Customer Reviews

Eureka! K-2 XT - Tent (sleeps 3)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This has to be my favorite Eureka 4-season tent. If I only had one tent for everything (yeah, right!), this would be the one. The geodesic dome shape (4 aircraft aluminum poles) is incredibly strong...maybe the strongest of all tent designs. Ripstop fabric with extra waterproof coating will stop rain, snow and ice and the unique guy-line arrangement gives me some flexibilty when anchoring this tent. Like my Alpenlite 2XT, this tent comes with two vestibules and the rear vesti can be accessed from inside the tent via a second/back door. I wasn't sure about all the vents at first but I'm finding that they make the tent a good choice for warmer weather, too! I've posted a bunch of pictures for this tent so take a look. If there is a down side to this tent...it's a bit heavy for a backpack. The fix for this?...I fall back on Boy Scout training and divide the components. I'll carry the tent body and my friend Sharon Sharalike gets the rainfly, poles and stakes. An outstanding tent!!!

I own an earlier model of this tent. It is magnificent (it is also slightly more heavy duty than the current K2-XT, with the specs matching or exceeding other leading 4 season two person tents in the same class at the time).

Before I purchased it, I invested numerous hours researching Eureka, The Northface, Marmot, Helsport, and various other tent manufacturers - looking into all the info they had to offer in respect to exactly what, where, and by whom their tents and tent materials were made by. I came to discover that all of the 4 season tents offered in the American market were made entirely in Asia from Asian parts and materials. The only exception to this was Helsport, which was made and assembled entirely in Europe (and may still be).

In fact, I also came to find out that another of the big tent names used precisely the same factories in China and elsewhere across Asia, and exactly the same materials (made by the same manufacturers) to make its top end 4 season tents as did/does Eureka for their's. What other tents you might ask? Turn your face to the north and ask that question again.

Regardless, this Eureka K2 XT tent really is a wonderful piece of equipment. If you can only have one tent for two people, and expect the tent to stand up to pretty much any climate, any weather, and to last for many years even under heavy use - get this tent. However, please do be aware that it is not the lightest of shelters what that can be had, which is where dividing it up between two people's backpacks is the way to go. This is the price you pay for maximum duty materials and a spacious floor plan (the tent will sleep three adults without discomfort).

It would be nice, however, if Eureka (and others) would be so nice as to offer either choices of tent rain fly colors (the K2 XT is sun yellow, as are most tents of its 4 season nature) making available perhaps a snow field white fly and a camoflauge fly; or else if kits could be offered to alter or elsewise jazz-up one's rain fly on the tent.

But anyway, if you do make a smart choice and purchase a K2 XT tent, go ahead and get a net gear loft for the tent, and purchase some strong tent pegs, with an eye for good deals on titanium pegs on eBay.

The K2 XT is truly a fine piece of camping/mountaineering/survival equipment. The tent manufacturers missed an excellent opportunity to put themselves to the test, big time and in big ways, during hurricane Katrina. I bet if you could have dug in a bit and then staked and roped it down securely enough that a K2 XT would have survived the storm (excluding flying debris). The tent is that strong. Please understand that I am not saying to go out and put yourself in the path of a dangerous storm of that magnitude, just to see if the gear will hold up. I am simply saying that having a K2 XT tent available to you would hugely increase one's chances of surviving a storm such as Katrina, if you were caught in the wild facing such a storm.

Buy one and see for yourself.

well i do high mountain climbing quite often and never seen an eureka there, the reasons?
too heavy (compared to similar tents like the hillebergs or the ev25 from north face) and under very heavy conditions simply not tested enough, i had seen one of these rip under extreme weather on mt ranier, had to take the guys into our tent, they were not happy.
My tent? a hilleberg saiva. But this is the review of the eureka and my experience is that for cold climate is not suited I slept in one this winter and it was -22 celsius, it was like sleeping outside, with all the mesh, no heat was trapped inside and we had ice forming on the inside of the outer layer.
All in all not a tent i would recommend if you are going to use it in extreme conditions (aka I won't bet my life on it for sure).
for all other uses it might be fine but the weight is just a lot, on the other hand the price is interesting.

My wife and I have used this tent in cold winter with lots of snow and hot summer nights with lots of rain.The K2-XT has lots of venting for summer temps and will close up tightly if sub zero breezes need to be totally kept out for some reason..poor sleeping bag?The brilliant fly colour makes this outstanding tent stand out.. But for stealth camping it would be nice if manufacturers offered a choice of fly colours.The materials used by Eureka on the K2-XT are tough and look and feel top knotch.We have slept in winds over 40 mph when gusts might frighten some sane folks.We used oversized stakes.The many guyouts did their job and there was no damage to poles or tent body or fly materials.No footprint was available so I made one to fit from plastic tarp material. Happy camping!

We purchased this tent because the floorplan is nearly identical to my husband's early 90's Quest tent which he dearly loved but it's time for it to retire, and they don't make them anymore.

We go backpacking and snow camping and wanted a tent that could do both. Most 4 season tents have so few vents that summer camping would be unbearable. So we thought this would be great. We figured with the pricetag, it had to be a decent tent, on par with MSR, NorthFace, REI, etc. right? NO, DO NOT BUY this tent if that's the quality you are seeking. It's a cheap tent, not made for "expeditions" as they claim.

The seams are sewn with a basting stitch (very easy to rip), and the only ones sealed are those on the rainfly. The fabric of the tent floor is about the same as that on the sides, and seems like if you happened to pitch it on a twig or rock, it would rip straight through in no time (it's even translucent!). The zippers are cheap, not intended for a quality rain resistant tent, and could prove to be a major source of heat loss in winter camping, since they aren't designed to seal at all. The tent weighs a whopping 11 lbs 12 oz, which is largely due to all the hooks, ropes, plastic window, etc, as well as the cotton mesh used to hold the tent poles. We thought the weight wouldn't be a problem, since his old tent is 9 lbs, but the packed size is about double what his old tent was.

When we bought this, we had already spent about 8 hours shopping for tents at local suppliers (REI and other outdoor specialty stores), and just didn't find anything that felt right layout-wise, so we went with this. The differences in construction details were ASTONISHINGLY BAD. An REI, MSR, Northface tent costs about the same and will last you for years to come. We ended up buying a MSR Mo Room 3 after this experience, and spent less $, since it was online with REIoutlet.com.

I really wanted to like this tent, since we loved the floorplan and the zip-up windows, but were just astonished to see how poor the construction quality was and how HUGE the packed tent was. Stick with the well-known brands if you are serious about "expedition" or even cold weather camping.

This tent has worked out great so far. The vents and air flow options make it a superb tent for all conditions. It easily withstood a storm that included 3 inches of rain and winds exceeding 35 mph.