Still having trouble choosing a tent: any suggestions? Staying dry

[dreambound]

We are looking for something a bit roomy (our current tent has a footprint of 17' x 10') and right now the tents that are on the short list are:

Coleman Red Canyon
Eureka Blue Mesa
Eureka Copper Canyon 1512
Columbia Cougar Flats

I know these are pretty large tents, and we're willing to go to two smaller tents if necessary. Our primary concern is rain over a 10 night period. We'll be there in early-mid December.

Thanks

Meg

 

[mamaloya]

When we tent camped, we had 2 tents that were joined together by a tunnel. One tent was for sleeping only and the other was for everything else, such as storage and changing.

There are many threads in the camping forum that discuss staying dry in a tent if you would like to read through them.

A few hints are keeping everything from touching any sides at all. Have a tarp, smaller than your tent, under your tent. Also to keep the cold at bay, put a blanket UNDER your air mattress. You need to use seam sealer on ALL of your seams as well.

Search for the other topics and you will find more info than you will ever need.

BTW, my dad was always a diehard Coleman loyalist.

 

[dreambound]

Great tips! Thanks!

Meg

 

[disneynut1977]

I have one of those tents and have looked at the coleman model. I own the Columbia and am VERY happy with it. it is the smallest out of the selection you have though. Mine states for 8 people, but I wouldn't do more than 4 so you have room. I've taken it mountain camping in the NY and it stands up great in bad weather(heavy tent though). Even though most tents nowadays say they are weather resistent you still need to waterproof the fabric and seam seal, very important. If you want to read reviews, I recommend Amazon.com That's where I bought mine. Eureka is another great company(it was either the tent I got now or one from Eureke), but the Blue Mesa does not have the best of reviews if you do a search on it. Coleman, even though it's cheaper$$$ I was not happy withthier tents. The size of that tent is great, but the quality of the fabric and customer service not that great, I wouldn't buy a Coleman, but that's just me. I highly recommend doing research on Coleman tents before you buy one. I read when I was doing research just this past spring for my tent that Coleman tents have gone down hill in quality over the years and the customer service is horrible. There is a few sites other than Amazon that has reviews on tents that would be very helpful to you, just do a search on yahoo.

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[disneywithfive]

We just bought the Eureka 1512 for our family and will be using it this upcoming weekend at Ft. Wilderness. I KNOW it will be raining as it ALWAYS rains in August. I'll try to post a review when we return. I've only sprayed the rainfly with the water repellent so far but am planning on doing the rest. Also, they say to seam seal it but I've not gotten around to that either. I'm planning on using a piece of plastic under the tent to keep the moisture from coming through the bottom. It actually wasn't as difficult to put up as our other tent that's just a big.

 

[disneywithfive]

By the way, we thought about one of the Columbia's (can't remember the model) but what I didn't like was the room divider. From the pictures I looked at and someones comment, there was a piece of material that extends an inch or two so you can attach the divider on the top AND the bottom. Their comment was that their kids kept tripping over that until they cut it off/down. Didn't want to do that.

 

[dreambound]

We just bought the Eureka 1512 for our family and will be using it this upcoming weekend at Ft. Wilderness. I KNOW it will be raining as it ALWAYS rains in August. I'll try to post a review when we return. I've only sprayed the rainfly with the water repellent so far but am planning on doing the rest. Also, they say to seam seal it but I've not gotten around to that either. I'm planning on using a piece of plastic under the tent to keep the moisture from coming through the bottom. It actually wasn't as difficult to put up as our other tent that's just a big.

Thank you, thank you! I would LOVE a review, because we're down to the Eureka 1512 and one other one (can't remember which one.) We're going in Dec, so less rain, but we'll be there for 10 days so chances are we'll get some.

Thanks again! Have a great trip!

Meg

 

[BarleyJack]

We camp in a Coleman Tucana tent....I think it is 12 x 16, great for the two of us on a long trip. We also the the built in storage net, access for electric, and the framed door. It comes with a massive rainfly that has been great; never been wet in the worst of downpours. The rainfly also extends quite a bit at the entrance so we put our equip under it when we leave the site to keep cooler shaded/dry, etc. The tent itself is easy to set up, but the rainfly takes some paitence. We bought it at target.............hope this helps

 

[dreambound]

Okay, we're down to the Eureka Copper Canyon 1512 and the Eureka Blue Mesa. They're big, but for a 10 night trip, we'll likely appreciate the space.

If anyone has either of these, I'd appreciate feedback!

Thanks!

Meg

 

[emoose]

While I don't own either tent I am quite familiar.

Let me say this.

Blue Mesa = Aluminum and a 27 pound pack weight

Copper Canyon = Steel and a 35 pound pack weight

While 8 pounds may not sound like much - if you ever check this tent on an airplane of have to carry it more than 50 feet from a car you will want the blue mesa. IMHO Aluminum is superior to steel. It is lighter and there is no paint on it to chip off and then have rusty poles.

That being said, the copper canyon is a much larger volume tent. If you spend lots of time in the tent then you may want the space. There is more walking around room. That being said - arch dome tents like the blue mesa are easier to rig secondary tarps over to keep dry because of the sloping edges.

I can't speak bad of either design because I own a tent for every day of the week including both steel cabin, aluminum arch and several others.

