We recently had the opportunity to check out Easton Mountain Product’s award-winning Kilo 3P tent—a fly-weight three person tent packing some amazing technology.
One of the most amazing stats about the Kilo 3P jumps right out at you—it weighs (just over) one pound per person, a total of 3.8 pounds for great accommodations for three people. The second stand out detail doesn’t come out until it’s time to set up: the three pole design makes for incredibly easy assembly no matter how bone-headed, tired, or pressed by the elements you may be.
The Kilo 3P is a three season tent—three people, three pounds, three seasons…are you detecting a trend here?—with excellent waterproof construction and a bathtub floor with taped seams to keep you dry under the rain fly almost regardless where you pitched camp. Unless you’re in a flowing river, you’re going to stay dry, and thanks to the rain fly’s skirts, air can still circulate easily while you stay dry. We endured a spring storm of pretty good strength without sacrificing an ounce of comfort.
Set up is a snap due to color-coded poles of Easton’s Carbon ION™ with AirLock™ Connectors. We’re talking trained monkey simple here, which is be a major plus if you get caught setting up camp in the dark or in bad weather. Only slightly less intuitive was the rain fly, with its quick-attach loops, but with the directions or an illustration, you’ll get it once and never have another problem.
Nits to pick are very few: the footprint is sold separately, which would be a nice addition to a tent that retails normally for $500 but can be found for $400. That price alone might be a bit much for some campers to bite off, but the tradeoff of technology, performance, size, and weight means something had to give somewhere—you can have it all, but you will pay for it. And during testing, we broke a pole at the point of one AirLock Connector—our tester had seen any number of rigorous press testing stints, however, and we were being knuckle-scraping stupid/aggressive instead of respecting an investment of this dollar amount (you of course would never do that in a rush to relocate a bit during a downpour).
If you’re packing it in and out yourself and weight is at a premium (which is always is unless you’re camping next to your car), the Easton Mountain Products Kilo 3P is an amazing piece of tech worthy of its awards. Whether all that tech and light weight is worth the investment depends on what you like to put your money into. As long as you’re on good terms with your tent-mates, the Kilo 3P isn’t a bad way of spending hard-earned cash on one of, if not the, best light weight tents available on the market.
