BOTTOM LINE
The Durston X-Mid Pro 2 is a popular tent in ultralight circles, and we can see why. It’s lightweight, spacious, provides excellent weather protection, and has great ventilation. But for us the X-Mid missed the mark in a few key areas. We still think it’s a great shelter for solo hikers who want a luxurious amount of space without much weight gain over an ultralight single-person tent, but we’re not quite as keen on this shelter when shared with a partner.
Where we seem to differ in opinion the most from other accounts we’ve read is on the matter of spaciousness. For us, the parallelogram floor shape and the offset poles make the interior a bit awkward to occupy with a partner, as one person will get the short end of the stick when it comes to headroom.
The other key issue we had with this tent is that getting a really nice, taut pitch with no sag isn’t the easiest. The large footprint and rectangular shape can make campsite selection more tedious than it is with other tents, and we’re not fond of having to struggle with a perfect pitch after a hard day on the trail.
Durston nails many of the details that make for a truly great tent experience, like well designed vestibules, smart pockets, and outstanding ventilation. But for our two-person adventures, we found that the X-Mid fell a bit short of our high expectations.
