Backpacking places huge demands on a tent. It has to be absolutely watertight, even in ferocious storms. It has to stand up to strong winds. But it also has to be really light and compact. It’s no wonder, then, that if you find a tent that does all these things, you’ll stick with it. And as the years and memories accumulate, you’ll feel pretty fond of it. Such was the case with the MSR Missing Link.
The Missing Link
When I bought it in the early 2000’s, (2004, maybe?) this was a really revolutionary tent. It weighed a mere three pounds, which was less than half of any tent I had ever owned. Instead of having poles, it used your hiking poles, to save weight. Rather than having a separate tent body and rain fly, it was a “single wall” tent – there was only one layer. The floor was trapezoidal in shape, narrow in front but wider in the rear. The shape of the roof suggested that someone sawed a pup tent in half the long way. Instead of a fully enclosed vestibule, it simply had an awning over the door, that reached out about a foot and a half. All in all, it was weird.
The Weird Kid On The Block
Did you ever meet someone who seemed weird at first, but turned out to be really nice? The Missing Link was like that. The awning seemed like a strange departure from a normal vestibule, but it felt like the front porch at Grandma’s house. You could sit in the doorway and be sheltered from the rain while you cooked dinner. The door seemed wide until we figured out we could sit side by side.
The floorplan seemed weird too, but it worked OK. Since we were using our hiking poles to set it up, we didn’t have to assemble the poles before we pitched the tent. In fact, it was really easy to set the tent up, and it went really fast. You could easily set it up in the rain without getting the inside wet, which in a normal tent is next to impossible.
Building Memories
We built up a lot of memories in that tent. Soon after we bought it, we had it out on a five-day trip. One day we went for a long dayhike. While we were hiking, a big storm brewed up. At one point the rain was so heavy and the wind so fierce that visibility was down to about fifteen feet. When we got back to camp we found the tent standing, and everything inside bone dry.
Another trip found us hunkered down on a ridge, riding out a thunderstorm (not recommended). My head was pressed against the roof because I was trying to squat on my sleeping mat to minimize the lightning hazard, and when it started hailing I got hit by a few hailstones. The tent withstood it just fine, though.
The End of a Friend
We had a lot of fine adventures in that tent. But along around 2014 I had it out on a solo trip, and noticed as I unpacked it that the fabric was sticking together. The waterproof coating on the fabric had started to soften. Then I noticed the seam tape was coming off too. The tent had reached the end of its life.
I was sad to have to toss it, but there’s no decent way to fix it when the coating starts to go. The tent had been discontinued by MSR, so I had to seek something different for our next tent.
The Missing Link wasn’t a perfect tent, but over the years it earned my trust. I even became fond of its goofy looks and design quirks. And it taught me a lot about backpacking tents, and lightweight backpacking. But it taught me a little about not judging by appearance alone too, and that may have been even more important.
Happy Trails, Missing Link! Thank you for your service!
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