The Mont Batwing is an awesome addition to our hiking set-up. For a start, who wouldn’t want to be heard saying: “let’s put up the Batwing!” It weighs 482 grams, and it comes in a tasteful lemongrass yellow colour.
I bought this tarp to use as a shelter for our South Coast Track bushwalk, given the high probability of rain, drizzle, showers and all the inclement weather that southern Tasmania is known for. I did a fair bit of research, and kept coming back to Mont as one of the best options for our needs.
I can only report good things from my experience so far. We set the tarp up a few times while on the SCT. It was very handy to have extra shelter to avoid being tent-bound in the rain, or pack and unpack our gear in a more ordered way. Definitely better than trying to cook and eat from the vestibule of a tent!
The Batwing withstood some pretty strong winds up on the Ironbound Range. It was definitely worth it’s relatively small weight in gold on that occasion.
Key specs:
The tarp comes in 2 sizes, medium and large. The medium was fine for our needs. It comes with guy ropes and good quality shiny red tent pegs. It’s designed to be used with walking poles, though mostly we just tethered it to tree branches.
Weight:
- Medium: 410 grams (tarp) + 72 grams (8 pegs)
- Large: 480 grams (tarp) + 90 grams (10pegs)
Size:
- Medium: 3.15m x 2.6m
- Large: 3.4m x 2.9m
Price:
- Medium $269
- Large $299
Other:
The Batwing is designed to be used with the Batcave, which is sold separately, for an ultralight shelter option. Just remember to pack your cape and you’re ready for a superhero adventure!
Good:
- Lightweight. There are other ‘lightweight’ tarps on the market that weigh around 1kg, so a bit over 400grams is pretty good.
- Good quality materials and workmanship. Mont has a well-deserved reputation for quality.
- Guy ropes and tent pegs are well designed, minimising slippage.
- The lemongrass yellow colour brightens up the campsite without being garish. The colour is also good from a safety perspective, in the event of needing to signal rescuers.
Not so good:
Nothing really.
- The sil nylon material is very slippery and packing it into the stuff sack is not the easiest, but that’s just the nature of this material.
- The price – not cheap, but it’s comparable to its main competition.
