Also, those walls are now made of polyester instead of nylon—we’ll monitor them in long-term testing to see how they wear. Note that these tents are strictly meant for car camping; the Base Camp 4 and the Base Camp 6 weigh 16 and 21 coleman sleeping bags pounds, respectively, so you won’t want to carry either one very far. That’s especially true of the 2018 redesigns because you can no longer wear either tent’s storage sack like a backpack—you now have to sling it over one shoulder.
This 6-person version offers 87.2 ft² (8.1 m²) so it is best to downgrade the number of users. The instant setup means that you can have it ready literally in 60 seconds. This is what they call the Fast Pitch design, and this means there is a hub element attached to the poles. The area is 90.4 ft² (8.4 m²), and the peak height is 76 inches (193 cm). This is a very unique design, what you see here is a connectable tent. This means it can be zipped to three other tents of this type or to smaller 3-person tents from the same series, one of them is shown in the picture.
Indeed, one of the Marmot’s most subtle and best features is its color coding and door design, which makes it very easy to orient the tent for weather protection. Both doors zip open to the side that’s color-coded blue, as opposed to zipping open to opposite sides. This means the vestibules equally protect the doors, rather than providing opposite entries and exits—the latter creates a situation where, in stormy weather, one side of the tent is always more exposed to blustering wind or rain. In other words, one partner—or one partner’s gear—is always going to get a dose of weather when they head out.
From smaller two person tents used at remote campsites, to large family-sized tents used at campgrounds. I’ve also purchased and used tents from The North Face and Marmot, which are considered more “high-performance” brands. When W.C. Coleman invented the first gas-powered lantern in 1900, he couldn’t have imagined that he’d sparked over 120 years of outdoor innovations.
That been said campers love this tent and the larger versions, and seem quite happy to pay extra for the convenience it offers. Both are sold without a rain fly, which you will need to purchase. To test the family-size tents, we planned a series of weekend camping trips with a total of 12 California families, all with kids between the ages of 9 months and 9 years.