Tent ideas or recommendations?
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Eureka!® Assault Outfitter® Tent. A rugged 4 - season combat - style shelter. Military tested.
http://www.sportsmansguide.com/net/cb/e ... x?a=189526

Salute to top-quality. This Tent traces its roots to the combat shelters Eureka!® designed to meet the challenges of the military. Each has been tested against scorching desert heat, blowing sand, tropical storms and arctic cold. Hey, they've withstood the most severe punishment the armed forces and nature can dish out.

This would be a great tent to have.

Tee-Pee style Tents
I have heard good things on this style, design, tent.
Any experience here?
Cabela's Outback Lodge Tent
http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templ ... jsp.form23

Quite possibly the simplest design among quality tents today. Camping with the Outback Lodge ends the hassle of fighting with cumbersome pole sets. Setting up the Outback Lodge is as simple as (1) staking out the corners, (2) raising the single center pole and four internal corner poles, then (3) securing the guy lines. That's it; camp is made. You can even leave the center pole at home and simply hang the center peak of the tent from a limb for a lightweight spike camp. Walls are constructed of 190T nylon taffeta treated with a 1,500mm polyurethane waterproof-rated coating. The long-wearing floor is constructed of 210-denier oxford nylon. Double-pull zip-close door with zippered No-See-Um mesh panel. Three No-See-Um mesh windows, two new mesh-screen vents near the top and newly redesigned ventilation panels on the sidewalls reduce condensation. Plenty of headroom adds an extra measure of comfort. Stakes and stuff bag included. Optional floor liner for easy cleanup and extended floor life. Imported.

I have an eureka apex xt and have been considering upgrading to the eureka tent that lumpy recomended. I've had a few eureka tents and all have been good tents.
Lost

I've used the Eureka Assault outfitter several times for weeks at a time. Its a really good tent. If set up right with all the stakes put in tight it is easily cofortable for two plus gear. Me and a rackmate, both of us at least 6ft and 220 lbs, share it without much issue in the field. It is definitely a quality tent.

If your looking for a great tent which will hold up under heavy weather conditions, I would suggest you seek out what is called a Wedge tent made of Sunforger or Sunforger II material, has heavy grommets, and has wooden poles that come in two pieces for the uprights and a single pole along the top. The tents can be gotten with both a front and back opening fly, or with just one on the front and a flared sealed portion for equipment storage. They take just a few minutes to set up with practice.

My late wife and I used just such a tent for camping year round, even made it through a heavy snow storm and a hurricane, we stayed dry and warm and most people in the modern tents did not. I used 18" wrought iron tent states to hold down the tent (these tents don't use external ropes or cords to hold them up, just stake down the side and put the poles up and your done, so no clutter or worry about others tripping on your ropes and bringing your tent down.

The tent we used for about 15 years, never mildewed even after having been flooded inside (yes I did clean it and dry it afterwards, but it had over afoot of water inside and it stayed up). It never leaked on us even in heavy rain, and I just put ground cloth on bottom and rolled it up the sides about 6 inches which kept water out and us dry.

The one I have has a single center line pole with a hole in the front and back parts for a metal sticking point to go through from the front and back upright poles (which break into half for transport). The tent itself is white, made of Sunforger (which is flame retardant) and double stitched.

I should mention we went camping in this tent (and others like it for the kids) for many a year about 3 times a month year round and would do several events which were a week to 10 days at least twice a year. So it was not one of those seldom used or time tested items.

The price for these tens is comparable with the modern design tents, but the durability has been better then anything else I have seen if you have to depend on the tent for a home for any length of time in harsh weather. I even tested it once by building up a 3 foot sidewall of 4x4 and plywood for winter use and made a kind of cabin, which added lots of room and made us very comfortable (got the idea from civil war where soldiers did this while in winter quarters).

I found the tent comfortable, for my wife and I and all the gear we carried, which is was a lot.

You are not going to easily carry this tent on your backs, but if you have a vehicle or a pack horse, it is great. I own three of these tents now and they are put up and stored. I use a small modern tent when going on long trips camping with just my motorcycle, but for a survival situation where I have a vehicle that can carry it, (and it's not that big really, the poles are the biggest packing problem) that's the ones I would use, because I know they work and work well.

You will need to get camo nets to cover it with if your going to hide it, as I said they are white, but it's worth doing that.

Many companies sell these online, they are normally hand made and you can check out reviews by other people on them. Hope that helps.

PS something I foudn which might help people is

There is a pink thin insulation which is like Styrofoam (about ¼ inch thick) and sold in 8 x 4 foot sheets which can be made to fold. I took a few of these, cut them into panels to fit the tent and then cut them into sections added duct tape to the cuts so they could be folded and laid out quickly and packed up quickly. This kept the tent toasty warm in the coldest of weather, in fact inside we would have to kick the covers off sometimes cause even in very cold weather, it got too warm inside with just our body heat. Others in the camp ground were freezing in their tents even with heaters and heavy sleeping bags. I suggest people do this if you are worried about cold weather.

wulfin wrote:PS something I foudn which might help people is

There is a pink thin insulation which is like Styrofoam (about ¼ inch thick) and sold in 8 x 4 foot sheets which can be made to fold. I took a few of these, cut them into panels to fit the tent and then cut them into sections added duct tape to the cuts so they could be folded and laid out quickly and packed up quickly. This kept the tent toasty warm in the coldest of weather, in fact inside we would have to kick the covers off sometimes cause even in very cold weather, it got too warm inside with just our body heat. Others in the camp ground were freezing in their tents even with heaters and heavy sleeping bags. I suggest people do this if you are worried about cold weather.

The availability of it varies depending upon states. I cannot get it here in CO because it's not up to our building codes. If you in a cold climate you won't find it. I personally order it for making my foam RC airplanes but considering the cost + shipping it's not something I'd use for this.

I'm waiting for this one to come back in stock. With the rain fly on the occupants cannot be picked up with night vision.
http://west.loadup.com/military/surplus/12747.html

I have one similar to this right now, mine is older and was WAY cheaper but still works just fine and at 2lbs..
http://www.rei.com/product/747832

Yea, I learned the value of a good sleeping mat a long time ago the hard way lol, was steelhead fishing on the anchor river in Alaska for a week, and just had a cheap bag and no mat, needless to say I froze my butt off the first night with the cheap bag just on the floor of the tent, woke up crazy cold, got the fire going again and slept in a lawn chair next to the fire that night lol. Next day, I bought the bag I have now(great but heavy) and a good mat lol, rest of the trip was great.
I like that outdoor research alpine bivvy, I'd like to get something like that for my new bob(last one got too full so I got another a bit bigger now it's full, think this is gonna be a developing prob for me lol.) I'm gonna look into that USMC military tent as I like the rain fly on it, and would prob just keep it in the box I'm building for my truck.
Looked at some tents made out of sunforger, cool stuff, and cool tents, simple and not many parts, I like that too.
Lost

The benefit of the bivvy is that it's so small all your body heat is contained in it so it's alot warmer than a large tent and my normal stomping ground covers 9000'-14000' so the weather can turn nasty quickly. Even tho it's not rated 4 season it does quite well in basically 0 degree weather. I was looking at the bigger Eureka for the same thing you are, it's too heavy to pack or carry for any distance so it would live in the truck with the intent of using it if I had to leave the house via truck or ATV. I cannot imagine "living" in the bivvy for more than a week, especially in bad weather when you couldn't go outside since the only thing you can do is lay like a corpse and wiggle your toes.