking out lightweight contenders like the Big Agnes Copper Spur HV UL2 or the Nemo Dagger Osmo. If durability is what you are after, the Hilleberg Anjan 2 GT is a unique and high-quality (though more complicated) tunnel tent worth looking into.