MLD DuoMid Review | Ultralight Winter Tent 

Nice one 👍 I did take a look at that wee A frame type configuration but in the end found that the centre pole doesn't bother me. Can you set up the bivvy with the centre pole in place? Or do you rig up the bivvy in the middle? One defo other good thing about that A frame setup with a bivvy is that you would be able to use the space at the back of the DuoMid that you can't access with the half inner up. I can't remember if it was that bivvy or not, but one of them had more nylon rather than mesh for wind blocking which I thought was a good idea, especially for winter! 🙂 Cheers! 🐾👍

Hounds of Howgate I think the A frame set up could be used with an inner or Bivvy. You may have to purchase a couple of dyneema stick on mitten hooks and mod it to make it fit but the additional space it gives is awesome. For a couple of quid or so it's worth playing with this set up.

For sure! Aye, I'll need to have a wee experiment with the a-frame methinks! 🐾👍

Another tip with myog dpte is that the thread on the end of some trekking poles (such as the black diamond trail corks that I use) fits perfectly with thread in caulk nozzles. So put a bit of gaffa tape around a nozzle and hammer it in the carbon fibre pole and you've got yourself a solid screw-on dpte. For the joint I used some heat shrink.

@@hoisinholdup your the man to talk to if I ever go down that setup for sure! Cheers! 🐾👍

Thanks man! 🙂🐾👍

Haha, cheers man! 🙂🐾👍

Nice one! Aye, the whole wet and dry halves have worked so well for me in the crappy weather months. It's a great versatile system for sure! Cheers Phil! 🍻🙂🐾👍

Hounds of Howgate Like you can even unclip the inner at the top when you want a bit more interior space, say for when your cooking or getting changed or whatever, then when it’s time to sleep just clip it back up to keep the bugs off. And say if you stop for lunch and the midgies are really bad you can just pop the inner up in a couple of seconds and have your lunch in peace. I’ll be getting the double inner too for when I go out with my girlfriend, I’ll probably use a two pole set up so there isn’t a pole between us. So modular and versatile. It’s a banging set up 🤙

Thanks Pete! 🙂🐾👍

Thanks Allan 🙂🐾👍

Thanks! Haha, soon I hope! 👍 It's just finding the time this year what with the cottage build and holidays etc. Hopefully service will return to normal shortly! 🙂🐾👍

Haha 🙌 🙂🐾👍

Hounds of Howgate hope you get some snow would be interesting😝 to see ya in those skis stoating about in 6 ft of snow .

Hounds of Howgate just need some snow and some husky’s / collies

@@nilesdelta8636 haha, defo! 🐾👍

Thanks! Yeah, I like the Luxe tents as they can be bad into hot tents too, can't they? The only trade off with the reduced cost is that they are heavier. 🙂🐾👍

Hi Justin, we are thank you. Hope you are well too! Yeah, it's been hard finding the time not only to get out hiking but even to do any editing! Cheers! 🐾👍

You take your time and look after yourself buddy, don’t burn yourself out. ... Blimey, I sound more like my old man every year! 😁

Thanks Jerry! 👍 Another tent to mabies check out is the likes of the Zpacks Duplex. I have reviewed mine on my RU-vid channel and also made a comparison vid between that and the DuoMid in the is vid. Cheers! 🐾👍

You can't go wrong with MLD, their gear is made to a really high standard. Another fairly popular brand in the UK is Tarptent, but I've got no experience myself

@@hoisinholdup I have a TarpTent cloudburst 3, it's incredibly nice. I just like trying new stuff. plus if I spend $ on something, i'm going to use it and it forces me to be active :) I will check out MLD

@@eakinj me too! I'm a bit of a gear freak unfortunately. 😱😉😆🐾👍

@@HoundsofHowgate I don't see that as a bad thing :)

Thanks! 🐾👍

🙂🐾👍

@@HoundsofHowgate 🐾🐾🦔

Defo! That sort of setup is perfect for Scotland in more rubbishy weather. 👌 The hexpeak is the one that you can put a stove in, isn't it? Cheers! 🐾👍

@@HoundsofHowgate no, that the minipeak xl, hexpeak more of a golite copy

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-R69bprAhjNs.html

@@WanderingJay ah right, cool.

