Zhota Reviews

Pre-Release Gear Testing - Nia Williams (Friend of Alpkit)
The Zhota was home for a month in the Alps last summer, keeping us cosy through Austrian rainstorms and chilly Ailefroide nights high up in the French Ecrins. Space to stand up proved a treat in Switzerland where it doubled as a bridesmaid’s dressing room. The tent is spacious for two but could comfortably fit four, with generous porches and plenty of inner pouches offering room to stow kit, cook and keep some semblance of order inside. Quick to put up too - I reckon we’ve got the whole process down to sub-five minutes.

Pre-Release Staff Gear Testing - Pete Dollman - Alpkit Product Designer
I’m a self confessed gear tart; the piles of shiny kit stashed in various corners of my house and Alpkit HQ are testament to my ability to blame the machine rather than the man for any performance failures outdoors. Perhaps it’s my ‘product designer’ mindset that makes me question my kit and notice the flaws that would make things work better, perhaps it’s just an ongoing refusing to accept that my own general incompetence could in some way be the root of the issue. Either way I don’t suffer badly thought out equipment gladly, and once I notice the little flaws in a piece of my gear they generally grate at me for a few months before the said piece of kit is condemned to the big drybag in the sky (or more accurately under the bed,) to be replaced by a new shiny version. Having lived in the the Zhota for a month, as well as several shorter trips, gave me more than enough time to get a really good idea of how the tent was to use and live with in a variety of situations and weather conditions, from summer alpine thunder storms to Scottish winter conditions, and more than enough time to start to get annoyed with the niggles, but I still love it! The Zhota’s awesome internal space (thanks to the central ridge and steep side walls) make it a really comfortable place to weather the storms that the beefy SilNylon outer shrugs off, and with loads of places to organise your kit between the pockets and hangtabs it’s really easy to set yourself up with a cushy home from home. Pitched in a waterlogged Austrian field we spent a week hiding from the rain on a kayaking trip and never had any issues with water seeping through the groundsheet (which would of course have been the fault of a pathetically under-spec’d groundsheet, rather than the muppet who decided to pitch his tent in what was, essentially, a bog…) and if you do need to keep moving for bog avoidance or other more sensible reasons the Zhota pitches really easily, in fact once you have the system worked out it’s usually one of the first tents up.