Lunar Duo is great (4.5*), with few exceptions
I purchased the Lunar Duo Explorer Backpacking Tent for a Sierra Nevada trip I just completed. The trip took me and my daughter up into the Ansel Adams Wilderness. The tent performed as advertised in terms of its compact, low weight design. This is my second Six Moons tent in the last 5 years or so. I also own a one person tent design that I use for solo backpacking or bikepacking trips.
Pros: This tent is great if weight is your primary concern. I opted for the 45" carbon fiber poles. I also purchased a Tyvek ground cloth. Because my daughter is a young teen, I was planning on carrying some extra weight around several shared items we would use on our trip, including the tent. I opted for this tent because of its weight to size ratio. The tent is quit roomy. It is rather easy to set up, although I noticed that each time I set it up it got a little easier and faster. It takes a little practice to get the tensioning across all tiedowns correct on the first try. This tent design allows for ample air movement when the side flies are unzipped. During our recent trip we experienced a couple of light downpours. The tent performed as promised keeping us and our stuff dry during the rain. I ended up sealing the tent myself, but am curious how different it would be it I had Six Moons do it before shipping. Either way sealing is important and strongly recommend doing so to ensure full performance.
Cons: This is not a self standing tent design. As a consequence, it can be a challenge to remove debris that ultimately finds its way into the tent. I'm not a big fan of turning a tent inside out, as I feel it puts undo pressure on the zippers. While the issue of debris in the tent isn't a big deal, it can be a slight annoyance. We also found that if you want to pack your tent, but find that it is wet, you can't easily move the tent to a sunny place to expedite it drying out before packing it if it isn't self-standing. While I mentioned in the Pros section that this tent performed well in a light rain event, one of the drawbacks of many ultralight tent designs is that it reduces weight by not having a separate fly. This tent is no different. We found in the cold night that significant condensation developed on this inside of the tent due to the humidity of our breathing. Touching any part of the interior tent roof resulted in drips directly onto us and our stuff. We slept with the vestibule flies closed most nights which reduced the interior air flow. This was mostly because we had a constant threat of rain most nights. Had it been dryer we would have slept with the vestibule flies open, as we did on one of our last nights where we car camped in the White Mountains near the Bristlecone Pine Forest. Being a much dryer environment we were able to sleep with the flies open and did not have the humidity build up on the inside of the tent. With respect to sealing this tent, I found the design of this tent to be a bit more difficult to seal myself than my single person Six Moons design. I might suggest paying Six Moons to seal this tent as opposed to doing it yourself. As noted earlier we also ordered a Tyvek ground sheet. I feel as though the size of the Tyvek cloth delivered was not sufficient to adequately cover the full ground footprint of this tent. I'd have to check, but I believe we ordered the largest ground sheet available online. So I am not sure if there is a larger option available. The Tyvek seemed to be short a few inches relative to the long axis of the tent. The last observation I would make is that the material of this tent tends to sag, particularly when wet. You may want to plan on buying some additional tent guy lines that can be attached to each end of the tent for additional tension. This adds additional weight to the tent due to the guy lines and additional tent pegs needed to secure them (all sold separately). I found the two additional guy lines to be helpful in addressing the sagginess of the tent and to help prevent water from pooling at the edges of the tent on each end. I suspect if wind was an issue the additional guy lines would also be useful.
Summary: Most of my Cons are minor in my view. The nature of selecting a lightweight design comes with some tradeoffs that should be obvious. None of the issues noted were super deal breakers for me. While I can't say how the tent would perform in a significant rain event, the tent performed as expected in a light rain. I would give this tent a 4.5 Star out of 5 based on what I was wanting which was a light weight tent that would keep me and my daughter dry. The other people in our group had a Big Agnes tent. In comparison, their tent was slightly heavier, self-standing, had a much smaller sleeping footprint, and took them much longer to put up and break down even with more experience. They were amazed at the size of the Six Moons design.
