Seek Outside Cimarron 2.0 Review

I’ve toured Seek Outside’s Grand Junction, Colo., headquarters, where the brand not only makes gear but also tests it, hunting and backpacking on the Western Slope. I’ve tested much of its gear as well, and every time it seems to raise the bar.

Seek Outside’s newly revised Cimarron 2.0 continues the company’s tradition of consistently topping my “If I could only have one…” list. The Cimarron can effectively be several different tents in one. The 2.0 version is tauter, more secure in high winds, and more feature-rich than its predecessor. Still, I wanted to see how well this one-size-fits-all tipi tent actually performs across a wide range of conditions.

So, over several months and a cross-country road trip, I tested it in every configuration. I used it canoeing, backpacking, and bikepacking everywhere from the Sierra Nevadas to Flagstaff, Sedona, and Arkansas. It was a versatile companion no matter where or how I used it.

In short: The Seek Outside Cimarron ($485) is an ultralight four-season tipi tent that excels in a wide variety of weather conditions, with solid stakeouts. Handmade from ultralight nylon, it weighs 3 pounds, 7 ounces (canopy, stakes, and carbon pole), and easily packs down to fit in a backpack or on a bike. It is compatible with a hot tent stove and spacious enough for four people. For camping, hunting, backpacking, and bikepacking, this is a great lightweight shelter.

Check out our guide to the best Backpacking Tents.

Seek Outside Cimarron 2.0 Review

The Basic Breakdown

The Cimarron is a 6-foot-tall, single-pole, wood stove–compatible, four-season tipi. The main footprint is around 9’6” x 8’6”. Of the generous 94 square feet available, about 23 square feet is seatable, with at least 3 feet of overhead space.

Standard, the 30D nylon 6.6 ripstop canopy, with its silicon stove jack and Xpac and Dyneema-reinforced cone, weighs just 2 pounds, 7 ounces (39 ounces). The carbon pole adds 10 ounces, but can be replaced with trekking poles and Seek Outside’s 1.2-ounce Trekking Pole Hitch. 

The Cimarron features 10 stakeout positions. Seam sealing is $55 extra, but a 7-ounce kit of 10 stakes is included. The minimum trail weight for the full, basic Cimarron 2.0 kit with the standard pole is around 3pounds 8 ounces (56 ounces). 

Seek Outside does offer lighter versions. The single door Cimarron Light and Dyneema Ultralight shave 4 and 18 ounces off the canopy’s weight, respectively.

One of the biggest changes to the 2.0 is the sheer number of pullouts. The 2.0 has 10 to the 1.0’s two. Combined with newly revised pattern work, the Cimarron and all its accessories pitch tauter, stronger, and more spaciously than ever.

Basic Setup

The setup is straightforward, but finicky — like most tipis. You simply stake out the main four corners, unzip one of the doors, put in the pole, and extend it until the tent is decently tensioned. Then, zip it back up, and finish staking and guying. Perhaps extend that pole one more notch just so everything is snappy and taut.

However, without a floor to tension the stakes against, it can be difficult to get everything properly tensioned the first time. It’s often necessary to redo one or two stakes as you start guying to keep everything taut. 

The Cimarron is primarily meant to be staked directly to the ground. However, it’s certainly possible to use guylines and either knots or tensioning devices for the stakouts. This will raise the shelter up. The Cimarron never hurts for airflow, but using lines offers even more while making setup more forgiving.

I can get the Cimarron 2.0, staked directly to the ground, set up in 6-7 minutes. Half that time is me readjusting the stakes to ensure proper tension. Using my usual Dutchware guylines I can drop that time to under 4-5 minutes.

The Raw Kit Rub

Bog standard, the Cimarron 2.0 wouldn’t be my main squeeze for solo backpacking trips. For two people, a 3.5-pound tent is north of ultralight but definitely south of car camping weight. For three people, it’s arguably ultralight. It’s downright featherweight if you have four people to break it up among. However, four people in the Cimarron would be a squeeze. Under three is the capacity where this tent absolutely shines.

With a wire-reinforced ceiling vent, the ability to elevate it a few inches off the ground, and two massive double doors on each side, the Cimarron offers airflow galore. It also has enough space to avoid touching wet sidewalls and allows condensation to drain into the ground. That negates most of the disadvantages of single-walled tents like this one. (Although if you’re camping in wet conditions, a cot or ground tarp and smart site selection would be essential.)

