Good Design: The Ozark Trail 1-Person Backpacking Tent

With all that in mind, we found more than a dozen tents that met our criteria. Designed for convenience and versatility, the tent features a large front vestibule for storing gear or as a sheltered hangout spot, reports the Express US. Three windows, a mesh roof, and walls provide cross-ventilation, allowing for a refreshing breeze. We’re more than just custom pop up tents — TentCraft is a premium fabricator of all things experiential marketing and outdoor advertising. If it combines metal, fabric and print our team of skilled craftsmen can transform any napkin sketch or wild idea into a fully realized project.

With the push buttons you need to worry about pinching fingers or not being able to release the button when it gets rusted, which is never a pleasant experience. The legs extend to give the top peak a height of about 8’10” which will be plenty of headroom for anyone underneath. It’s worth highlighting that despite the advertised dimensions of the 10×10 Ozark Trail, because this is a slant leg shelter the top only measures 8×8. The benefit of the slanted legs is that these tents are more stable laterally which can increase the stability of the frame and make it less prone to toppling, an important benefit if on a windy beach.

By default, this unexpectedly ended up being my go-to daily bag for several months. The Screen House Shelter packs into a reasonably roomy drawstring bag with a strap that makes the canopy tent much easier to transport than tents, like the L.L.Bean, that lack a strap. We eliminated canopies that were not big enough to comfortably shelter a picnic table, concluding that a table is probably the number-one spot where campers would place such a structure. We also eliminated bulky, heavy shelters that are intended to be used as semipermanent backyard fixtures. She has personally tested a dozen tents and an equal number of hair dryers.

Slant leg canopy tents are cheaper than straight leg tents because they use less material. The legs are locked into place with old school metal push button locks, something you won’t see on many modern pop up tents now-a-days. These push locks get very difficult to use over time, especially if the tent is used on the beach and exposed to sand and saltwater, causing rust build up. Many newer tent brands like EZ-Up use revolutionary thumb lock sliders or larger easy to release buttons, which are a much better user experience when setting the canopy up or taking it down.

ozark trail canopy

Serving the biggest brands on the planet as well as your local High School, if you want the perfect blend of quality and American craftsmanship, we’ve got you covered. Like we mentioned above, we’re here to educate you on the different styles of pop-up tents. We know everyone isn’t a good fit for professional-grade TentCraft structures, and that’s OK! But if and when you’re tired of replacing cheap tents, reach out to us to learn more about what American-made quality looks and feels like. Getting our hands dirty with the top-rated 9×9 Neso Grande lightweight beach canopy tent. We typically see pyramid frames built with flimsy trusses and thin struts and reinforced (if you want to call it that) with cheaply made plastic joint connectors, and unfortunately this 10×10 Ozark canopy is no different.

Over the years, I have evaluated gear for magazines including Wired, Popular Science, and National Geographic Adventure, where I was a senior editor. Slant leg canopies use less material and have less structural integrity than straight leg canopies. That’s why when you dive into online reviews, you see slant leg tents that have broken at different connection points, and customers complaining that it failed after only a few uses. Is Walmart’s Ozark Trail brand a true sleeper, putting out products that deserve much more attention among outdoorsmen? With that question being floated, we decided to travel down the path of discovery and start to take a closer look at Ozark Trail and some of their products. We just completed a review of the Ozark Trail Tumbler line, which is not only budget friendly but also well performing.

Although we always recommend using anchors such as weighted sand bag or stakes with guy lines attached to the top corners. In our tests one camper took less than 10 minutes to put it ozark trail chairs up on the first try. Two shorter aluminum poles cross to support the roof while four longer poles join to the roof poles at the top of the tent and slide into pegs at the ground.

The Ozark Trail canopy very well might be one of the best selling 10×10 tent brands of all time. The easily recognizable logo has been seen by nearly everyone at youth soccer tournaments or beach vacations in recent years. We wanted to do an in-depth review of this popular instant shelter and ultimately give our recommendation as to if this value brand tent is worth the lower price point vs. the higher quality but more expensive competition. Ultimately, the good design for this product was that it was sized right for what I needed, both in dimensions and weight. Not too small, but not too large (and thus wasteful) – a ozark trail backpack Goldilocks design. After all, I had to be sensitive to weight as we were required to carry our own water for 10 miles as there were no options for filtering during that stretch.