Your tent is one of the most important pieces of gear to anyone who spends time in the backcountry, whether you're family camping, river running, on an extended multi-day bike trip or backpacking.  And we're all pretty much looking for the same features - lightweight, easy and fast to pitch even under difficult terrain conditions and strong enough to be able to withstand the elements of wind, rain and extreme weather.  Sierra Designs has been engineering tents to meet our conditions and stringent demands for many years.  And their new Baku series is no exception.  

Three designs make up the series, one, two and three person sizes, all rated 3-season.  The Baku 1 has a vestibule mesh Stash Door and a traditional drop door on the other side. Two doors, freestanding, room to sit up, a covered vestibule-all at three pounds and 17 square feet of floor area. The Baku 2 has two doors, two vestibules and yet is only four pounds. The fixed vestibules cover mesh Stash Doors, while the ends of the tent body are single-walled silicon treated 40-denier nylon, allowing you to pitch the tent as one piece for faster set-up, quieter living and weatherproof construction in its 28 square feet.  The Granddaddy is the three-person Baku 3.  A much larger footprint, a whopping 42 square feet, means more sleeping space and another four square feet of covered vestibule area.  Still, less than five pounds with two doors and two vestibules, the Baku 3 is a very weight-efficient three-person tent.  All three tents in the Baku series feature Clip-Locs, DAC Featherlite NSL poles with locking tips, gear pockets, a lightweight (built-in!) rain fly, stash door, swift clips and SuperSeal floors.

Update:  We tested the Baku 3 on our recent kayak trip in the Escalante Arm of Lake Powell.  Our base camp was set o.n a beautiful and secluded sandy beach.  Anyone who has spent time on the lake knows how the wind can howl from one end of Glen Canyon to the other, kicking up three foot whitecaps in the main channel and fierce sandstorms on the shores.  Because of the sandy surface, we reinforced the tent stakes with rocks and settled in.  Sure enough, here came brother wind!  Baku 3 didn't mind a bit, like it was welcoming a challenge.  Next morning, our kayak buddies were shaking out buckets of sand from their tents.  Nary a thimbleful in the Baku.  In Salt Lake, Canyon Sports; Info-now! code BIKE and Wild Rose are Sierra Design dealers.