Cinder Cone 4P Pyramid Tent

In short, pretty much everything. The Cinder Cone defies categorization. It’s strong enough for demanding backcountry ski tours, light enough for backpacking weight weenies, and packable enough for space-conscious bikepackers. The classic use case for the Cinder Cone is as a minimalist shelter on backcountry ski tours or as a group cook tent at alpine basecamps. It excels in any application where strength is important, and you want lots of interior space for minimal weight and packed size. It’s great for self-support kayak and packrafting trips (set it up with your paddle), bikepacking (bring your whole bike inside and yard sale to your heart’s content), backpacking with groups (play cards with all your friends while the storm rages outside), and rafting (fits a cot inside- so posh). Basically, the only time you might not want one of these in your pack is in dense forest where there aren’t tent sites large enough to accommodate the Cinder Cone’s generous footprint. Outside of that… the sky’s the limit.

The beauty of a pyramid tent is that you can set it up with almost anything. The classic setup preferred by skiers and alpine guides is to use two ski poles lashed together with a pair of Voilé Straps. This also works for hikers with trekking poles. We’ve seen people use sticks, canoe paddles, kayak paddles, skis, etc. If you’re not already carrying a piece of gear that works to set up the Cinder Cone (like bikepackers) we offer a Carbon Pole for the Cinder Cone. Our Carbon Pole has short pole sections and is designed to fit in a bike frame bag or handlebar harness.

Yes, the Cinder Cone is a four-season tent and can be used all year. In the summer, we recommend adding the Cinder Cone Mesh Body for protection against bugs and creepy crawlies. Since the Cinder Cone can be set up with or without the mesh, you can use it in just about any set of conditions imaginable.

The Cinder Cone features a low-stretch dyneema-core cord across the diagonal of the tent. The hardest part of pitching any pyramid tent is achieving a perfectly square pitch. If you’re off by even a little bit you’ll end up with a distorted rhombus, with two different length diagonals. The Quick-Pitch cord takes out the guesswork by ensuring the diagonal is the correct length and guaranteeing a square pitch. Start by staking the corner at one end of the cord (doesn’t matter which) and then pull the cord just enough to take out the slack and stake the corner diagonally across, where the Quick-Pitch cord ends. Then, pull the other two corners taut and stake them down and you’ll have a nice square pitch every time.

The Cinder Cone has the best ventilation of any pyramid tent on the market, thanks to three drawstring vents and our new Window Shade Vents. To operate the Window Shade Vents, pull the black cords along the bottom perimeter of the Cinder Cone to pull up the center of the walls, creating a gap between the ground and wall that allows fresh air to be pulled in from the outside. The vents function best when they’re all in use and air can be pulled up and out through the drawstring vents.

The Cinder Cone uses a YKK Vislon Aquaguard #3 water resistant zipper. Vislon is YKK’s molded plastic tooth zipper, which holds up to grit and abrasion much better than the coil zippers that are ubiquitous on tents. Vislon zippers are not commonly used on tents, but they’re functionally superior to coil zippers and last significantly longer. They’re also smoother and easier to operate than coil zippers.

No, the Cinder Cone is ready to go! Between the silicone-coated fly fabric combined with the non-wicking thread and double needle seam construction, we have found that the Cinder Cone does not need to be sealed.