Nemo Gear’s backpacking gear will not be low cost, but it surely’s among the lightest, best-made, and most well-thought-out gear you’ll discover available on the market. The corporate’s new Mayfly Osmo two-person backpacking tent exemplifies this. The Mayfly Osmo is fast to arrange, light-weight, and cleverly designed, and it gave an impression of sturdiness in my 5 nights of testing.
The Mayfly is available in two- and three-person variations and sits in Nemo’s backpacking tent line between the ultralight Dragonfly and Hornet sequence and the roomier, heavier Dagger sequence (8/10, WIRED Recommends). The Mayfly is an efficient alternative for backpackers trying to decide up a top quality Nemo tent that weighs a bit of extra however at $400 prices fairly a bit lower than the ultralight Hornet.
The Fundamentals
The Mayfly is a three-season backpacking tent with a path weight of three kilos, 8 ounces for the two-person model I examined. Purists may take difficulty, however to me that places it firmly within the ultralight tent class. Break up between two individuals, every is carrying below 2 kilos. That’s not as gentle because the Nemo Hornet, which has a path weight of simply 2 kilos, but it surely’s effectively below our suggestion to maintain tent weight below 2.5 kilos per individual. The Mayfly can also be $250 cheaper than the Hornet, making it simpler on the pocketbook.
The Mayfly makes use of a semi-freestanding design, very similar to the MSR Freelite we reviewed final yr. This design saves on weight since there are fewer poles, but it surely does imply you must stake out or in any other case safe the foot-end of the tent. In case you’re headed someplace you may camp on onerous rock, it’s value including some additional wire in case you have to get inventive.
There are two tent poles, each aluminum. One is a hubbed three-piece pole that forks above the door. The second spreader pole goes throughout the center and helps keep the steep sidewalls that make the Mayfly surprisingly roomy for its dimensions.
The Mayfly presents 27.9 sq. ft of residing house, with two 7-square-foot vestibule areas for gear storage. In observe, this works out to be a livable, although not roomy, tent for 2. Since I occurred to be testing Nemo’s new Tensor Path sleeping pads as effectively, I can say that two of these match facet by facet, however simply barely (see photograph). There’s just a few inches of room down on the ft for gear, however no matter you place down there will probably be touching the sidewalls, which is usually a recipe for moist gear.