The Cimarron’s silnylon fabric could be contentious. Although it’s stronger than equivalent silpoly, silnylon stretches when wet or under prolonged tension. It’s also often noisier in high winds. In a tipi, where most of the structure is provided by tension from stakes, silynylon distributes wind forces well, but noisily and requires retensioning after rain or being up for a while. Fortunately, this is usually as simple as extending the central pole slightly.

Overall, the Cimarron is built rock solid. I do wish that the canopy itself offered a loft or loops near the top for a light and storage, though.

Much Ado About Mesh

The only accessory I found necessary to use the Cimarron fly by itself is also arguably the most inhibitory: the mesh doors ($84). 

Pitched tight to the ground, the mesh offers good mosquito protection in western pines, prairie, deserts, canyonlands, alpine areas, and early-season hardwood forests. In places that generally have dense mosquito and tick populations, I’d want one of the Cimarron’s more protective accessories. 

However, the mesh doors come with caveats. They’re installed. There’s no removing them, or the 7 ounces they add. There is no option for single door installation. The mesh itself only covers the right panel of the door, and zips to the left. If you want both ventilation and mosquito protection, you’ll need to keep the left side of the door shut to have the mesh deployed. 

Fortunately, even with half of the door effectively shut, the Cimarron still offers plenty of airflow. The door tieback is also placed between the inner mesh door and the outer fly. This only allows you to tie back one or the other, without getting creative with a carabiner or cordage. When I have a hot stove running, I’d prefer a built-in way to cinch a dangling door.

Nesting In

The most flexible feature is easily the nest: a bugnet bivy with a bathtub floor, cut to cover either the full footprint or half. I opted for the half nest. It’s completely enclosed, can be used with all the doors open, and still lets you use half the tent as a massive 49–square-foot vestibule. 

The initial setup is slightly cumbersome. You have to tie a few knots, set up several linelocs, and tie a prussik knot to your tent pole (to have a way to secure the top of the nest). That last point could easily be solved if Seek Outside sold the poles pre-prusiked — or if they had a hole that you could thread a loop through. 

Subsequent deployment, especially with carabiners or Seek Outside’s shelter gatekeeper straps, is much easier. The nest can also be left secured to the base of the Cimarron, so the entire shelter can be set up and broken down altogether, fly first.

The nest’s opening is large, the mesh slightly reduces condensation, and the floor rises enough to slightly reduce drafts. That makes it a more flexible alternative to some of Seek Outside’s more cold-weather–specific accessories.

Initial setup aside, my only complaints are the lack of any pockets to stick a headlamp and the weight. My half nest weighs 1 pound, 10.5 ounces (26.5 ounces) and costs $185. At 55” wide, it can sleep two … cozily. Otherwise, if two or three people wanted to spread out, they’d need the $279, 2-pound (46-ounce) full nest. 

Such is the price of hand construction and seamless modularity. However, at those weights and costs, some may find more utility in pitching a cheap, lightweight bug bivy inside of the Cimarron — especially if they already have the mesh doors.

Likeable Liners

The liner is where Cimarron accessories shift to winter weather. Each liner is a white length of ripstop nylon that covers most of the height of half of the tent walls. It creates an air gap between the canopy and the inner fabric, reducing condensation. 

In most weather conditions, with smaller groups of one or two people, the Cimarron’s ventilation manages condensation well enough. With a stove system, even in sodden conditions, you’ll be fine. Where the liners shine is for larger three- to four-person groups (where there is likely to be more condensation and contact with wet walls) and for cold-weather camping. 

I’ve used several floorless, single-wall hot tents. No matter how hot you run the stove, any synthetic fabric starts collecting hoarfrost as soon as it dies. The liners put an extra barrier between you and the moisture that forms on the canopy when the coals go cold. 

The liners also trap some warm air. It’s harder for heat to escape from the liner’s looser fabric and the pocket of air behind it than it is through just the taut canopy. In my experience, the tent stayed warmer longer after I choked off the stove’s airflow. I woke up with less frost on my sleeping bag in freezing conditions. 

While solo winter camping in Tahoe National Forest and the Ozarks, after a wave of snowstorms, a single liner on my sleeping side was my go-to. I could dry out the tent faster in the morning. It’s also a lighter (10-ounce) and cheaper ($89) setup for solo or same-side–sleeping adventurers.

Figuring Out the Floors

The Cimarron’s floor is likely the most love-it-or-hate-it accessory. It’s 40D nylon with a reinforced center for the pole, rimmed with 20D nylon panels that act as liners for the bottom of the tent. 

