I love camping, but had a tent that took 20+ minutes to set up, virtually impossible with one person. The fiberglass poles had to be clickety-clacked together about 5x on each pole, then shoved through the guide holes, always hanging up. Raising the tent on one's own was a serious pain - by the time I had my tent set up, I'd be sweaty, pissed, and not in the mood to collect firewood, set up the rest of camp, etc. My love for camping quickly started to deteriorate.
I took my son on a cross country trip earlier this summer, and I was determined to get my love for camping back. I picked up a Kelty Trail Ridge 3 or 4(can't remember, but pretty sure it's the 4, as it has 'bent' fiberglass poles for squaring off the roof).
Setup is less than 5 minutes. There are 2 main poles that clack together quite nicely. The biggest benefit over my previous tent is that there are no fabric 'guide holes' to have to thread the poles through - color - coded clips are all you have. Put a pole together, slide one end into the eye bolt(? dunno what it's called), clip about 7 clips onto the pole, slide the other end into the other eye bolt, repeat for pole 2.
At this point, you can choose to use the 2 smaller auxilary poles to stretch the roof out and put on the fly tarp, or not. Those take maybe 1 minute total to put in.
The roof is very square, not like a typical dome tent, and one of their selling points is stargazing - it's not a gimmick, you really can see more of the sky with a config like this. There are pockets on either side for storage, and it will JUST fit a double-stack inflatable queen mattress inside(will have to check if mine is the Trail Ridge 3 or 4 and edit). There is also a small fabric 'shelf' that you can tie to the ceiling if you desire.
I'm in love with camping again. Less than 10 minutes and my tent is completely setup, with all the bells and whistles. Breaking the tent down is just as fast; the bag it comes with has plenty of extra room, so one doesn't have to elbow-drop their tent pro-wrestling style to get it back in the bag. Highly recommend and would buy again. Construction is durable, yet the entire package weighs maybe 11 lbs. - not super light for a backpacker, but for bugging out, and camping, it's perfect.
http://www.kelty.com/p-401-trail-rid...tents-shelters
I took my son on a cross country trip earlier this summer, and I was determined to get my love for camping back. I picked up a Kelty Trail Ridge 3 or 4(can't remember, but pretty sure it's the 4, as it has 'bent' fiberglass poles for squaring off the roof).
Setup is less than 5 minutes. There are 2 main poles that clack together quite nicely. The biggest benefit over my previous tent is that there are no fabric 'guide holes' to have to thread the poles through - color - coded clips are all you have. Put a pole together, slide one end into the eye bolt(? dunno what it's called), clip about 7 clips onto the pole, slide the other end into the other eye bolt, repeat for pole 2.
At this point, you can choose to use the 2 smaller auxilary poles to stretch the roof out and put on the fly tarp, or not. Those take maybe 1 minute total to put in.
The roof is very square, not like a typical dome tent, and one of their selling points is stargazing - it's not a gimmick, you really can see more of the sky with a config like this. There are pockets on either side for storage, and it will JUST fit a double-stack inflatable queen mattress inside(will have to check if mine is the Trail Ridge 3 or 4 and edit). There is also a small fabric 'shelf' that you can tie to the ceiling if you desire.
I'm in love with camping again. Less than 10 minutes and my tent is completely setup, with all the bells and whistles. Breaking the tent down is just as fast; the bag it comes with has plenty of extra room, so one doesn't have to elbow-drop their tent pro-wrestling style to get it back in the bag. Highly recommend and would buy again. Construction is durable, yet the entire package weighs maybe 11 lbs. - not super light for a backpacker, but for bugging out, and camping, it's perfect.
http://www.kelty.com/p-401-trail-rid...tents-shelters
