Winterfjell.de is a German website specializing in Scandanavian winter hiking and skiiing. Malte from Winterfjell, with help from Markus, recently checked out the Quadratic™ Tent System, judging it based on their extensive experience of extreme conditions.
The “expedition oriented” tent configuration that Winterfjell tested included the Quadratic™ Snow Outer, Winter Inner, Expedition main poles, 9.7 and 11 mm side poles, and a top pole.
In the test, Malte pointed out that standard two metre long guy cords are too short for winter expedition use. In severe conditions, longer cords make it much easier to really secure the tent, especially when using snow anchors and items like skis as pegs. We agree with this – and we now offer the Expedition Guy Cord 8 pack, which has eight three-metre long guy cords. Thanks for the feedback Malte!
You can find the review on the Winterfjell website (in German). Below are some of their comments translated into English:
Inner Tent
I particularly like the inner tent. First of all, it is big enough for two people up to 1.90 m with winter sleeping bags… …With the Quadratic, two 60 cm wide mats fit side by side, making it large enough as a winter tent. The sitting height is sufficiently high at the entrances, in the middle you have enough headroom even with a thick sleeping pad.
What I like very much: The open door does not hang down, as with many other tents, but stashes in a large pocket right next to the entrance. There is also the classic loop for rolling up the door, but the pocket makes it so much easier.
There are enough small pockets inside the tent to store everything from glasses to watches to headlamps. There are also plenty of loops for clotheslines or an optionally available ceiling net. This makes it easier to keep things tidy and the inner tent looks very well thought out.
Outer Tent
Regardless of the length, the guy lines look robust and the Lineloc clamps are simply the best. The two guy points on each side of each pole are also securely sewn to the pole tunnel. In addition, there are two guy points on the right and left above the entrance, so you have 16 guy points for cords.
The 40 denier ripstop nylon material siliconized on both sides is winterproof and the seams are well processed.
Side Poles
So far, the test tent would have been a good tunnel. But now the big difference comes into play. The Theory Works’ Quadratic tent has a tunnel for a side pole on each side. With these side poles, the tent can be stiffened significantly, making it less prone to cross winds. In principle, you get an almost completely free-standing tunnel and can worry less about finding the right campground in wind and storm.
Thanks to the side poles, the inner tent can stand completely tensioned without pegs, with only the two vestibules sagging. You could make it through a night between rocks on a mountain tour. Or you can just be more relaxed when your snow pegs don’t want to hold in the powder snow.
Other Insights
The weight of my configuration would weigh 3807 g according to the specifications. Then the surprise on the scales: It’s true! With which manufacturer do you still experience that?
In this configuration, the weight is of course not light for a 2-person tent, but it is certainly very storm-proof and absolutely suitable for winter!
Conclusions
This tent is a bunker. I would even count it in the same league as The North Face VE25 or Mountain Hardwear EV3 (now called ACI3).
The Quadratic beats the VE25 with its integrated pitching and lighter weight. Compared to the Quadratic, the EV3 has no vestibule for cooking, and no inner tent. The Quadratic tent is very fairly priced.
Right there I see a good niche for The Theory Works Quadratic expedition tent and would consider it as a mountain tent right away.
