This year, the REI Co-op Half Dome tent turns 45. To celebrate its legacy, we asked REI Co-op Members to share their favorite Half Dome memory. Many recounted their inaugural adventure in their backpacking shelter—a cross-country trip, backcountry trek or, in one member’s case, an overnight near an airplane runway. Some shared relatable misadventures with their tent, like hiding away during a torrential downpour or waking up to snow in June. Almost all reflected on the many ways their tent has grown with them over the years by providing space for personal adventures like new love, fresh breakups, expanding families, a career change and more. Read on for 13 member stories—then share your own in the comments.
Name: Leo Smith
REI Co-op Member Since: 1980
When my wife and I started dating, we spent a few car-camping trips sleeping in the back of an old SUV. In 1991, after we married and our daughter came along, we bought a Half Dome tent. Can’t remember what we paid, but it couldn’t have been much because money was tight at the time. We have a picture of the three of us from July of that year on one of our first camping trips with the tent. A few years later our son was born.
Our little family has camped all over the Northwest with that tent: car-camping trips, a three-day river rafting trip, fishing trips, weeklong bicycle tours, backyard sleep-outs. It has been faultless as a shelter, protecting us from mosquitoes, subfreezing temperatures and one truly torrential thunderstorm. Not only has our family used it, but we have loaned it out to multiple relatives. We have a newer REI Co-op Quarter Dome tent now, but if it is just me and weight is not an issue, I enjoy the Half Dome because there is enough room for my aging body to sleep on a cot in there. After more than 30 years, the Half Dome still has no holes or tears, the original poles are still in good shape and all the zippers operate like new.
In 2022, we took the Half Dome on a family camping trip along the Big Sur coast in California. We recreated the picture from 1991 (31 years later) with our beautiful daughter—this time with her two little boys. I felt pretty smug buying that tent in 1991, because I felt I was getting something of better quality than I was accustomed to up to that point and because I was anticipating the adventures to be had with it. I didn’t know the half of it!
Name: Michael Griffin
REI Co-op Member Since: 1998
I’ve had three Half Dome tents over the last 20-plus years. I’ve got so many memories in the tent, a nice collection of vignettes from different life chapters, different landscapes, different relationships. Like waking up in the middle of the night because an early-season snowstorm dumped a foot of wet snow near the tent, pressing the sides of the shelter into my face. Or watching shooting stars over Three Fingered Jack the night after excitedly catching my first fish while backpacking near Marion Lake in Oregon.
Another time, while asleep in my Half Dome after running the North Umpqua Trail 50K, I was woken by a noise only to find a deer licking the tent’s bug screen—the encounter terrified us both, and the deer fled into the forest. There are endless other less dramatic memories of feeling comforted and at home in a tent I’ve known for half my life.
Name: Cyndi Gyugyi
REI Co-op Member Since: 2010
This tent was originally purchased in 2005 when my oldest son was in high school and getting ready for a backpacking trip to Kings Canyon National Park. It then got used occasionally by my third son for Boy Scout camping trips. His troop mainly used tarp tents, but if they were required to have a closed-bottom shelter, he would use the Half Dome. Then I started using it if I needed a two-person tent. I did end up buying a one-person backpacking tent but would use this one for car camping if I just wanted the extra room. Luxurious!
One of my favorite memories and photos of this tent is from a camping trip in Joshua Tree National Park. I lit up the tent and got a picture of it at sunset with the silhouetted Joshua trees and the stars just coming out!
This tent has mainly been used throughout California, but recently got used at Guadalupe Mountains National Park, where it survived a terrible windstorm. It has weathered rain, snow and scorching heat over the years, and it is still in service and awaiting its next adventure! Thanks, REI, for a quality product.
Name: Vera Wu
REI Co-op Member Since: 2015
Growing up in Taiwan, camping wasn’t really a thing for my parents. So, I wasn’t really an outdoor person until I met my husband, who is from Michigan. He grew up with all the fun camping and fishing trips with his dad and grandparents. Knowing that I didn’t have much outdoor experience made him so excited to get all the gear he needed from REI to prep for our first-ever camping trip. REI is his toy store. The tent he got was the two-person Half Dome, and it was just what we needed for all our camping trips. We took that tent on so many road trips and shared so many memories. Now we have a three-person Half Dome to bring our dog with us for more fun trips.
The Half Dome tent is so well-thought-out. It is lightweight but very sturdy when it gets windy at night. I love to have pockets inside to organize all my items properly so I can have easy access, and this tent does more than that. What I love the most about this tent is that it is super easy to assemble!
I adopted my dog, Munchie, about three years ago, and 2024 was the year I felt confident and comfortable taking her on some fun outdoor adventures. Munchie and I had so much room to play inside, store all our items and sleep comfortably together. Munchie had so much fun and got so exhausted that night. To me, this camping trip is definitely one of my core memories, and I really can’t wait to take her on more outdoor adventures!
Name: Liana Edwards
REI Co-op Member Since: 2013
In 2016, I did a college internship with the National Park Service. My loaner tent for the summer was a Half Dome. I slept in that tent every night for an entire summer in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, and I was sad to return it at the end of the summer. A few years later, my mom got me a Half Dome of my own as a graduation gift. I slept in that tent for a week straight in my parents’ backyard! I took the tent to Colorado on a postgraduation trip. My favorite memory is waking up in the tent on the summer solstice with a couple inches of snow on the ground. I love my Half Dome tent!!
