Every piece of camping gear looks great on a calm evening. You only really learn about a tent when the weather turns on you — properly turns on you. This week, high on Slieve Doan in the Mourne Mountains, the brand-new Durston X-Mid 2 got exactly that kind of test. And so did I.
No motorbike this time — this one was a car-and-boots wild camp deep into the Mournes of County Down, up past Lough Shannagh to a summit pitch beside a granite tor. The plan was a quiet night on the tops. What I got was a proper battering, a changed forecast, and a midnight decision to come off the mountain in the dark.
Here’s how the X-Mid 2 handled it, honestly.
The Climb: Up Past Lough Shannagh
The walk in is a stunner. You skirt Lough Shannagh — that strange, beach-fringed lake sitting in the middle of the mountains, and a cracking wild camp in its own right — with Meelmore and Meelbeg standing over you, before the ground kicks up and the puffing begins.
Up on top it’s proper top-of-the-world stuff — granite slabs, tors, and a view stretching right out over the reservoir and the lowlands beyond. I found the flattest patch of grass I could between the rocks and got the Durston up. Pitched on trekking poles, it went taut and clean, and I was genuinely chuffed with the spot.
The Palatial Kingdom of Durston
Let’s talk about the tent itself before the drama. For a two-person trekking-pole shelter, the X-Mid 2 is enormous inside. One person plus a full kit explosion — sleeping mat, bag, food, clothes, camera bits — and there was still room to spare.
The design does clever things. The offset trekking-pole geometry gives you near-vertical headroom and huge doors on both sides, and the two big vestibules swallow boots and a pack with ease. I got the sleeping system lofted up — new pad, new bag — brewed up a beef casserole on the stove, spilled some Jaffa cakes I’ll admit, and settled in to watch the light go. Cosy, spacious, and dry. No complaints at all.
That sunset was the calm before the storm. Literally.
When the Forecast Flipped
About an hour after I’d zipped up for the night, the wind arrived. At first it was just movement — the fly flopping and flapping, the sort of thing you shrug off. Then it built. And built.
The forecast I’d checked that morning had promised gentle 20mph gusts. What actually turned up, according to the updated forecast I pulled up in the tent, was 60mph — a completely different animal that had rolled in unannounced. By midnight the gusts were slamming the ridge, and it genuinely felt like a hurricane up there.
Did the X-Mid 2 Hold? Yes. Absolutely.
Here’s the part that matters, and I want to be crystal clear about it: the Durston X-Mid 2 never once felt like it was going to fail.
Was it flapping? Loudly, yes — a trekking-pole tent in 60mph gusts is going to make a racket, and this one did. It was floppy, it was noisy, and the fabric was moving. But the structure held solid. The poles stayed put in their eyelets, the pegs stayed in the ground, and the shape of the tent never collapsed or folded in on me. For a shelter pitched on an exposed summit in weather it was never designed around, that’s a seriously impressive account of itself.
The flapping is noise. The structure is what counts — and the structure was rock solid.
So Why Did I Abandon Camp?
At about half past midnight, I made the call to pack up and get off the mountain. Not because the tent was failing — because of what was coming next.
The forecast wasn’t done climbing. With even stronger winds due through the small hours, I was looking at two real risks: my own safety on an exposed top in the dark, and the very real chance of tearing a brand-new tent or snapping a trekking pole if a big enough gust caught it wrong. A trekking-pole shelter leans on those poles for its structure — lose one in a storm and the whole thing goes.
I wasn’t willing to gamble a tent I’d only just bought, or my night’s safety, on riding out weather that was still building. So I struck camp in the wind, packed up, and descended carefully through the darkness — a couple of kilometres back down to the stile and out.
Was it a defeat? No. It was the right call. There’s no ego on a mountain at midnight in a storm — there’s just the smart decision and the stupid one. Coming down was the smart one.
The Verdict: A Tent That Earned My Trust
Here’s the strange thing — a night that could have soured me on the X-Mid 2 did the exact opposite. It earned my trust.
What I loved:
- Genuinely cavernous interior for a lightweight trekking-pole tent.
- Fast, taut pitch — even on an awkward summit patch.
- Two big doors and two big vestibules.
- Held its structure without complaint in gusts far beyond anything I’d planned for.
Worth knowing:
- The floating fly on a trekking-pole tent will flap and rattle in strong wind — that’s physics, not a fault.
- In genuine storm-force conditions, your pitch choice and peg discipline matter as much as the tent.
The Durston X-Mid 2 walked into weather it was never sold for and came out the other side with its integrity intact. I came off that mountain not because the tent let me down, but because a good tent is worth protecting — and so is a good night’s sleep.
I’ll be back up there. And the Durston’s coming with me.
Have you run the X-Mid 2 in proper weather? Let me know how it held up for you over on the YouTube channel — and if you enjoyed this one, a like and subscribe genuinely helps. Ride safe, camp smart. Peace.
