Big Agnes Copper Spur HV UL2 Review

The Copper Spur HV UL2 balances weight and comfort exceptionally well, making it a top-performing backpacking tent. We love its two large side doors and ample headroom. This is truly a tent you could take anywhere, from sea kayaking adventures to peak bagging missions.

Performance Comparison

Comfort

The Copper Spur strives to be both lightweight and spacious, and it succeeds! It is an excellent compromise for two people backpacking together who want to go light without sacrificing conveniences like two large doors and headroom.

This tent is a solid 85 inches long and 50 inches wide at the head. The taper down to 40 inches at the foot is noticeable, but the pre-bent poles make for some steep walls and contribute to a high interior volume, while the cross pole creates lateral space near the peak height of the tent, which is 40 inches. Twenty-six square feet of interior space provides plenty of room to spread out, and you can sit up in just about half of it.

Two 9-square-foot vestibules easily cover shoes and a moderate-size pack. The Spur features large pockets (one overhead and one at the foot end) that can store pretty much anything that you would carry into the backcountry. Two supportive side pockets can hold nighttime essentials. This is some of the best storage we have seen in a tent under four pounds.

If you're using this tent without its fly, the privacy panels taper from head to foot, but we found that they were high enough to keep us covered from most angles. If you do need the rainfly, a vent at the top will help reduce condensation in bad weather.

Weather Resistance

The waterproof Copper Spur has a streamlined geometry that can produce a tight pitch. It holds its own in light to moderate winds, but we wouldn't trust it in an exposed location during a gale.

This tent stayed dry for three days in the rain, but the fly does seem to hold onto water and take longer to dry. It's also prone to sagging when wet. When it does sag, a pool of water can form on the top. Since there is no tensioner on the vestibule doors, that means re-staking the doors often to keep the tent tight. Tie-outs at the head and foot of the fly and dedicated stakes help to secure this tent and reduce condensation.

We also appreciate that pole stabilizing guylines come pre-attached (many tents in our lineup require you to add them yourself.) In windy weather, you can tie these lines to improvised stakes or nearby shrubs or trees. There are only four of them, though, one for each pole. And the tent is tall, giving the wind a lot of surface area to grab.

The vestibule is hugely adaptable. It can pitch in a more traditional format with full-volume vestibules. The fly doors can also be propped open with trekking poles and guyline to create an awning that allows you and your stuff to stay protected in light mist or harsh sun while maintaining excellent ventilation. Additionally, there are a variety of intermediate options that enable you to balance ventilation and protection, including an integrated vent in the rainfly's ceiling.

Space to Weight Ratio

This tent weighs in at 2.99 pounds. It does an excellent job of minimizing heft while maximizing interior space. Split between two people, the load is a breezy pound and a half per person.

If you divide the 26 square feet of floor area and the 12.7 square feet of it that gives you enough headroom to sit or kneel, that's 8.8 total square feet per pound and over just 4 square feet of headroom per pound. That's not quite as impressive as the 10 square feet per pound that the three-person version of the Copper Spur provides, but it's impressive nonetheless.

This model's materials are very packable, with bagged dimensions of 20 x 6 inches. One person can absolutely pack the whole tent and still have enough room for personal gear and food for a few days. You could also buy a footprint and leave the tent body behind, saving you about a pound. Frankly, it isn't worth it for us, given all of the benefits that the tent itself offers. The bottom line is that we wouldn't hesitate to take this tent for a couple of weeks in the backcountry.

Ease of Use

The Copper Spur HV UL2 is relatively easy to set up and use. It has an interconnected pole structure, including a cross pole that creates much of the headroom. It is completely free-standing, so no funky stakeout maneuvers are required to get it to full volume.

This tent takes the unique approach of having two different zipper tracks on the doors (as opposed to one track with two zippers). Perhaps the most notable thing about this is that the zippers are always in the same spot, making them easy to find in the night or quickly reach through to the vestibule.

This tent goes a little further than the traditional grommet that often holds each pole in place at the corners. Instead, the Spur comes with a teardrop-shaped mechanism that holds the pole fast, which we appreciated when we had to pitch it solo. Its stakes are decently strong, and the tent comes with enough of them for all of the critical points.

The Copper Spur comes with color-coded poles so that you can quickly tell how to orient them. You can also “fast pitch” the tent, using just poles, fly, and a footprint, which is sold separately.

Construction Quality

This tent's thoughtful design features are well constructed, but its materials are very lightweight, and that makes durability a concern. The Copper Spur seems like it will require more care than heavier models with burlier materials. The fabric is stronger than it looks and feels, but at the end of the day, it's still less rugged than a model with a 65D polyester floor.

This tent has a sturdy and well-designed pole construction that helps to offset its potentially fragile fabrics. They provide both flexibility and rigidity, but they broke during our tests when a dog ran into one of them. The same type of poles, the DAC Featherlight NFL, broke on a second tent we were testing due to high winds. The tent splint these tents come with didn't work as advertised in either situation. The splint was too narrow to slide over the poles, which had flattened out as they folded and broke. So don't count on those as an easy fix.

All told, we wouldn't recommend this for a night out with the kiddos, and we have our concerns about the nails of our four-legged friends on the nylon floor.

Should You Buy the Big Agnes Copper Spur HV UL2?

The Copper Spur HV UL2 is a great option for the solo or partnered backpacking adventure where keeping weight in check is a high priority. It's a serious investment for your kit, so we think this is a decent value if you are planning on doing a lot of backpacking. However, there are much more affordable options out there if you are planning to use your tent for, say, the occasional car camping trip. That said, there's no doubt this is a high-quality shelter, so if you will use it consistently and care for it, we think that the load you won't be carrying on your back as a result of this lightweight tent makes up for the initial price tag.

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