My current favorite is the Kelty Mantra 7. This is the perfect large family aluminum tent. It goes for mid $400 but I have seen it less on sale, internet, or coupon deals. It is a similar design to the blue mesa.

Either way tent camping is fun and eureka makes fine tents.

 

[dreambound]

While I don't own either tent I am quite familiar.

Let me say this.

Blue Mesa = Aluminum and a 27 pound pack weight

Copper Canyon = Steel and a 35 pound pack weight

While 8 pounds may not sound like much - if you ever check this tent on an airplane of have to carry it more than 50 feet from a car you will want the blue mesa. IMHO Aluminum is superior to steel. It is lighter and there is no paint on it to chip off and then have rusty poles.

That being said, the copper canyon is a much larger volume tent. If you spend lots of time in the tent then you may want the space. There is more walking around room. That being said - arch dome tents like the blue mesa are easier to rig secondary tarps over to keep dry because of the sloping edges.

I can't speak bad of either design because I own a tent for every day of the week including both steel cabin, aluminum arch and several others.

My current favorite is the Kelty Mantra 7. This is the perfect large family aluminum tent. It goes for mid $400 but I have seen it less on sale, internet, or coupon deals. It is a similar design to the blue mesa.

Either way tent camping is fun and eureka makes fine tents.

Thanks! We taped out the dimensions of all the tents we are looking at on our living room floor and while we love the great space of the above tents, we also do some beach camping in windy conditions, so we took the copper canyon 1512 and blue mesa off the list.

Now on the list are (all Eureka)

Sunrise 11
Copper Canyon 1312 (least likely)
Tetragon 1210
Eureka Twister (hex tent with aluminum poles)

For FW, we'll probably get two tents, so I'm leaning towards the Twister for beach camping and then the Sunrise 11 to take to FW along with the Twister.

I'll check out that Kelty.

Thanks for the tips!

Meg

 

[disneywithfive]

We just bought the Eureka 1512 for our family and will be using it this upcoming weekend at Ft. Wilderness. I KNOW it will be raining as it ALWAYS rains in August. I'll try to post a review when we return. I've only sprayed the rainfly with the water repellent so far but am planning on doing the rest. Also, they say to seam seal it but I've not gotten around to that either. I'm planning on using a piece of plastic under the tent to keep the moisture from coming through the bottom. It actually wasn't as difficult to put up as our other tent that's just a big.

I know that you've decided again the 1512 but thought I'd post a followup anyway. We just returned from the Ft. and loved the tent. It had more than enough room for us AND our stuff. The only problem was they moved us to the 800 loop and the tent just fit within the wooden timbers that Disney has placed in the ground. The problem was the septic for the RV's and the grill placement. If we had wanted to use their grill, it would have been to close to the tent unless we moved it over the septic system and who would have wanted that!! LOL!!

We didn't have enough room for two tents on the sites in the 800 loop.

We did use our easyup and we put a tarp over the easyup and the tent because the awning that comes with the 1512 doesn't work very well.

By the way, we arrived on Thursday morning DURING THE RAIN which lasted most of the day. So the tent was soaked before we got finished putting it up and we had to dry it out. Took some doing but it finally got dry. If I hadn't weatherproofed the rainfly, I'm not sure how much more rain would have entered but the sides did stay dry.

 

[1Venus]

We have the Eureka Blue Mesa 1610 and have loved it for the past few years. We had a horrible Coleman cabin-style tent that we just couldn't keep standing and finally got this dome-style Eureka. It goes up easily, but it also STAYS up. It cost more than the Coleman, but a couple of years ago when we camped at Ft Wilderness in the Spring we found out why. There was a horrible thunderstorm one night. I slept very little as the tent was pounded by rain and strong winds. (Actually I kept praying that none of the trees around the site would fall onto us and onto the tent.) The next morning, Ft Wilderness was a mess with lots of standing water. One tent in our loop was even down. But we only had a couple of small spots of water inside the tent. Then when we went to the comfort station we found people lined up to dry things that had gotten soaked in their tents overnight. We were so happy we chose the Eureka!

As far as space is concerned, we removed the room dividers. We set up a Queen size air mattress that's on a metal frame (I didn't like being on the ground!) We have room for camp stools next to the bed, which we use as nightstands when we're in bed. We have room for a card table which holds our fan. And we keep 2 of the 30 gallon storage containers inside the tent to hold supplies/food/etc plus we set our TV and lamp on top on one. The tent is tall enough in the center for my 6' tall husband to stand. However as he nears the side of the bed and the doors he has to bend over.

When we were shopping for the tent I had read good things about Eureka, but couldn't find anyone in town who had the larger ones in stock. So, I called Eureka direct. A nice man helped me decide which model would best meet my needs. They also have an outlet store where they sell 2nds and slightly used models. Here's the number: 607-779-2265. I ended up buying from an online Army-Navy Store in Vermont (www.vtarmynavy.com) because they had the best price I could find on the tent including shipping to Florida.

I'm glad we paid a little more initially because we got a great tent. Sure, it could be larger, but it withstands heavy winds and rain. I think we've had it 3 years and used it for two, week-long camping trips to FW each year. (Sorry, but I'm really not a camper unless it's at FW!)

 

[tellnotails]

have ya looked at www.cabelas.com

thier alaskan guide model is excellent for high wind and side ways rain