Yesterday my hiking buddy asked me to accompany him on a quest to obtain a replacement for his aging backpacking tent. Since we live close to Tarptent's base of operation in NorCal,(unfortunately a very smokey Norcal at this time due to numerous forest fires), and made an appointment with Henry Shires to look at the Notch. When we arrived Henry was busy in his workshop with his energetic son, but he gladly set up a Notch and instructed my friend in the setup and features of the tent. He had a humble and intelligent vibe and we discussed various ultralight topics after he set up the tent. Overall a very enjoyable experience, except for the smoke in this parched and forest fire besotted land. My friend bought the tent, but I became interested in its design and simple set up. It is very easy to achieve a drum tight pitch with this tent. However I am concerned about two things about the tent and was hoping owners of the tent could help me out. Wind resistance and condensation. I have an early Tarptent Moment and find the condensation to be considerable in most conditions and was wondering how the Notch fares in comparison. Just from looking at the set up tent, I have a feeling it does well in wind. Any comments would be welcome, but please only from owners of the Notch. Thanks

I have only had one trip with my Notch. 7nights mid summer in the N.Cascades/ Washington. experienced no rain or wet conditions- no earth shocker here, no issues with condensation. and only mild wind. the videos of how to pitch the tent suggest that it's best to pitch it with the "A"sides into the wind and with only four tent stakes. the sites I was using, it was hard to find a level site let alone one that allowed a tent to be rotated into or away from the wind. I can see where in a good wind this tent could be hand full if a person were forced to pitch front "on to the wind" only relying on 4stakes..I'm making it a point to carry 6 in the future. my biggest issue is with the packed size. the 17" carbon tubes that make up the "A" ends make the rolled up tent hard to pack inside of a backpack because of the rolled up length. I plan to buy slighter smaller size carbon tubes and remove these when packing the tent into the pack. will probably add about 2-3 minuets to the pitching/striking process - the smaller .tubes will be easy to slip into the waterbag sleeve inside of my pack) that's about it, overall I think it's a great lightweight tent. modifications are just me electing to fine tune the tent to my personal camping style. hope this helps some