My Experience With The Marmot Limelight 3
The Marmot Limelight 3 is a great value for a 3 person backpacking tent.
It comes with a footprint and gear loft, extras that would normally cost $50 more.
It has 2 doors, 2 vestibules, and a window in each vestibule for checking the weather.
I’ve only taken it on a few camping trips so far, so this is just a preliminary review. I’ll update this page after I’ve had a chance to really put it to the test.
The tent is very easy to set up.
It has two crossing poles which are connected by a plastic hub, and a short brow pole that lifts the sidewalls, creating more interior space and keeping rain out of the doorway.
The poles connect to the tent body with 14 double-wide clips, creating a very stable structure. The rainfly connects to either the tent body or the footprint with quick-release buckles.
This is easier to set up than the standard pole-in-grommet configuration, although I wonder whether it is as strong.
The quick-release buckles also have an advantage in that you can leave one end connected when you pack your tent, making set up even quicker.
The tent is quite roomy with 43 square feet of floor space. My wife and our 3 nieces — 11, 9, and 4 years old — slept comfortably in it. It has a generous 46 inches of headroom and large, easy-to-open doors.
The vestibules are 10 square feet each. That’s a good size, but somehow I expected them to be bigger. Maybe it’s because they are triangular, leaving less room on the sides and the widest part right in front of the door.
The zipper on the vestibules goes straight down the middle, making it a long reach to grab the zipper from the inside.
The Limelight weighs 5 lbs, 14 oz. with tent, poles, and rainfly. Splitting the weight between 3 people results in a very reasonable 2 pounds per person.
I’m looking forward to taking it backpacking; I’m sure it will seem palatial compared to my North Face Tadpole 23.
So far, I’m happy with the Marmot Limelight 3. It is spacious, easy to set up, and a great value for the money.
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