Redverz Hawk II Four Season Mountaineering Tent Reviews

 The most versatile MotoTravel specific tent?  I think so. 

I'm a bit of a tent whore.  Being born and raised in rural Alaska, I've grown up spending a lot of time in a tent, camping, hunting, fishing, and just general exploring.  I've owned several tents over the years, especially in the two years or so as I've been traveling more on a bike than any other form.  Each time I bought a new tent it was due to discovering a tent that had more and more of the personal preferences I've been looking for.  I started off with a Mountain Hardwear tent that I got for free as a teenager and it was still going strong.  I moved on to a Big Agnes two person tent that was very light, semi free standing, and compact.  It seemed great for me on paper as a MotoTravel tent but it was really meant to be a light backpacking tent.  I then moved on to a MSR Hubba Hubba tent.  Like just about all of the MSR camping gear whether it's a cook stove or a tent, it's great gear.  After getting caught in several storms and having to set up the tent in the rain, I decided i wanted something with an external frame system.  Enter the Hilleberg Anjan. 

I still have the MSR and Hilleberg tents but they don't get used much anymore now that I've got the Redverz Hawk II.  With very little practice, you can set up the Redverz in a matter of just a few minutes.  It's stupidly impressive how quickly this shelter can be setup by one person.  The external pole sleeves on the outer tent make it so that you can set up your tent in a downpour while keeping the inside of the tent bone dry.  Being able to crawl into a dry tent makes getting through storms significantly more tolerable.

I spent six weeks essentially living in this tent this summer as I crossed the Trans America Trail and did plenty of other miles and side trips along the way. (My brand new AT now has over 15k miles on it.)  This tent has now been used by me from Alaska to North Carolina to Oregon and a whole lot of in between. 

I was very pleasantly surprised with the amount of air flow despite not being able to remove the outer shell/fly.  While sleeping in the tent in 90+ degree temperatures with extremely high humidity levels in states like North Carolina, Tennessee and Mississippi it wasn't nearly as horrible as I thought it'd be.  Keep in mind that I'm a born and raised Alaskan so temperatures like that are significant to me.  I opened up both sides of the tent, all four doors, and turned the tent so the breeze was flowing through sideways.  Perfect.  I slept fairly comfortably on these nights just on my sleeping pad without any sleeping bag.  This setup allowed for plenty of air flow while being able to keep the screen doors closed and keep the hordes of mosquitoes and ticks away.  Perfect.

On the nights where the temperatures were chillier this summer, I'd leave all four doors closed but open the vent at the top of each vent all the way.  This kept it comfortably warm in the tent while seeming to be a perfect amount of airflow that I woke up every morning with ZERO condensation issues.  Not having significant condensation issues is what makes me rank this tent over all of my others, including my Hilleberg, the worst of my tents when it comes to condensation.

Inside the tent is enough room to actually have two people in the tent unlike a majority of other "two-person tents".  Plus, with both people having a huge vestibule and separate doors to enter and exit from makes this tent extremely functional for a couple to travel together sharing a tent.

This tent is a bomb shelter.  My first night camping in the tent was steady winds strong enough that a Harley (not mine) was blown off of it's kickstand.  That's nearly the equivalent of an aircraft carrier being blown off of it's anchoring.  In the tent though (with every anchor line secured) I was good to go.  I've been in a lot of tents in wind storms and never have I been in one that showed this little of deflection/collapse inside the tent.  The three pole design is stout to put it lightly.  

That being said, it's not the lightest tent out there and you shouldn't expect it to be.  However, it's not an overly large tent at all either.  With three full length tent poles, each with a larger diameter than a most tent poles commonly used now, a full coverage footprint that even covers both of the huge vestibules, and a true full coverage rain fly/outer shell, you've got a beast of a tent that is actually quite small/light considering.  I travel with it in a Giant Loop Rogue (17L sized) dry bag and have a lot of spare space in the bag.  Personal Moto-Travel tip: use a double-ended roll dry bag to store your tent.  On days where you're stuck putting away a wet tent and later have to dry everything out, you're able to open both ends of the dry bag to allow air to pass through the bag and dry it out very quickly. 

In the above pic, you can see the dry bag sideways on the tail of my bike.  Compact bomb shelter.

I keep the Hawk II tent as the only item in my dry bag.  This allows me to leave my panniers secured while I setup my tent in the downpour.  When the tent is set up, I can remove my panniers and go to my shelter that is completely dry inside and camp comfortably. 

I'm not one to write reviews on products unless I'm really impressed with something.  For my moto-travel needs, this tent is the only one that I use now.