After an undulating 14-kilometer hike with 35 pounds on my back, I opened the NEMO Dagger Osmo three-person tent for the very first time under the looming shadow of Mount Assiniboine—motivated by a relentless cloud of thirsty mosquitoes. Perhaps this wasn’t the smartest plan in the world, but it made for a perfect opportunity to see how intuitive this tent is. The freestanding Dagger and its nylon-polyester Osmo rain fly are symmetrical, making setup straightforward. Color-coded poles and webbing make it even easier.
I initially had concerns that the DAC Jake’s feet clips at each corner felt fragile, but they have proved reliable over dozens of nights in the tent. It would be unfair to fault a product on a perceived lack of durability, plus NEMO’s Lifetime Warranty provides peace of mind. Regardless, I may add a spare replacement foot to the stuff sack—just in case. The biggest difficulty I found with the Jake’s feet was when camping in locations where sand inhibits the fly clips to snap on. Unfortunately, that was a common occurrence this hiking season, regularly requiring a few extra seconds to clean out the feet each time. Thankfully, Jake’s feet do not have any moving parts or cause any problems during disassembly. Speaking of sand, many days were spent camping in areas that have caused tent zippers to get packed with granules and meet an early demise. The Dagger 3P zips resisted silt and sand with ease and continued to work as designed.
Once erect, this three-season tent is extremely spacious and easily provides room for two people and a couple of backpacks. Usually, I’m an advocate for ditching as much weight off my back as possible and using a two-person tent for two people, but this additional space came in handy on its first run on the British Columbian backpacking trip; the marmots were out in full force, requiring all tasty gear to be tucked away inside. The one-handed Gatekeeper door clip for the vestibule ensured quick ingress during extreme mozzie attacks and less intense marmot gazes. A myriad of pockets, including the thoughtful Nightlight pocket, allowed easy organization once moved in for the night or weekend.
I found out after a summer of trekking that the new Divvy Cube stuff sack was designed so that the tent’s weight could be split with your hiking partner. After carrying this 4-pound, 10-ounce tent for hundreds of kilometers in 2022, it would have been nice to have known this in advance (I should have read the instructions). I’ll keep this tidbit of information at my ready for the next trip with this NEMO Dagger Osmo tent.
$600 | nemoequipment.com
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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in Overland Journal’s Summer 2024 Issue.
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