OSH '05 Comments

Tom McQuinn wrote:

This is my third year in a row at Osh and the second time I've had a
department store tent fail me. Never again. My 'C' brand tent with its
'guarantee' to keep me dry is going to a yard sale and I don't care if
it sells for 75 cents. It isn't worth the closet space it would
otherwise take up. I am very interested in any brands of tent that
anyone could recommend. Because if I do this again I intend to stay dry
somehow. I did notice that some of the manufacturers make rain flys
that will keep water out as long as the tent is standing. I gotta get
me one of those!

I have a Coleman Classic tent that is more than 20 years old now. I
don't know if Coleman even sells it, but it survived the storms of OSH
in 1995. It is an 8x10 and has something like 16 or 18 peg loops around
the bottom. I carry an ammo box with rail road spikes to use as tent
pegs. My friend teased me about carrying all of that weight to OSH (but
the Skylane was easily up to the task!), but he stopped teasing me when
my tent was one of the few that survived the thunderstorms intact and
even dry inside.

This isn't a lightweight tent and isn't made for backpacking, but it is
a robust tent that doesn't leak and has held up well during 20 some
years of use. I'm on the second fly as they don't hold up well due to
the tension on them, but the tent is still in decent shape.

Matt