Hi Richard, thanks! 👍 I've not used the silnylon version of the actual Duomid but have used silnylon elsewhere. Both have their pros and cons. So on paper you would say: Flex/stretch: more with silnylon. Weight: less with DCF. Water absorption: more with silnylon. Cost: less with silnylon. BUT that's not the whole story in reality... You might think stretch in silnylon is bad as you possibly might have to tighten the guys in the night. But as the fabric has more give it might not pull the stakes as much or catastrophically fail. Or as the Duomid is a particular cut and DCF doesn't pull about as much then you could say the silnylon is more forgiving to pitch in uneaven ground. DCF is lighter but does it pack away as easily or as small as silnylon? DCF can be bulky. Silnylon may technically wet out a bit and hold some water while DCF does not but water droplets can still cling to DCF fabric and you have to shake and wipe it down to shed it. The heavier when wet isn't as clear cut as you would think in practical terms. Is the cost of DCF over silnylon worth it considering? All in, as with most things, it's picking your priorities and accepting what you can live with. Those depend on many factors. So it really depends on your: priorities, use, environment, budget, cross purpose use, longevity, personal likes etc. Talking about longevity, that really depends on how tough you are on your gear, the environment and such but out of the two, silnylon will much likely last a lot longer. So what I would say is that if weight was not your top priority then I would be more inclined towards getting the silnylon version. However if you use the silnylon version with a full inner then you are getting pretty close to the weight of many other lightweight more traditional tents that may be of more utility (depending on some of the other factors previously mentioned). As for the Duomid in particular, I think Ron the owner of MLD actually designed it with silnylon in mind, not DCF. But don't quote me on that. 🤔 Anyway, hope that helped a wee bit rather than cause more contemplation! Cheers! 🙂🐾👍

@@HoundsofHowgate Thankyou, John. Very informative and helpful. Atb. Richard

I'm 6ft 3. It just does me but it's tight. I use the MLD Solomid XL inner with it.

Hi there, no worries! 👍 Hmm, as the inner hangs you would have to unhook it from whatever it was hanging off before putting up the outer. The inner is so quick to erect I don't thing changing from an inner only to fly then inner would take hardly any time. It's not like the inner clips through poles or any of that jazz, know what I mean. Basically to put up the inner you just hang the top from something. In the case of my usual setup it's just a mitten hook at the top through a wee toggle. Then you can peg out the bottom of the inner if you like. If you had the inner hanging off of something you would just unhook the top, fling the fly over it and peg it out. Put the pole up, get in and then hook the inner to the top of the fly. So aye, I think this would work for you. 🙂🐾👍

@@HoundsofHowgate Thanks- that makes sense. I've been thinking of the duomid (or possibly solomid XL for a smaller footprint) primarily for the reason you describe of having a separate wet and dry area. It seems like no matter how well I avoid getting rain in my tent during setup, it is my wet self and clothes that end up bringing water inside anyway.

@@Nasgareth Totally. It's more or less impossible in a normal tent to keep all your gear dry if you are out over multiple nights and getting soaked all day. Being able to keep the half inner (nest) dry and strip off in the wet half and store all your gear there before changing and getting sorted out in the dry nest is great! 🐾👍

@@Nasgareth oh yeah, I don't know how big the SoloMid is but you'd defo want to make sure you have space to organise yourself in one half of the tent which you designate as your wet area. You could erect the fly, get change and then put up the inner when inside I maybe think...you'd have to look into that one. The SoloMid might be a bit tight for actually getting dressed and undressed in only half the tent. If you just want the wet half to store dry gear then you would be fine of course. 👍

@@HoundsofHowgate Right, today I've taken to arranging various mats and objects in my living room to get a sense of the space of each. MLD's site lists the solomid XL at 137 cm wide vs the duo at 160cm. So, not huge, but I think I may resent a too small space inside more than a slightly larger footprint. Of course anything would be an improvement over my current fly creek tent which I've modified a bit to at least be able to set up the fly first, and then awkwardly crawl around inside connecting an inner which consumes almost all the space inside.

