Nice Tent, 8/24/2006
Reviewer: Mike (Philadelphia, PA)
Ok, I bought this tent for a cross-country trip that I went on this summer. I spent about a month traveling from Philly to CA and back and used this tent to camp every chance I got. I had a 3-4 person Hillary tent before, but it was too cumbersome to set up and take down all the time, so I bought this with hopes that it would be easier to use on a daily basis, and it was. This tent was quite easy to set up and only takes about 10 min or less. Since the floor shape is square, it's easy to roll up and pack away too. The walls and floor of the tent are made of the same material, even though it's a different color. This makes the tent lighterweight. The first day I set up this tent in the front yard and all of a sudden, it started to rain like crazy. I was hoping for this so I could test it out. After downpouring for about an hour, I went inside the tent to find that is was dry. There were no leaks and if you felt along the edges of the floor, you would have some very slight moisture on your hand, but no actual drops. MAKE SURE YOU BUY THE FLOOR-SAVER!!! Otherwise, I would think that the floor would be much more wet. When I was in the Grand Canyon, I camped on a hill and water actually ran in between the floor saver and the tent all night. I didn't realize this until morning, but even then the tent wasn't too wet. There was some water inside, but only a bit. I slept on an air-mattress, so I was dry as a bone.
The only problem I had with this tent was that one of the poles split on one of the last nights of my trip. It didn't totally break, but just split. When I got home, I called Eureka and they promptly sent me a new pole free of charge. Customer service was great.
I bought this tent for $49. MoabSports matched a price I found on another website and was very friendly about doing so. For 50 bucks, this is a great tent. It stays dry under normal use and holds up to some pretty good winds too, just make sure to fully assemble the tent with all the stakes, velcro straps, etc...then it's solid. It's feels sturdier than my Hillary tent. It would be nice if this tent had 2 doors, but then again, that's what the Apex 2 and 2XT models are for. I'm not sure if it's worth the extra $ for the Apex, but it might be depending on what's important to you. Aside from the doors and vestibules, the Apex tents and the Tetragons are made of the same materials. Aside from that, I was very happy with this purchase and will continue to use this tent in the future.
