It’s pricey, though, and unless the other couples’ tents we recommend, it doesn’t include a footprint. It’s constructed with heavy-duty 210-denier poly oxford walls and the heftiest bug-blocking no-see-um mesh we’ve encountered in any tent. The thicker, darker netting also makes the whole structure shadier, even without the optional side panels. Fellow campers and sun-baked spectators consistently gravitated toward the REI shelter over the L.L.Bean.
Overall, these poles—all of them aluminum—contribute to a particularly sturdy structure, with or without the rain fly. During our testing, our Base Camp shrugged off both a rainstorm and a desert windstorm as if they were nothing. Despite losing some ozark trail canopy tent headroom in comparison with the Kelty Wireless 6 and The North Face Wawona 6, both of which measure six-foot-four in height, the Base Camp 6 offers a substantial six-foot-two. The Ozark Trail Hazel Creek Deluxe Shower Tent is handy and versatile.
We also wanted self-standing tents, which can stay up on their own. Even so, you should, ideally, stake down each corner securely; in some crowded campgrounds, however, finding a flat spot with soil soft enough to do that can be difficult. A tent that requires staking to stand up—especially a larger, six-person tent—is unwieldy, and it’ll be impossible to set up on a hard surface such as blacktop or on raised wooden tent decks. The whole thing is remarkably easy to set up, even for one person; the family at the next campsite was amazed at my tent prowess when I set it up solo. Takedown is similarly simple, though Clam provides an instructional video if you need help. Trailspace’s community of gear reviewers has field-tested and rated the top tents and shelters.
It’s natural to focus on the quality of a tent’s rain fly—you need that piece to work when the skies open up. But according to our experts, the durability of the floor of your tent is actually more important. If the tent you buy doesn’t come with a footprint (two of our recommended tents, the Mountain Hardwear Mineral King 3 and the Marmot Tungsten 4, do), we recommend purchasing a companion footprint, if one is available.
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 tent ozark trail shower tent roof is made of polyester taffeta treated with a DWR (durable water repellent) coating. The walls are made of fine no-see-um nylon mesh edged with polyester taffeta.