The North Face used to make some killer tents. Remember the early VE 25? It had those stupid snap-on sponges to keep the fly off the tent body, but once you set it up the thing was absolutely bomber in anything. These days North Face R&D stands more for ripoff-and-duplicate. Don’t get me wrong, the $385 Minibus 23 2-Person 3-Season Tent looks nice-it’s just that it was cool the first time around when MSR came out with it. It was called the Hubba Hubba and sold for about $85 less than the Minibus.

UPDATE: You know the quickest way to get free gear? Make fun of it on your blog. The powerful PR arm of The North Face is sending me a Minibus 23 to try out, and their friendly product designers (who were so nice that I actually feel a little bad for hurting their feelings) have vowed to set me straight.

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