It substantially reduces drafts, even with the tent staked off the ground. It allows condensation to drain outside its confines, and is water-resistant enough to provide a dry space even in soggy soil. 

Combined with the liner (and a protective reflective mat), the floor makes the Cimarron considerably more efficient as a hot tent. In high 20-degree temps, I easily got my Cimarron into the upper 80s. It also seemed to hold heat slightly longer.

Crawling around to hook up the floor’s 14-line locs and two stakeouts is a pain. Attaching the floor with mini-carabiners, soft shackles, or Seek Outside’s gatekeeper considerably streamlines setup. You can also leave it attached to the tent for setup and breakdown. However, if the underside of the floor is wet, you’ll get the liners and canopy interior wet too. 

While hot tenting, the snow closest to the stove, beneath the floor, would melt. When the stove died, and the snow beneath refroze, the floor would become slippery, sloping toward the stove. In shallow snow, this is easily solved with a shovel and good site prep. In deep snow, this gets harder to combat.

That said, the floor is fantastic in truly frigid conditions, when you’re using the Cimarron as a base camp for days at a time, or while camping without a stove. Cutting drafts, offering protected floor space, and potentially saving weight by bringing only one ground tarp and mat make it a boon for two-person trips. And if you want a bare entryway for taking your boots off inside, you can always pull back a corner of the floor near the door. 

Accessories & Setups: A Summary

Who is the Cimarron for? Depends on the setup.

Canopy ‘n Mesh Doors ($569-669)

This is how I use this tent most of the time. Mosquitoes and ticks are pretty mild in Tahoe, but the terrain is steep. As a wildland firefighter, I often need to break camp and load up in under 10 minutes. The Cimarron is a storm- and high-wind–capable tent that breaks down quickly.

In mildly buggy areas, with the trekking pole hitch bringing the kit below 3.5 pounds, it’s fine for moderate solo backpacking trips and fantastic for any group trips. The moderate form factor, wide climate versatility, and ability to fully stow a bike inside make it great for bikepacking, though the 18.5-inch pole sections make handlebar loading not ideal. For paddling, the floorless design is great for tossing a cot on rough or boggy riverbanks.

Nested ($185 half; $279 full)

For two- to four-person backpacking in buggy areas, long multi-ecosystem bike touring, and paddling, its condensation and bug protection bump the Cimarron from “OK” to “fantastic.” I prefer the half nest, but the 55-inch wide floor and sloping sidewall may feel cramped for two.

Additionally, at $185 for the half and $279 for the full, many may find more mileage in opting for cheaper bug bivies. However, if you’d likely use the nest most of the time, then getting the Cimarron without mesh doors will take $84’s worth of sting out of the nest’s price. 

Liners ($89 per side)

In warm weather, the nest system and ventilation (pitching off the ground, opening a door, etc.) control moisture well enough. If you’re using the Cimarron without a stove in persistently sodden or humid conditions, especially in cool weather and/or without the nest, it’s worth tossing a liner up on the sleeping side. At or below freezing, the $89 (per side) liners are worth their weight in gold, stove or no stove. 

Floor ($249)

If you’re hot-tenting in truly frigid conditions, the floor is absolutely worth it. If you’re camping on sodden ground and want more protection than a groundsheet, it may be worth it. For most conditions, at $249, it’s steep, specialized, and best set up with quick-release hardware like carabiners.

Seek Outside Cimarron 2.0: Conclusion

It feels weird to say that if I could only have one tent, it’d be the Cimarron. But it’s truly the most flexible tent I’ve ever used. 

Some configurations are light enough for solo backpacking. The Cimarron is spacious enough for my two- to three-person paddle trips and swallows my bike on bikepacking trips. It’s fast enough for get-up-and-go work and adventure. It’s plenty storm-capable — provided you’re periodically knocking snow off in blizzards. For packable hot tenting, it’s in a league of its own. 

However, I can’t divorce my endorsement of it as a true do-it-all platform from the fact that between the modified canopy, pole, trekking pole hitch, myriad stakes, two half liners, floor system, large wood stove, and reflective mat — there is over $1,700 worth of “platform,” some accumulated over years, on my floor, as I write this.

Even so, I feel the itch to get the Dyneema canopy. After all, I have all the accessories for it.

Even in its most bare-bones configuration, $485 is steep. For $160 less, many people could get a Durston X-Mid and be good for most trips. And yet, if I could only have one tent for everything — wildfire camps, hot tenting, bikepacking, backpacking, hunting, multiweek canoe and bike touring, etc. — it’s the Cimarron. It’s a workhorse for all adventures.