After using the canopy on my last camping trip, I still have these same mixed feelings. I wouldn’t consider this an essential item, but it is nice to have it at the ready in the car. Weather is uncertain and you never know how annoying bugs will be.
Not only does this make things awkward, it is impossible to inflate or deflate your beds anywhere but inside the tent. They added windows on each side because the door only opens halfway, which places a large seam right down the middle. We should also point out that there are no clips or ties to tuck them away when the windows are open, so they just dangle in the wind.
The Evanston is a solid dome design with a fairly low profile and heavily slanted walls. It also comes pre-installed with guylines and a full set of totally adequate stakes, so this tent passed our wind tests quite well. Thanks to all of the open mesh and optional window covers, it is extremely well-ventilated with or without the rainfly. With 90 sq ft of interior space and an additional 40 sq ft of vestibule space, you will have plenty of square footage. The main tent will easily fit a full and a twin air mattress, while the vestibule will hold two chairs, a table, and then some. However, both areas are short, with a max height of 5′ 8″ — which is only at the top dead center. The vestibule area is a little shorter than that at 5′ 4″, forcing most campers to duck and change sitting down.
Coleman’s Portable Folding Utility Wagon is built to withstand the elements with rugged polyester construction. It conveniently folds up for easy storage or transport, and with 5 coleman chairs cubic feet of space, it can carry all your goods. The Coleman Montana Elite 8-Person Camping Tent takes your camping experience to the next level with an array of smart features.
Fastpitch literally means – pitching up the tent as fast as possible. Coleman has been our go-to company for different outdoor activities for years. So after succumbing to my son’s begging to camp, naturally they were the coleman canopy first company I turned to. One of the main reasons I’ve kept dismissing my oldest boy’s constant requests for camping boiled down to not having a good tent. And also the fact that I was not the biggest camping fan.
While the price of this tent is low, so is the quality and overall design. It fell short in every category and scored among the worst in our entire lineup. This could perhaps provide good value if you are looking for a fair-weather tent for a bug-heavy area. But for most normal camping conditions, the value just isn’t there.
For more items of this type, please check under the category Screen Houses. Note that Eureka also has an item of this type, the Eureka! You might want also to see this Core Instant Screen House Canopy Tent 12 x 10 that is a bit differently shaped.
But you have guylines and stakes to secure it against winds, so do not miss doing this. This shape you can see also in this unique Gazelle Tents G6 Pop-Up Portable 6-Sided Hub Gazebo/Screen Tent. I think my takeaway is that this is a sturdy, easy, and convenient shelter.
The poles also use a pin setup instead of the grommet setup seen on all the other tents in our lineup. Once the poles are on, it’s time to move on to the fly. However, you can’t put the fly on without fully staking the entire tent first. But because Coleman uses cheap elastic straps that clip to rings attached next to the poles, it is very hard to clip everything when under tension.