Things our customers have said about us...
My spouse and I purchased this 12x16 tent, the 8x8 awning and the wood stove bundle. We had purchased raw land and needed something to stay in while our cabin...
I was elk hunting in a remote wilderness area in eastern Oregon a couple years ago. I had just finished a lengthy scouting trip and returned to camp looking forward...
very warm and comfortable. its a bit larger than I anticipated, but i didn't go with this brand because I was trying to save space.
All my hunting business uses! The best tents on the market in my book!
We have owned ours for a few years, and have generally been happy with it. I would not consider this to be a beginner tent, or one for a single camper, however.
The tent has fantastic ventilation and large windows. We got the optional walls for the awning and highly recommend them. Our first outing with the tent was in spring with cold temps and drizzle, and it made us so much more cozy to be able to close off that front area and have a dry place to hang out and eat, out of the wind.
The 12x9 main tent is just big enough for 3 + some gear (like a small table for a CPAP), with us sleeping in 2 camping bunk bed/cots and a camping hammock, or easily fits a queen-sized bed with room for gear when there's only 2 of us. The awning is large enough to store our a cooler, extra gear, and a table and chairs, and can easily be an extra bedroom if needed. And the height allows for easy changing and we don't hit our heads on our lamps. Having the poles on the interior of the big awning gives us lots of places to hang lights and organizers. The inside of the main cabin has rings for hanging organizers, and a number of pockets near the bottoms of the windows. The optional awning walls have large screen windows with covers that easily roll up to open it up.
This tent survived 2 weeks of camping with periodic torrential downpours with water running under it, and kept everything inside dry. That's really the true test for a tent. (We use a bathtubbed tarp and rug in the main awning when using the optional side walls as well.)
Several poles rusted after the first few months (see above rain with standing water), BUT Kodiak replaced them right away and we have not had issues with any poles after that, corrosion-wise. Still, we highly recommend that you ensure all poles are fully dry before storage, particularly where they slide inside another pole.
The poles are heavy, so be sure you can deal with moving them around if you get this tent. BUT, they make for a very stable tent once it's up, even in very heavy rain and higher winds. In addition, we recommend adding additional guy lines for the sides of the awning to prevent water pooling on the sides, and to add additional stability in wind, especially when you add the optional awning walls.
Adjusting the poles when setting up the tent can be a bit of a hassle (it's awkward to raise the vertical ones and tighten while supporting the weight of the canvas, but once you you've done it a few times, it gets easier the next time you put the tent up. In addition, if you extend the awning ridge poles too much, they come out, so you just need to be careful not to pull them out too far (but they slot back in easily), and to point the screws down to avoid puncturing the awning. The order of operations for adding the awning walls is important. We recommend using guy lines for the horizonal side poles during set up to make it easier to keep it up before you fully extend the taller center poles at the front and back.
There is a pass-through for an extension cord, and it's not right near the ground (and is under the awning) so you don't get water running in with the cord. There is a lip for the doors to the tent, so this also keeps out water well.
The one thing that I wish it had was an interior opaque layer for the side entry, to allow for privacy if you're camping near others. (The side awning is the outer layer of the tent when it's down, and there's just a screen if you have it up.) So we usually don't bother with the side awning.
Overall, we're very happy with it, although we swear a few times while getting it up. Once it's up, it's dry, stable, and comfortable. Lots of windows/ventilation, and it's going to give us years of use with just a little care before storing it.
Easy up, very comfortable, great head room
Great addition to our tent. First time setting up was on an actual trip. We knew we needed a gromet kit and had it ready. It was not a big deal to install the gromets. I took a block of wood to use when hammering the gromets. When it rains the awning does pool water. My solution is to angle one of the awning poles and tighten its rope and the center rope to create a path for the water to roll off without pooling.
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