Lite Outdoors Plateau 5 Man 2021 UPDATE

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Just the Facts:

Just the Facts:

The LiteOutdoors Plateau is a lightweight tipi tent built with a stove in mind. The Plateau has a square base and plenty of headroom, this tent will keep you warm and comfortable in the worst weather conditions. With the ability to sleep 5 without a stove or 3 with a stove, the Plateau is incredibly roomy for its weight. Constructed from 20D ripstop nylon with a silicone/polyurethane hybrid coating, resulting in a lightweight fabric that is strong and incredibly waterproof.

• Fully taped seams, no seam sealing required
• Built in stove jack
• 9″ sod cloth (snow skirt)
• Large door with dual zipper for added ventilation
• 9 main webbing loops for stakes
• 8 secondary stake webbing loops for extra holding power in bad weather
• 10 webbing loops for guy outs
• Includes high quality tent stakes, guyline and guyline tensioners
• Includes adjustable aluminum center pole

LiteOutdoors Titanium Stove

Designed for Fall/Winter camping, this light weight, packable, wood burning titanium stove will keep you warm and dry in the worst weather conditions. Use this stove to create a comfortable environment, dry wet clothing, or cook your meals. With a combination of stainless/titanium end plates, plus a titanium body and stove pipe you get all the benefits of titanium at a cost you can afford. Winter camper? Hunter? Preparing for the worst? This stove is for you.

Benefits

Absolutely no tools are required to put this stove together.

An adjustable air vent allows you to adjust the amount of air entering the stove. This creates the ability to control how hot or how long you want the stove to burn to fit your needs. Use the damper on the stove pipe to keep heat in the stove longer, allowing the stove to keep you warmer.

Titanium is less heat conductive, which means more heat is able to radiate into the tent instead of getting lost up the chimney. This means more heat, slower burns, and longer burn times than stoves made of other materials. Titanium is also stronger and harder than stainless, and half the weight.

Our stoves now have the option of adding a stove baffle. The baffle diverts heat through the stove to keep the heat/gasses in the stove longer for a hotter, more efficient burn.

My Story 2020:

LiteOutdoors is a Canadian company that specializes in titanium stoves and tipi style shelters. They are becoming a common name in circles of backcountry hunters when discussing the topic of “Hot Tents” and rightly so as the field is rather small. So, in a field most would consider niche how do you make a name for yourself? Well, you have to do something to get noticed. LiteOutdoors does this by way of your pocket book.

Most of the tipi stove combos out in the world today come with a very hefty price tag. While I have heard a ton of people express desire to have a hot tent the cost is often more than most can spare. So the first thing to notice about the LiteOutdoors Plateau 5 Man W/ Stove is that it is not going to break your bank. At $669 you will get a fantastic shelter and a stove that will keep you warm and dry while also cooking dinner. How can you argue with that?

The Plateau 5 man tipi is not exactly a tipi. It does not have the round base you might be thinking of but it sets up similar to tipi’s in that it has a single center pole and must be staked out around the base. The set-up is pretty straight forward and not something that I feel most people will have an issue with. Sure, there are some little tricks you might find that will help make setup a bit more to the point but overall I feel you will get it done without too many curse words. One helpful tip would be not to use the cordage at the stake out points. There is a small amount of cordage with a tensioner which can make for a frustrating set-up. I found it better to just put the stakes through the nylon loops.

The included stove jack must be cut before operating the stove/tent combo. To do this I used the steal ring that is used in the stove chimney. Place the ring over the grey stove jack fabric and trace a circle. Use a knife to cut an X through the circle allowing the knife to go slightly past the circle line as this will ensure that you have plenty of room for the chimney to poke out of the tent.

Assembly of the stove is pretty straight forward but it is not a simple task at first. I have used titanium stoves from several manufactures and this is just part of life while assembling to stove for the first time. Once assembled the stove must be “Burnt-In” meaning you must start a fire in the stove. Heat helps to set the shape of the titanium which will make subsequent stove assemblies far more reasonable. LiteOutdoors has some YouTube videos (https://www.liteoutdoors.com/videos/) that will help you assemble the stove for the first time.

