Black Diamond Skylight Review

Black Diamond Skylight
3.5
Overall Rating:
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Brand:
Black Diamond
Size:
2 Person
Rating:
3 Season
Price Range:
$400-$500
Black Diamond Skylight
Avg customer rating on Amazon: 3.0
See more customer reviews.

The Black Diamond Skylight is a 3 season tent, made with ultralight materials and marketed as a 2-3 person tent. Though fitting 3 people is a cram, the tent is roomy and spacious for 2.

While enjoyed by some for its very light build that is ideal for backpacking, it receives low marks from others regarding how well it holds up over time. For a tent priced in the $400-$500 range, that's a big problem, as campers spending that kind of money want to know their tent will remain in top-form long enough to get their money's worth.

Some of the reported problems include the zipper blowing out over time, and the tent not keeping out water. Part of the latter could be due to user error, as you are required to tape the seems yourself, but even users who insist they sealed the seams correctly still experienced weatherproofing problems.

Despite these shortcomings, it is a strong performer in dry weather and scores very well in weighting, especially if you're considering it as a tight-fit 3-person tent.

Video Review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS2tpeuT_g4

Our Tent Review

Features Of The Black Diamond Skylight Tent

The Black Diamond Skylight Tent is a 3 season, 3 or 2 person tent, comfortably that offers a ton of features for those who enjoy outdoor adventures while having a room with a view.

These features include:

  • three-season tent built with a hybrid single/double-wall construction
  • Front 1/3 of the tent has a mesh inner wall for ventilation and for panoramic views of the country side.
  • Nanosheild canopy which rolls up for good weather camping and star gazing and rolls down to create a vestibule during bad weather.
  • Single large door
  • Inside pole set up
  • lightweight aluminum poles (internal DAC Featherlite tent poles offer a high strength-to-weight ratio)
  • 4 mesh pockets for storage
  • Lightweight materials for easy carrying while backpacking.
  • Average Packed Weight : 2.26 kg, 5 lb – Minimum Weight : 1.88 kg, 4 lb 2 oz

Pros and Cons Of This Tent

Backpacker Magazine – Gear Guide 2010 – Recognized as Lightest Mountaineering Tent

While this Black Diamond Tent got good reviews overall, they were somewhat mixed. While many reviewers loved this tent and had nothing but high praise for all of it’s features others were less generous in their praise and even found a few disadvantages that they felt were significant.

Here are the pros and cons that users of the Black Diamond Skylight 3 season tent found to be worth mentioning.

Pros

There were many features of the Black Diamond 2 person tent that users really liked these included:

  • Attached roll up fly
  • Durable constructions
  • Comfortable
  • Lightweight
  • Good tent stakes
  • Skylight (which was the one feature that received the most raves and was also most mentioned, it seems that even campers love to have a room with a view)
  • Great 2 person tent but tight fit for 3

Cons

As much as most reviewers liked this tent there were some things they didn’t like or found difficult to get used to. Here are the things they found not to their liking.

  • Awkward assembly. It seems that having the pole assembly inside the tent made it challenging to set up. While some reviewers soon got the hang of it after a few times others continued to find setting up this tent somewhat difficult.
  • Condensation. Several reviewers both those who gave positive and those who gave negative reviews found that these tents did tend to have condensation especially when the front third needed to be closed due to weather.
  • Seams not factory sealed. This seemed to be a major issue with many reviews who felt that for the price of this tent the seams should have been factory sealed. The company does send sealant with the tent but most reviewers found that one tube was not enough to properly seal the seams.

Overall

Overall, the Black Diamond Skylight 3 or 2 person tent (more comfortably a 2 person tent) serves as a viable ultra light backpacking tent, but particularly in dry climates.

This may well be one you will enjoy especially when pitching in areas where there are great views to be enjoyed as long as you don’t mind a little condensation on occasion when you wake up in the morning.

Just be sure to take the time to seal the seams of this Black Diamond tent before taking off on your hike as they are not factory sealed.

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