Gear Review: WindQuester Horizon 2 Lite Tent

The WindQuester Horizon 2 Lite

A new company based in British Columbia called WindQuester reached out to me in July, offering me one of their tents for review. “What’s the catch?” I asked. None! The tent was mine to keep in exchange for me providing my personal review. WindQuester wouldn’t see my review in advance, or have any input into it whatsoever, i.e. I would be providing my unvarnished feedback without reservation. “Awesome” I said, let’s do it! Of the two tents they offer, I selected the WindQuester Horizon 2 Lite, an ultralight 2 person tent.

Horizon 2 Lite In It's Top Loading Stuff Sack

The tent arrived a day later, and I immediately began checking it out. It wasn’t that long ago that I was in the market for a new two person tent for car camping and short portage trips, so I was already primed on what to look for. I’ve since set it up multiple times, and have taken it with me into the backcountry. A short review of my findings was published as a Reel on Instagram, you can find that here. What follows is more detailed, including my thoughts on improvements.

If you just want the TLDR it’s this: the WindQuester Horizon 2 Lite is a competitively priced, quality product, ideal for backpacking and any kind of trip where you want the lightest gear possible. There’s some room for improvement with the product, but I found zero significant issues or concerns with the tent’s design or materials!

These are the main features that I like:

At 1.29 KG or 2.84 lbs, it’s very lightweight for a two person tent.
The interior length of the tent is 220 cm, and the height 95 cm (enough for me to comfortably sit up).
Rather than being rectangularly shaped, one end of the tent is slightly wider than the other: 135 cm by 110 cm. Since the shoulders of two people sleeping side by side need more room than their feet, this is a reasonable design choice.
When the fly is in place, the outer dimensions of the tent are 226 cm in length, by 116 cm width at the narrower end, and 141 cm in width at the wide end.
It has a zippered door on each side (using YKK zippers), with two matching roomy vestibules which are 70 cm deep 226 cm long).
The main body of the tent is a fine “sea foam” coloured mesh, with an orange waterproof “bathtub” type floor (with a 2000mm waterproof rating) made of 15D silnylon.
The tent floor is higher at the head and foot of the tent than the sides to protect against water ingress during rain and heavy storms. The sides of the bathtub floor are a bit lower than the ends as they’re protected by the tent vestibules; another smart design choice that no doubt saves some weight.
There are two mesh pockets at the wide end of the tent on the sides, with a hook in the ceiling for hanging things, and two loops on either side of the hook for additional gear connection points.
Unlike some other tents I’ve reviewed, the floor is factory seam sealed, making it ready to use right out of the box! Similarly, I found all stitching to be professional in appearance, with no “dangling ends” or signs of poor craftsmanship.
The two colours of the tent work well together, creating a bright package that seems to appeal to many people.
The tent is given structure by a single long “dual Y” designed DAC NFL aluminium tent pole, shock corded, lightweight and easily assembled, with an integrated cross bar at the top centre.
To speed set-up, the ends of the poles are colour coded with the floor, and the body of the tent is attached with easy to use hooked clips. I was able to have the whole tent set-up in under five minutes.
The cross bar at the top of the tent snaps easily into place with a smart male/female connector system. I found this easier to set-up than the tension “loop” type system of my other tents.
The Horizon 2 Lite comes with a set of lightweight pegs, and more surprisingly, also with some items for quick field repairs: small patches of mesh, fly and flooring material, as well as a short tent sleeve for emergency tent pole repairs. This is a nice touch!
The tent fly, also sea foam coloured, is lightweight 10D silnylon. The fly goes on easily, with colour coded snaps at the four corners, and easy to use tension adjustments on each.
At the head end of the tent, there’s a large ventilation “window” or flap which can be opened or closed with a small and flexible attached velcro support arm. This flap has a guyline attached for securing in windy conditions, as do three other places on the fly providing great additional stability.

Starting Tent Set-Up

Body All Set-Up

View of Interior

Another View of Main Tent Body

View of One of Two Vestibules From Inside (Fly In Place)

Areas for Improvement:

The biggest concern for me regarding this tent was that it does not come with a tent footprint. I often camp in locations that are very rough, and/or infrequently used, which means that the floor of the tent will be exposed to protruding roots, cut down brush stems, sharp stones and either items that could pierce the thin 15D silnylon floor. Since this tent is targeted largely at ultralight backpackers, I understand the compromise here regarding weight. That said, I would be very hesitant to use this tent without some kind of floor protection. In my case, I am using a tent footprint from an older tent, having to fold it carefully to lie, unattached, under the Horizon 2 Lite. The folks at WindQuester heard my feedback on this concern and it is being passed on to the tent designers for consideration.
The lack of a footprint also makes it impossible to set-up the tent with the fly alone in what I call “shelter mode” (i.e. the tent body stays in the bag; just the fly and poles are used to make a rapidly assembled shelter). This can be very handy for quick meals when traveling and you don’t want, or are unable to, set up a tarp. Not a frequently used feature, but one which I make use of at least a couple of times a year.

“Nit Picky” Feedback:

The tent is stored in a lightweight silnylon stuff stack. I find that “clam shell” designed storage bags make putting your tent away much faster, with less potential for damaging your tent, e.g. stuffing your tent mesh into a peg or pole accidentally. Switching from a top loading stuff sack to a side loading clamshell bag would be an easy change.
While the tent is sized for two people, I use a wide sleeping pad on my trips. My sleeping pad is 65 cm wide. Since the floor of the Horizon 2 is 110 cm at its most narrow point, it would be impossible to fit two similarly sized pads together in the tent; rather two 55 cm or narrower pads would need to be used. Since I intend to use the Horizon 2 Lite as a very roomy solo tent, this won’t be a problem for me.
I’m used to having a “gear loft” shelf in the ceiling of my tents for storing things like my phone, glasses, meds and other essentials. While the Horizon 2 Light has three ceiling attachment points, they’re all in a straight line, so no shelf is possible. However, since there are two good sized storage pockets on the sides of the tent, I’ll adjust to using those instead.

Tent with Wide Sleeping Pad In Place

Well, that’s it! I hope you find this useful should you be considering a WindQuester Horizon 2 Lite. I’m quite pleased with the tent, and my big hope is that WindQuester offers a footprint for it in the future.

I want to thank WindQuester for giving me this opportunity to enjoy their product, and provide me with the freedom to express my opinions on it without any limitations or “censorship”; to me, that suggests a company that is confident in their work!

In closing, here are a few remaining pictures of items mentioned in the review above: