The Mineral King 3 also comes with its own footprint, a groundsheet that protects the tent from abrasion, which many outfitters sell separately—and which we recommend that you have. Among the tent’s setup features, we also appreciated the shepherd’s hook stakes the Mineral King 3 comes with. In contrast, the majority of the tents in our test group came with basic L-shaped stakes, which tended to spin around in the soil and slip a line. The shepherd’s hook design, in contrast, held lines and tabs secure in all conditions and required no extra equipment for handling. For the first incarnations of this guide, we tested the smaller tents and the larger, family-size tents in two separate groups.
Regardless of the type of tent you choose, Campspot’s Tessa McCrackin noted the importance of practicing setting up your tent at home before heading out, especially if you may have to pitch it in bad weather. “And whatever you do, put the tent up right when you get there — don’t wait until later, because setting up a tent in the dark after a few beers isn’t easy,” she suggested. To make sure your tent lasts for years, Romero recommended always shaking out the tent before packing it back up, never placing it near a cooking area and keeping all the parts together, including poles and stakes. Coleman’s flagship weather protection system is called “Weathertec” and tents with this system are the best suited for three-season camping rain-or-shine. It’s a bit of a bummer that Coleman didn’t add a second door to the Cabin, but considering its “one big room” interior and the fact that a second door would mean more opportunity for water to find a way in, we really can’t blame them there.
Under particularly windy conditions, we appreciated the fact that we could also secure the fly to the tent poles with Velcro ties underneath the fly so that the extra lines anchored the whole tent, not just the thin protective fabric. The fly also adds the vestibule space, which not only gives you options for gear storage but also helps ventilate the tent in inclement weather via two vents. And in a stroke of design brilliance, a small loop sewn into the top of the fly makes it possible to roll up one half of the fly, exposing the full mesh canopy while still providing options for sun protection and privacy. Without the fly, the Mineral King 3 has a full mesh dome with a waterproof, tape-seamed bathtub-style polyester floor.
Fly-less, we had no problems, and the tent maintained its shape under windy conditions the first time we pitched it. The tent body simply clips onto a set of aluminum poles that dock into grommets at four corners of the tent. These now-common clip-style setups are generally intuitive and can be accomplished in minutes—certainly this was true of the Mineral King 3, as under good conditions one person pitched the tent in under five minutes. In high winds, it took us a maximum of 10 minutes to pitch and fully secure the tent fly with extra lines and stakes. Mountain Hardwear’s plastic clips and aluminum poles handled well and fit together easily. For this guide, we’re not looking at overly specialized gear but rather tents that suit the most common terrains you’re likely to roll up to in a car-camping scenario—grassy lawns or clearings, soil, sand, and basic platforms.
Also, those walls are now made of polyester instead of nylon—we’ll monitor them in long-term testing to see how they wear. Note that these tents are strictly meant for car camping; the Base Camp 4 and the Base Camp 6 weigh 16 and 21 coleman tents pounds, respectively, so you won’t want to carry either one very far. That’s especially true of the 2018 redesigns because you can no longer wear either tent’s storage sack like a backpack—you now have to sling it over one shoulder.
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. There are also two poles that cross over each doorway and down the sides of the tent to add extra shape and support. The rain fly has an additional tent pole, too, to support the vestibule. Overall, these poles contribute to a particularly sturdy structure, with or without the rain fly.
Indeed, one of the Marmot’s most subtle and best features is its color coding and door design, which makes it very easy to orient the tent for weather protection. Both doors zip open to the side that’s color-coded blue, as opposed to zipping open to opposite sides. This means the vestibules equally protect the doors, rather than providing opposite entries and exits—the latter creates a situation where, in stormy weather, one side of the tent is always more exposed to blustering wind or rain. In other words, one partner—or one partner’s gear—is always going to get a dose of weather when they head out.
For car campers where space and weight isn’t an issue, these work well. But for pretty much any other kind of camping these tents are too heavy and bulky. We’ll be taking another look at family-size tents next, as a few readers have noted some issues with coleman bbq our top pick’s window design that we’d like to follow up on. We’ll be testing tents that would be ideal for a family of four camping in all terrains and in three seasons. The biggest differences between the two tents are their fly and vestibule designs.
On the other hand, Coleman has them many, and they launch new models very frequently. Personally, having camped through some pretty nasty rain storms, a full rainfly is extremely important to me. Likewise, a covered vestibule area before entering my tent is valuable to dry off before entering. Coleman has purpose-built a tent testing facility where they can simulate all sorts of weather conditions in a controlled and repeatable environment.