Name: Marjorie Randall
REI Co-op Member Since: 1996
About nine years ago, I bought a four-person Half-Dome tent, a former rental, at an REI clearance sale. Screaming deal! It’s easy to set up, and it’s so roomy that it allows luxurious space for me and as many dogs as I want to bring. For years it has been my go-to through rainstorms and deer invasions, backyard outings during the pandemic, a full-moon campout next to a tiger enclosure and arguments with smaller beasties over sleeping arrangements.
Name: John A. Cywinski
REI Co-op Member Since: 2017
My Half Dome 2 Tent was a gift from my mother back in 2016. I was living in Chicago at the time and looking for more ways to get outside.
Its inaugural adventure was a canoe-packing trip on the Wisconsin River. During the height of summer, the sandbars on the river become exposed, leaving you with your own private paradise to float downstream to. We’d float down the river, spot bald eagles along the way and land on our little slice of home for the day/night.
I’ve since moved west to Portland, Oregon, and I’ve taken my tent all over the state, down to California, into Washington state and beyond. Highlights include camping on the beach in La Push, Washington, during a supermoon event and camping off the 101 in Southern Oregon at a spot overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
What I love about the Half Dome 2 is its size: not too big but not too small. It’s comfortable for two people. It’s easy to set up. Really, the best part is it allows me to get closer to the activities and places I love to explore.
Name: Aparna Krishnamoorthy
REI Co-op Member Since: 2012
My spouse, Jayaram, and I were first introduced to the Half Dome tent series in 2013 when we received a two-person Half Dome tent from friends as a wedding gift. We backpacked through Patagonia with the tent and were glad we had it. The winds were no joke on that trip, and we were so glad we had a sturdy, tried-and-tested tent to protect us through the night. Since then, we have had many adventures with the tent throughout the United States, including in Maine, Grand Canyon National Park and California. In 2019, we decided to buy a four-person Half Dome tent to accommodate our growing appetite for new adventures like bicycle touring and, eventually, our growing family. In 2020, with our 15-month-old baby girl in tow, we bicycle toured across Mexico (from Baja California to Cancun), bolstered by the confidence that we had our tent to shelter us no matter where we were. It has served as a bouncy house on all our bicycle tours and backpacking adventures to date with our now 6-year-old girl and 2-year-old boy.
Name: Lydia Jennings
REI Co-op Member Since: 2012
I purchased my Half Dome tent when I was an undergraduate student working at REI and preparing to take my first field studies course while an undergraduate. I chose the tent because it was lightweight and quick to assemble, and in my field class we had to assemble our tent in five minutes or less. Over the years, I’ve come to love how easy this tent is to assemble, how it’s spacious but not too heavy, and the many adventures it’s taken me on—from field sampling and music festivals to camping and backpacking adventures with friends. I’ve also used it as a changing room during ultrarunning adventures. Most recently, I used the tent on a cross-country move with my boyfriend and dog to start my first faculty job. No matter how my interests change or the people in my life change, this tent has been a steady, nonprimary character in my adventures—and it still assembles in five minutes or less.
Name: Donna Lee
REI Co-op Member Since: 1999
My Half Dome tent has been a trusty shelter for over two decades, keeping me warm and dry over many, many backpacking and car-camping trips. I often want to buy a fancy new tent, but I can’t bear to do so until something goes wrong with my Half Dome … but nothing ever does!
Name: Sarah Brown
REI Co-op Member Since: 2004
My REI Half Dome tent was an 18th birthday gift from my mom and my sister. I was a busy, aspirational teen with little time to go camping, but I had high hopes for an adulthood filled with outdoor adventures. As I reflect on the 22 years of life that have passed since, I couldn’t be more delighted by the multitude of ways in which the Half Dome tent has accompanied me, sheltered me and witnessed events that are now my most cherished memories.
The day after my 18th birthday, I passed the test to become a commercial pilot and spent the following year working hard to accumulate hours of flight experience. When I was 19, I flew solo from Western Oregon to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, for the annual AirVenture gathering of 10,000 planes. Most attendees camp out next to their plane, and this is the first photo I have of my Half Dome in action.
Fast forward a few decades, I still love airplane camping, and I have pictures of the Half Dome as recent as 2020 when my husband and I camped out next to a runway in central Oregon. The photo features our dog, airplane and my husband on his laptop taking remote meetings. Over the years, my Half Dome has enabled me to pursue mountaineering, starting with a climb of Mount Adams. I used it at basecamp at the famous Lunch Counter, an approach about 9,000 feet up the mountainside.
The tent has been a lightweight, roomy and waterproof haven on backpacking trips that grew longer and more remote as the years went by. It was my safe space for brokenhearted, lonely overnights after a breakup. It became my dog’s favorite place to sleep. His enthusiasm begins the moment we unfurl the ground cloth! It was the shelter in which my husband and I celebrated a chilly New Year’s Eve beside a frozen lake at the base of Mount Hood. The memories go on, but the photos are few. The tent doesn’t demand attention. It blends into the surroundings, encouraging photos of the scenery, not the shelter. I owned this tent before cell phone cameras, before brand promotion and hashtags. After 19 years, the zippers began to feel sticky, but they didn’t fail. Finally, 22 years into Half Dome ownership, I decided to pass the tent along to a friend’s teenage son, who dropped by our home this past summer and shared his excitement about beginning to explore the great outdoors. We told him the zippers were sticky, but the fly was still waterproof. He was as thrilled as I was when I first tore open the gift wrap on my 18th birthday.