My front yard was the first testing area for the tipi/stove combo. After getting a fire rolling in the stove I was very impressed with how well the damper and baffle worked. I found that I was able to control the burn better in this stove than any of the other stoves I have used in the past. This is a very great discovery as the lightweight design and construction of titanium stoves are not conducive to long burn times, so any extension of burn time is a welcomed improvement.

After several fires, rain and wind storms and crazy kids using the tipi as a fort, it was time to get out into the wilds. Idaho was calling my name and the backcountry was waiting for me and my new setup. I arrived into my hunting area just after a nice storm dropped a foot of snow which piggybacked to a several days long deep freeze. There was a snowline a few miles below me and I wanted to hike down to hunt off that line. It was the perfect time to test out a tipi/stove combo and I was eager to oblige. The tent/stove combo worked like a freaking champ! I really can’t say much more than that. I especially loved the longer design of the cylinder stove as it allowed for longer branches which meant less work breaking or cutting wood. 

My last testing zone was what our group of testers called “The Great Tipi Creep” as it was a sort-of head-to-head review of several tipi related products. We put the LiteOutdoors Plateau 5 Man Tipi and 18’’ Cylinder Stove against the SEEK OUTSIDE 8 Man with XL Stove and a LUXE tipi with a WINNERWELL FastFold Titanium Stove. The results were comforting in regards to LiteOutdoors. 

The weekend was full of surprises from sub-freezing temperatures to strong chinook winds. The LiteOutdoors Plateau held up wonderfully against its competitors and gained the edge over the LUXE in weight, functionality and simplicity. At the end of my testing period one thing is abundantly clear, LiteOutdoors makes one of the finest hot tent combo products on the market today. For the money I just can’t see how you could beat this great setup.

Sure, I would like to see a few more extras such as an internal liner and bug net but I have a feeling that something is in the works to fulfill those interests. If you are looking for a quality stove/tent combo you would be severely mistaken to overlook LiteOutdoors. I can’t wait to get back out into the wilds while comfortably relaxing around the soft glow of red hot titanium.                  

2021 UPDATE:

Everything you read above holds true. I am happy to report that I’m even more in love with this shelter after spending 25 nights in it over the last year. So for 2021 I was back to the backcountry of Idaho. after a long hike I was able to find the exact same testing site as last years review. Even left myself a bit of wood from last year. Testing was about to get real!

So what’s new with Lite Outdoors and the Plateau 5 Man? Well I am so happy to report that Lite Outdoors made some changes to what was already a great product. The first is that they now offer a liner. Why is this exciting? Condensation and moisture control of course! No mater if it is from cooking, breathing, evaporation or from the elements moisture is an issue and not one you want to deal with on the inside of the shelter.

Here is a picture showing the new liner. It creates a space and acts as a second wall. This keeps those pesky water drops off your head and gear.

Another great add on is the carbon fiber pole. This is a great alternative to the old aluminum pole and one that I am very excited about. It’s lighter and when you’re in the backcountry that is everything!

So we got camp set and hit the hills in search of bull elk. We spent 4 nights in this spot and though the weather was mostly nice it was not to stay that way for long. The rain came and it was awful, just awful. I was unable to get any great rain pictures as things got pretty western and we were busy with other tasks. I can report that the Plateau did a great job of keeping our gear and our sleeping bodies warm and dry.

The rain and wind ponded us and it was not what I would call fun. At one point I was sure that the old dead tree near camp was going to crush me so I jumped out and drug a pile of logs to the site of the shelter I was on so I would not get crushed if the tree fell.

Our trip ended with success as Johnny and I both harvested bulls. We got to test some great new gear and I got to put yet another great Lite Outdoors product to the backcountry test. I do have a screen nest that I will revisit in 2022 when the weather and need for it arise. So, look out for that update. In the meantime enjoy this cool picture I took in the moonlight of out first night at camp.

If you are looking for a hottest combo you are looking for Lite Outdoors. Make sure you check them out and please tell them you heard great things from iReviewGear.com!

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