It’s spacious, easy to set up, has weather protection, and is durable, all at an affordable price. The Wireless 6 lacks some of the premium materials found in pricier tents, but it features solid workmanship and should provide dependable, comfortable shelter in most three-season camping situations. Adults as tall as 6-foot-3 can move about this tent standing upright.
She covers outdoor gear for Wirecutter and worked on the most recent update of this guide, testing couples’ tents and family tents. Unfortunately, the steel pole in the back of the tent did not lock into position, so this tent is defective. I did not continue to set up the screen porch (which has no floor) or put the rainfly on. I did go inside the tent to stand up and not hunched over and noticed the mesh ceiling with lots of ventilation.
The North Face’s color-coded poles make this process easy to navigate. (We were stubborn and didn’t look at the instructions.) Once you identify the front and back, the process is straightforward. The fly goes up and over the tent body, covering only the upper half of the mesh dome, and then forms the glorious vestibule with the aid of a third pole. Use the extra stakes and guy-lines provided to stabilize the vestibule as much as you need. At $500, this modified dome-style tent isn’t cheap, but it represents substantial value. Many tents with similar profiles—such as the Big Agnes Dog House 6—either cost more or require you buy the tent body and attachable vestibule separately.
But all our testers, including our tallest panelists, gravitated toward this tent.
Keep this tent in your arsenal for when you know there will be clear skies on your camping weekend. It was very difficult to roll the tent back into its original shape to return to store. I’ve read many people have had the same problems and went to army surplus to buy a bigger durable storage bag.These are the two QUEEN Mattress I received with my bundle order. I did not open these boxes because they too needed to be returned with the tent. The Ozark 9 person cabin can fit two Queen Mattresses comfortably.
We found 40 denier up to 150 denier to be typical for car-camping tents; you can read more about these measurements in gear manufacturer MSR’s blog post and in this Outside article. Finding a small, light tent is the logical approach when you’re backpacking. But with car ozark trail canopy tent camping—the industry term for what most people consider just camping—you’ll likely be parking next to your campsite and unloading. If you won’t be carrying your tent more than a couple hundred feet, more space means more comfort (as well as more room for your stuff).
The inside was nice and spacious and I appreciated the blue ambience on what was otherwise a strangely dark and gloomy day for late May. I arrived at the group site Friday midday to get everything set up. During that initial phase, I considered how intuitive (or not) the tents were to assemble, durability of the component parts, and the size and shape of the footprint. It is also important to consider the way in which the tent poles attach to the tent.