The Night the Storm Rolled Over Big South Fork

The rain started just after 2 a.m., and it didn't come in politely. It came sideways, the kind of wind that makes you lie still and listen to every seam. I was in the Naturehike Cloud-Up 2, pitched on a ridgeline in Big South Fork, about nine miles from the Outback, and for the first hour I just lay there doing the math on how wet I was willing to get before I bailed.

I'm Wes Harlan, 54, a retired PE teacher from outside Louisville, Kentucky. I've been camping about twenty years and backpacking for maybe eight of them. My left knee and my lower back make me picky about weight, which is the whole reason this tent was in my pack. This was my third solo trip of the season, a two-nighter in the Big South Fork backcountry, and I'd brought the Cloud-Up 2 because it was the lightest tent I owned that I actually trusted to stand up.

The tent weighs right around three and a half pounds with the footprint, and every pound I save matters by mile six, when my lower back starts reminding me it exists. It packs down small enough to stand upright in the side pocket of my TETON Sports Explorer 65L. Setup is two poles, color-coded clips, and about six minutes the first time I tried it in the backyard. It's faster now.

The afternoon before the storm was the kind of perfect that makes you forget the forecast. I hung my food bag, filtered water through my Sawyer Squeeze, and cooked dinner sitting on my Therm-a-Rest Z Lite Sol pad with my back against a log. The tent was pitched on a small rise, door facing the trail, both guylines out. I remember thinking the site was a little exposed. I remember thinking I didn't care.

The wind hit first, around 1:45 a.m. Then the rain, then the wind again, harder. Lightning lit the fly every few seconds, and the whole tent leaned and snapped back like a kite on a string. I used my Black Diamond Trail poles to guy out the windward side, and I lay there listening to the fly drum and waiting for something to fail. I've been through worse in a tent, but not in one that weighed three and a half pounds, and not alone, and not nine miles from the Outback.

Nine hours of wind and rain, and the only thing that got wet was the stuff I'd left outside the vestibule.

I checked the tent at first light. The fly had held, the seams had held, and the bathtub floor had kept the water where it belonged, which is to say outside. The footprint did its job too. I'd bought the Cloud-Up 2 with the matching footprint, and on that soggy morning I was glad I had. I packed a wet tent into a dry pack and hiked out with the sun on my face, which is about the best ending a rainy night can have.

What impressed me more was the calm inside. The wind never collapsed the poles, even when a gust hit the broad side. The poles flexed and the whole tent bowed, but nothing snapped and nothing tore. I've had cheaper tents fail in less, and I've spent wet nights in tents that weighed twice as much and did half as well. That night in Big South Fork is the night I stopped worrying about the weight trade-off.

The rest of the trip was uneventful, which is exactly what you want from a tent. The second night was clear and cold, and I slept with the fly half off so I could watch the stars. The tent was still standing square when I broke it down, and it packed back into the same little stuff sack without a fight. A tent that disappears when you're done with it is a tent that makes you want to go back out.

I've used the Naturehike Cloud-Up 2 for a full season now. It's been to Red River Gorge, back to Big South Fork, and on the annual week in the Smokies with Dana, though she sleeps in the big family tent on car-camping trips and leaves this one to me. I've had it out in steady rain, in wind I should not have camped in, and in the kind of cold that makes the fly go stiff. It has not let me down.

One thing I'll note for anyone shopping this tent: the two-person rating is honest for two hikers who don't mind cozy, and generous for one. I sleep alone in mine, which means plenty of room for my pack in the vestibule and my boots under the fly. If you're sharing it with Dana, you'd want to be friends. That's not a complaint. It's a description.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If you were sitting at my kitchen table, I'd tell you this. The Naturehike Cloud-Up 2 is not a tent for people who want to be seen with a certain logo on the door. It's a tent for people who want to sleep dry, carry less, and not think about their gear. My left knee and my lower back are the reason I bought it, and after a season of use, they're the reason I'd buy it again. Nobody paid me to say that. I bought this tent with my own money, same as the TETON pack and the Sawyer Squeeze and everything else I carry. If it had failed on that ridgeline, you'd be reading a different kind of story. It's a three-season tent, and that's all I'll claim for it. If you're planning to winter camp on an exposed peak, buy something heavier. If you're a weekend backpacker like me, tired of carrying a tent that weighs more than your pack should, this one deserves a hard look.