I bought a High Country Premium 80” July of this year and learned a few things about the tent over several trips. With the weather changing, heating the tent is becoming a challenge and I’m looking for solutions.
One thing I’ve noticed about the new tri layer walls FSR uses on the High Country tents is that they seal tight and do not breathe when everything is zippered up. Even sleeping in the 80” alone, I wake up gasping for air if everything is closed. (I also hate the front door, more on that later, plus some positives on the tent)
The RTT is an upgrade for me where I typically camp in a ground tent. My experience is that there’s a 10 degree or so difference between the ground tent and ambient on cold nights when the ground tent is closed.
In the FSR High Country Premium tents, they seal up so tightly, that a window has to be cracked to allow enough air in to breathe comfortably. It’s like sleeping in a large plastic bag when its completely closed up. Since the windows have to be cracked, the heat empties out and the temperature inside the RTT = the temperature outside. That’s been totally fine these last couple of months with warm weather in cheap sleeping bags, but this last weekend with the temps dropping (unexpectedly to 35 this weekend), we had to move camp to a lower altitude to work with what we had. Additionally, we have a toddler with us who insists sleeping bags are not meant to be inside of. So there’s that.
To get the High Country Premium to work, considering the toddler predicament, we need to raise the internal temps, rather than upgrade bags, while allowing for air exchange so we don’t wake up gasping for air a couple of hours into the night. That excludes the Buddy propane heater solution (which honestly scares me a bit). Having a heating blanket may be a viable option, but we’ll still need to keep a window cracked to stop from suffocating, so I’m not sure how well the blanket will work to raise internal temps with the window open. The other solution I’ve been looking at are the portable diesel heaters that Expedition Outfitter sells.
https://expeditionupfitter.com/coll...s/portable-diesel-heater-2d-12v-high-altitude
As far as a technical solution goes, it seems to hit all the requirements. It pulls air in from the outside and heats it to provide us warm oxygenated air to breathe and be comfortable while sleeping in our hermetically sealed FSR tent. As far as the price... I might need a couple more cold nights before I‘m totally talked into it.
Does anyone else have any other solutions (DIY or off the shelf) they’d recommend?
Following up on the review of the FSR High Country RTT’s, the door sucks. The tent is equipped with 3 windows and 1 door. Each window has the screen on the outside of the tent and the insulated tent wall on the inside of the tent, except for the door where it’s reversed (screen on the inside, insulation on the out. With the windows, you can open the insulated panel as much or as little as you want to allow ventilation into the tent. This can be done comfortably from within the tent. However, operating the door from within the tent, you have to unzip the screen to open the flap and try to tuck it out of the way in some improvised fashion using clothesline clips or similar, or open the flap completely by rolling it up and securing it using the integrated straps intended for this purpose. The real issue comes into play when you consider that only the door can be opened when it’s raining out without soaking the interior of the tent. Additionally, it’s a real pain effectively securing the exterior door flap from within the tent when there’s a lot of bugs out. If I could change anything about the tent it would be to swap the screen and the wall of the tent, or make it one flap that has an internal zipper that allows the tent wall to open to a screened in panel in the door itself.
All the complaints aside, I still think it’s a great tent. There’s some great design considerations FSR did right that put it above other RTT’s for my application. I like that there aren’t flaps over the windows that need to be splayed open with metal arms. That’s just more set up time I want to pretend like I don’t have. I also really like the 80/20 extruded aluminum frame FSR uses. It’s strong and light. A solid floor isn’t structurally needed and I think it adds a lot of unnecissary weight to racks taking a beating with all of the lateral loading they’re likely getting while off road. I also like that the tent insulation hangs inside of the tubular aluminum frame so the frame doesn’t act as a heat sink on cold nights (but then there’s that needing to breathe issue we keep running into).
I’m not saying I wouldn‘t buy an FSR High Country, but I’d certainly add the above considerations to the trade space if I were to do it all over again. If FSR redesigned that damn door, that’d be another story.
