Worst Experience With a Tent

By JT Brown Ranked #492 - Family Camping Tents January 4, 2007

This tent is OK if you camp in ideal conditions. We used it the first time in Joshua Tree in the winter.

The tent took up a huge amount of space in our camping spot. It went up fairly fast until the fly went on. The staking, velcro attachments, and tent pegs took forever to align and get tight enough to be secure. Strong winds came up during the night and with the high profile the tent, caught too much wind and started to thrash around and make thunderous noise with the fly beating against the sides. Wind went underneath the stake points and ripped the floor, creating a kite effect. This action pulled some of the stakes out of the ground and the aluminum poles started to bend because of the shear size of the tent blowing in the wind. At 2AM on a very cold evening, the kids and wife shuttled out to the van and I spent the rest of the night taking down the tent in the wind.

There were many other tents in the camp ground that were not having problems with the wind like we had. Obviously the wind was blowing them around a bit, but they were not self destructing like the Trailhead 6. It's just too big for windy conditions.

I looked closer at the tent floor when we got home and discovered that a seam exists on the bottom where the walls come to meet the floor. Sewing the material at this point created a perforation in the material and a weak point for ripping.

This shop has been good so far and they are exchanging the tent for a smaller and lower Kelty Mantra under warranty terms.

View Details: The North Face Trailhead 6 Tent 6-Person 3-Season

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