Eulogy For a Tent

I can still remember the first time I got into it.  The tent had been a birthday gift from Mary in January, but we waited until we had a sleeping bag and pad that fit before we tried it out.  It was a couple of weeks before our first backcountry trip when the two-person, down filled bag arrived in the mail.  We decided to set the Marmot Earlylight backpacking tent in the living room of our apartment just to try it out.  It was a 2 person tent, provided the two people really liked each other, a domed tent with pumpkin orange sides and an entirely screen top.  With the rain fly off, it provided great site lines in all directions.  Our Big Agnes 2 person sleeping bag fit perfectly.  I was able to lie on my back and extend my legs completely without pushing against the far wall.  I remember us laying there in our apartment, trying to imagine what it would be like sleeping on a mountain, our two cats peering in curiously from outside the new contraption.

The first voyage was quite a bit less cozy.  We spent the inaugural night in our new digs on an exposed ridge in Shenandoah National Park during a severe thunderstorm.  The winds howled in ever increasing gusts that threatened to tear the tent in two.  We cowered inside; imagining every noise in the dark of the woods was a bloodthirsty bear stalking towards us.  Needless to say, we didn’t sleep a wink!

We would go on to have better nights in the Marmot tent.  Some of my favorites: sleeping beneath the towering mass of Rising Wolf Mountain in Glacier National Park, watching the sun melt into the horizon from the summit of Killington on the Long Trail in Vermont, waiting out days worth of rain in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota, the rain eventually soaking our every piece of equipment.  On Isle Royale, camped at East Chickenbone Lake, we listened to a pair of Great Horned Owls call back and forth over our tent.  At Seawall Campground in Acadia National Park, our tent was shelter from a terrifying storm that blasted the Atlantic Coast, taking two lives in neighboring New Hampshire. 

In all we’ve spent over a hundred nights in the Marmot Earlylight.  It’s been our home away from home in the north woods of Canada, the mountains of Appalachia and along many a lakeshore.  I can’t help but wonder how many woodland critters have scurried or lumbered past it, pausing to sniff its contents while we slept. 

It has been a good tent, but its time has come and gone.  Holes have appeared in the screen, an unforgivable weakness during mosquito season!  Nostalgia aside, I am always eager to pick out new gear and take advantage of advances in technology.  That said, our next tent may be lighter and may be roomier, but it will have a lot of nights to log to catch up to this one!