Aye, nobody wants to see that! Me talking nonsense to a stranger 😆 I don't find the pole to be a nuisance as it's my winter tent and I'm not moving about in it a lot. Usually I pitch and then more or less get right into my sleeping bag and lie there. In the summer it might be more of a pain. I don't really think so though, not for me personally. You can rig up an A frame with two trekking poles and an adapter though. That gets rid of the pole in the middle of the tent. One of the guys was talking about it in the comments here and I've seen it online and on RU-vid. So aye, if it was a bother you could rig that wee system up and you'd be laughing. 🙂🐾👍

Thanks! Aye, I'm 6'2". Yeah, that half inner I have is quite small so it lightly touches my head and bottom of the sleeping bag. It's more to do with the slop angle rather than the actual length of the thing. I can't say that my head or bottom of my sleeping bag touching the mesh caused any problems right enough. I'd defo call the one I have a sleeping 'nest' inside a tarp, rather than a tent with an inner as we are used to. The half inner I have isn't really designed to be used with that tarp you see. 🙂🐾👍

@@HoundsofHowgate Thank you. I'm 6 f, so i'm looking for a solid inner tent that allows me to fully stretch without my sleeping bag touching the slope of the inner, considering also the tickness of the mat.

@@MG-ke5ex the full size inner that is designed for this would fit it properly and probably give you the room you are looking for. Plus there is also the Duomid XL: this is the standard one. The only downside to that is with the full inner you start getting towards the weight of lightweight normal tents so you start to loose the advantage of the weight saving and may as well look at other shelters. It's always compromise somewhere: it can be maddening finding the perfect bit of kit! Especially for us taller guys. 🐾👍

@@MG-ke5ex is it a winter shelter you are looking at? If not maybe check out my channel for my Zpacks Duplex review and my other vid comparing the Duomid and Duplex. I find the Duplex is ideal for me for 3 seasons: plenty of space too. 🐾👍

@@HoundsofHowgate I'm looking for a shelter with solid (or partial solid) inner, not just mesh, i'm not a person for single wall tent or double wall wih inner just mesh (which is like single wall for me lol). Weight up to 1.2 kilos maximum. I've always had silnylon tent so far, but i want to change as they soak to much, they suffer wet condition too much. So i'm looking for poly or dcf (hence duomid). But i have to consider that i'm 6f tall, and i had experice where my sleeping bag got wet because was touching the side slopes of the inner tent; the body heat touching the cold surface of the inner build up condensation and the inner got wet so did the sleeping bag. This happens more in cold temperatures. Also a mesh inner probably suffer less that because the heat can spread out better. So When buying a tent i must be sure i have room enough from the inner tent. The full size inner you are talking about is also longer or just wider as looking at the mld website the lenght seems to be the same for the solomid inner and the duomid inner? Btw love Scotland, been there a few time, beautiful place :)

I don't, no. Scotland's not a particularly sandy place so I can't talk about that but it does rain a lot so I can say some things... One of the biggest things is that with the DCF Duomid the cut is such that no matter how low you pitch it to the ground there are always raised gaps at the sides (designed to allow airflow I presume) especially at the front where the door is. With that in mind I'm normally careful with camp site selection and tent orientation to minimise any issues from wind blown stuff. I don't find it a problem with rain as it usually comes down or from one direction but I could see it being an issue with wind blown sand or snow that would swirl around rather than blow from one direction. However as the mesh is very fine on the inner then I think that would probably block fine and light sand or snow. That is presuming it's the half inner and it's at the back away from the raised nose at the zip. The fine mesh isn't as resistant to water droplets though and blown stuff isn't an issue but more any condensation. So that's probably why there is that increased airflow gap allowance in the first place: to minimise condensation. I can't say I've found condensation being dropped on me from the tent shaking in the wind to have been a problem though. Any that does fall seems to be deflected by the mesh. If anything gets through its just a little bit. One thing of interest is that as the Silnylon material is stretch you can actually get a pitch lower to the ground and that may actually be advantageous is some situations. Either way on a level pitch the only gap of note is the one under the front zipper. At it's lowest pitch, sleeping at the back in the half inner with mindful campsite selection, I've never found wind blown rain to be a problem. On a surface that is not level though, sometimes the gaps can be pretty big. I turbulent wind conditions with fine particles blowing about they would definitely get under the tarp I would say. Then it would come down to how effective the mesh inner would be at stopping that. For sand it would probably be fine but for wet snow I'd probably like to have the option of having an inner with some solid material on the bottom half. Of course that starts to push the eight of the system up and you start to loose the weight advantages of the UL shelter. In that case, with a solid fabric inner I think you would start getting into the weight territory where a more traditional lightweight shelter may offer more advantages in such conditions... It's a hard one! Where about are you hiking? Hope that helped a wee bit by the way! 🙂🐾👍

