This cabin style tent includes two doors and a removable room divider to create two separate rooms. The floor plan comfortably fits two queen airbeds or up to eight campers in sleeping bags on the floor and the three-hub design allows for added head room. The geodesic structure of the Base Camp tents is built to withstand ozark trail canopy tent wind and rain. It has two main that thread through sleeves, stretching between the four corners of the tent. Generally, we like clip-on designs better, since those are easier to put together, but in the case of the Base Camp models, the sleeves add extra tension and stability throughout the tent fabric.
After we pitched the tent, the Mineral King 3’s adaptable fly let us leave half the mesh dome uncovered. At the first sign of rain, it took only a few seconds—and a quick hand stuck outside the tent—to unfurl the fly and secure it for a dry night’s sleep. When we awoke, we could roll back one part of the vestibule, make coffee, and watch the sky lighten even though it was still raining.
An avid swimmer, surfer, hiker, and camper, she currently lives on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, where she can be found, as much as possible, in water. It is also important to consider the way in which the tent poles attach to the tent. Many of our picks use grommet attachments, which are more secure and simple to repair than key attachments if anything should break. Whether you’re thinking of hitting the road or staying close to home for your next car-camping adventure, you and your loved ones will need a comfortable place to sleep. The carry bag comes with a hand strap at the top, and this entire tent weighed about 17.8lbs for everything.
There’s also 1 lantern loop at the very top of the tent for some lighting at night. I can’t reach this either, but you should be fine if you’re a little taller. There are 2 windows along the length of the tent, and 1 window on the width of the tent. Next, attach the 6 steel wall poles to the elbow connectors (the top of each pole) and to the pin at the other end (the base of each pole). The 2 green pole sleeves are for the longer diagonal poles (with 9 fiberglass segments), and the 1 blue pole sleeve is the for the shorter pole (with 5 fiberglass segments).
Weight-wise, with its 32.6 lb (14.8 kg) this is not a lightweight tent, but this is a normal weight for such a steel construction. You will see in the comparison table below that it is lighter than some of its competitors. There is lots of mesh around and on the ceiling, so this will work great if you use the tent in a warm climate.
Although it’s designed to accommodate three people—hence the “3” in its name—we found that at 42.5 square feet, the tent is more comfortable for two, plus gear and maybe a medium-size dog. The Ozark Trail 9 Person Cabin shares the same shortcomings as the other discount cabins found in the Ozark Trail lineup, most notably being its weather protection and durability. We also don’t recommend this tent for high winds because although all the poles are steel, Ozark Trail uses a thin-walled alloy that can bend under stress and plastic hubs that we wouldn’t trust in serious storms.
You can achieve full isolation, whereas zippered dividers can sometimes have a slight amount of open space around the edges. It’s made from steel, and the poles are telescoping which means that they extend and click into place. It seems unlikely to achieve such a fast installation with such a large structure, but the pre-attached frame makes it such a breeze. If you do not want to spend much and need a tent for occasional use, this is the item to consider. You realize this if you compare it with yet another lighted tent, the Big Agnes Titan 6 mtnGLO tent. With such a mesh roof you would not want to use the tent in a cold environment.