Anyway, thanks for reading, and extra thanks for responses.
One thing I’ve noticed about the new tri layer walls FSR uses on the High Country tents is that they seal tight and do not breathe when everything is zippered up. Even sleeping in the 80” alone, I wake up gasping for air if everything is closed. (I also hate the front door, more on that later, plus some positives on the tent)
The RTT is an upgrade for me where I typically camp in a ground tent. My experience is that there’s a 10 degree or so difference between the ground tent and ambient on cold nights when the ground tent is closed.
In the FSR High Country Premium tents, they seal up so tightly, that a window has to be cracked to allow enough air in to breathe comfortably. It’s like sleeping in a large plastic bag when its completely closed up. Since the windows have to be cracked, the heat empties out and the temperature inside the RTT = the temperature outside. That’s been totally fine these last couple of months with warm weather in cheap sleeping bags, but this last weekend with the temps dropping (unexpectedly to 35 this weekend), we had to move camp to a lower altitude to work with what we had. Additionally, we have a toddler with us who insists sleeping bags are not meant to be inside of. So there’s that.
To get the High Country Premium to work, considering the toddler predicament, we need to raise the internal temps, rather than upgrade bags, while allowing for air exchange so we don’t wake up gasping for air a couple of hours into the night. That excludes the Buddy propane heater solution (which honestly scares me a bit). Having a heating blanket may be a viable option, but we’ll still need to keep a window cracked to stop from suffocating, so I’m not sure how well the blanket will work to raise internal temps with the window open. The other solution I’ve been looking at are the portable diesel heaters that Expedition Outfitter sells.
https://expeditionupfitter.com/coll...s/portable-diesel-heater-2d-12v-high-altitude
As far as a technical solution goes, it seems to hit all the requirements. It pulls air in from the outside and heats it to provide us warm oxygenated air to breathe and be comfortable while sleeping in our hermetically sealed FSR tent. As far as the price... I might need a couple more cold nights before I‘m totally talked into it.
Does anyone else have any other solutions (DIY or off the shelf) they’d recommend?
Following up on the review of the FSR High Country RTT’s, the door sucks. The tent is equipped with 3 windows and 1 door. Each window has the screen on the outside of the tent and the insulated tent wall on the inside of the tent, except for the door where it’s reversed (screen on the inside, insulation on the out. With the windows, you can open the insulated panel as much or as little as you want to allow ventilation into the tent. This can be done comfortably from within the tent. However, operating the door from within the tent, you have to unzip the screen to open the flap and try to tuck it out of the way in some improvised fashion using clothesline clips or similar, or open the flap completely by rolling it up and securing it using the integrated straps intended for this purpose. The real issue comes into play when you consider that only the door can be opened when it’s raining out without soaking the interior of the tent. Additionally, it’s a real pain effectively securing the exterior door flap from within the tent when there’s a lot of bugs out. If I could change anything about the tent it would be to swap the screen and the wall of the tent, or make it one flap that has an internal zipper that allows the tent wall to open to a screened in panel in the door itself.
All the complaints aside, I still think it’s a great tent. There’s some great design considerations FSR did right that put it above other RTT’s for my application. I like that there aren’t flaps over the windows that need to be splayed open with metal arms. That’s just more set up time I want to pretend like I don’t have. I also really like the 80/20 extruded aluminum frame FSR uses. It’s strong and light. A solid floor isn’t structurally needed and I think it adds a lot of unnecissary weight to racks taking a beating with all of the lateral loading they’re likely getting while off road. I also like that the tent insulation hangs inside of the tubular aluminum frame so the frame doesn’t act as a heat sink on cold nights (but then there’s that needing to breathe issue we keep running into).
I’m not saying I wouldn‘t buy an FSR High Country, but I’d certainly add the above considerations to the trade space if I were to do it all over again. If FSR redesigned that damn door, that’d be another story.
Anyway, thanks for reading, and extra thanks for responses.