Hounds of Howgate Awesome!! Thank you sir! This helped me a lot!

@@justinclark6053 no worries good sir: glad it helped! If you have any more questions the just ask away! 🙂🐾👍

Thanks! 👍 Yeah man, totally fine at 6'2". I think any more than 6'4" would be tight. Depends on if you want to use an inner or not right enough. If you are going to get the half inner defo go for the Duomid XL inner. It fits inside the Duomid but allows more room for you. Plus there is still plenty of a gap between the inner and outer. I think the normal Duomid half inner would be too short for me at 6'2". You'll be pressing the fabric in the half XL yourself at 6'4" but you would probably not be touching the outer, which is the main thing. I made a Duomid vs. Duplex vid and in that I think I have some more inside footage that might help you make up your mind. Oh yeah, when you look on some of the forum posts you see folk talking about the Duomid size but check the date of posting: MLD increased the size of the DuoMid a few years back. It also depends on how you sleep too; it's fine when I'm stretched out but I tend to sleep on my side with my legs bent so I don't use up the full length of my standing height. I'd say 6'4" is right on the limit for sleeping in the normal configuration so it's a difficult call. Depends on how you want to use it and in what season too, as the loft of your sleeping bag and depth of mats will come into it. There is the option of using a two pole setup and sleeping diagonally. I think with the likes of the Duplex at 6'4" you'd defo have to do that as the walls are shallower than the Duomid. There are a few other UL tent makers that cater for tall folk by the way. Check out 'Lionheart' for example. Have a look at that other vid and by all means give us a shout if you have any other questions etc. Cheers man! 🐾👍

@@HoundsofHowgate Thank you so much for the prompt reply and info. MLD makes a XXL solomid inner and outer that is 15% longer, wider and taller. Concerns - 1) SMD XL in DCF is $15 more than the Duo in DCF; each with the silnylon 1/2 XL inner. 2) is there enough room between the innner and door for "wet" gear and such, like the duo? The XXL solo width is 60", L is 118", ht is 58", where the Duo width is 66", L is 108" ht is 56"

@@barondavis5692 Hmm, that's a hard one. As the SoloMid XXL is the same length but 2" higher then the walls will be a bit steeper. That will give you a wee bit more usable space inside and help with side clearance at the head and foot; so size wise then that would probably be more suitable for a taller user to make sure you have the maximum room. On the other hand it being 6" smaller in terms of vestibule space then might make it too tight to move about inside the vestibule. That is actually squatting down and moving about in the vestibule half itself. If you just want a space to store your wet gear etc then there are no worries there. You could go up to a bigger Duomid or Supermid but then you start to increase the footprint so campsite selection would come in more... plus they cost a lot more and have to be taller so the bigger footprint is usable. Having to sacrifice a bit of vestibule space for something that is defo going to fit you would probably make the SoloMid XXL the wisest choice. Especially as Ron has advised that and they say the Duomid is for a user of 6'3" max. 🐾👍

@@barondavis5692 oh yeah, plus the SoloMid XXL is a lot longer. 10" longer and 2" higher will defo make it much better for a taller hiker than the Duomid. So it really comes down to just the vestibule space. You'll have enough to store your wet gear but just not enough to crawl about in I think. 🐾👍

Hounds of Howgate thanks again for the advice. I went on a 3 hour hike today thinking the same thing. Now, do I get the silnylon tarp and silnylon inner for $420 or the DCF tarp for $620? Big difference. Is the DCF worth it?