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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
82 of 82 found the following review helpful:
 Best tent ever! Jul 14, 2005
By A. Sheldon
I purchased this tent as we now take many trips to the lake throughout the summer! It is great! It is divided in half and seperated by a zipped divider. The one end is a screened area and can be accessed on both sides. The other end has 2 bay windows and a larger window. This tent can easily sleep 8. There is just 4 of us (2 adults, 2 kids), so we lay 2 inflated queen size mattress on the sleeping side (side by side) and put a table, our clothes, food (no bears at this lake), etc on the screened side. No ants have been able to get in.
I also like the fact that you have to go thru the screened end of the tent before the sleeping part. Reduces the chances of bugs getting into the sleeping end. We only had 1 flying bug on the sleeping side in the 4 days we were camping.
The tent was very easy to put together - literally took less than 10 mins (after the first time). The poles have colored coded dots on them - just match the colors and wah lah - tent is up. The rain fly is also easy to put on. The inner "floor" is very strong. No rock or jagged punctures to tent floor.
Great craftsman ship! Great product!
I definately recommend this tent. This is the 2004 model, there is a 2005 model but I don't think Amazon sells it.
68 of 68 found the following review helpful:
Solidly built tent that is spacious and dry Aug 08, 2005
By C. Leger
Just returned from a week long camping trip with my family (2 adults - 2 kids) and I must say that this tent was great. I spent a long time analyzing tents from all manufacturers - trying to find the best of comfort, quality and size. I bought (and returned) 2 similarly sized but cheaper Coleman brand tents and was very disappointed with the quality when I set them up in my backyard. Cheap feeling material and broken-out-of-the box poles and zippers caused me to re-evaluate. It comes down to - you get what you pay for. This Columbia tent lived up to all of its great reviews! Materials on this tent feel more rugged that the Coleman brand. In 4 very strong thunderstorms, only 1 resulted in any water within - amounting to just a teaspoon of water during the entire night. It came in through a seam where the label was sewn on. This was trivial to me - some seam sealer will resolve this. Oh, and during at least 2 of the storms, I was able to have most of the windows cracked open for air flow and the dormer windows almost completely open (because of their angle)
The tent is very easy to set up and VERY easy to fold and get back into the bag! Zippers feel solid and I like the many places to "hang things" from the inside.
Highly recommended.
42 of 43 found the following review helpful:
 Plenty of room and fresh air Apr 27, 2006
By W. Mapp
I just returned from a camping weekend in VA and this tent took the most severe thunderstorm I've seen in ten years with zero damage.
My only suggestion for improvement concerns the rainfly. Columbia should give it a canopy for the main entrance. It's hard to care that the floor is waterproof if the inside gets soaked because the entrance is poorly/improperly sheltered. There is only about two inches of overhang at the doors, which means slightly sloped entrance can VERY quickly collect far more H20 than you'd care to sleep on. That's a serious design flaw in my opinion, which killed an otherwise stellar review.
The set-up instructions were pretty clear, and that's coming from someone who gets confused putting things together for the first time with only a diagram and blurry photos as guides. When they improve the rainfly design, I'll buy another one.
27 of 27 found the following review helpful:
This is an awesome tent Jun 30, 2006
By A. Swinford
"boston13523"
I bought this tent after looking around for awhile. This tent had the some of the best reviews of any tent I could find online. I was lucky enough to see one set up as a display at Bass Pro Shops, and after reading the reviews and seeing one in person, I bought this tent. We just had our first child, and this tent has more than enough room for all our gear, a play pen and all of my sons gear too.
I did not have time to apply seam sealer before we left for our first camping trip in this, and I was lucky enough that it didn't rain, until our last day. It sprinkled for 30 minutes, then poured for 30 minutes, and not one drop got inside this tent.
My last tent was only tall enough to stand up in the middle, this tent is tall enough to stand up anywhere inside. And that was extremely nice!!!
I set it up by myself when it arrived (couldn't wait for my wife). It took me about 45 minutes and I was just taking my time. When we went camping, it only took about 15 minutes in the dark. It goes together easily, and comes down easily.
The only bad thing I would say about this tent is as some other reviewers said about the zipper around the door, it is easy to get the fabric covering the zipper in the zipper. Kinda frustrating at 3 in the morning when you gotta go! It just took a few times to learn to hold the fabric back as you zip, problem solved. Also the zippers have large pulls on them which makes it easy to grab and open/close as needed.
The gear loft is very nice as we had magnetic fans that we attatched to it and it held the weight of them fine. Also the storage bag is nice, you know how you cant ever quite get something packed the way it came out when it was new, not a problem here, the bag unzips around the bottom to expand. I am leaving it expanded to accomodate some extras I bring along. Also it is on wheels, so I just rolled it right out of the back end of my vehicle and straight to our site.
And it came with "real" tent stakes, not those cheap coat hanger ones that bend easily.
UPDATE (09/14/2007) -- after having used this tent for almost 2 years now, I can say it is as good as when we bought it. I never have sealed the seams, and it has seen its share of rain, and has not leaked AT ALL. After seting it up around 15 times it still looks new, no tears or rips anywhere. A few of the shock-corded poles you can tell the shock cord was getting stretched out, so using a wire, I pulled it out from the end of the pole, tied a knot about 4 inches down and cut the excess off, now they are as tight as new. I am looking forward to having this tent for years to come.
24 of 24 found the following review helpful:
solid Nov 14, 2005
By Jim
We recently purchased this tent and have been enjoying it. It is a nice solid tent. The fabric feels substantial and durable to the touch. Even the screens feel durable. The zippers are smooth and the flaps all close without leaving gaps at the corners. The bottom feels tough also. We still put a tarp under it but that is just to be sure... Set up isn't too bad. Took about 40 minutes the first time and has been taking about 15-20 on subsequent tries. Take-down takes about 20 min also. The carying bag is excellent. We pack out tent tightly and even have room for our under-tent tarp in the bag. The tent stakes are solid also. The tie-backs for the window flaps inside are convienently located and do a good job of keeping the rolled flaps out of the way. The inside accessories are ok. We haven't used the cupholders, don't know if we ever will. The shelf is small but would hold a few small things. The sewed-in storage bags are nice though. Convenient for wallets, flashlights.... The light inside is a light, what more can you say. Take note, the light reomte takes an unusual battery, like a camera battery so buy one before you go or you might not find it in the wild. If you don't install the rainfly the view of the sky is really good. The ventilation with the windows open is good, of course about 80% of this tent is window, but the flaps do well at providing privacy when desired. Keep in mind, even though there is 150 sq. ft. of floor, the dividev is there so you probably won't get a king size airmattress in here. It will sleep 4 large cots well though, 2 on each side.
In closing, we have no regrets about buying this tent. It appears that, as I have said in other reviews, you get what you pay for.
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