New Tents

[T2Eagle]

Cabela's has the Hooligan 4 on sale for $80. We are currently looking at these. We were at a huge Camporee over the weekend at Put-In-Bay Ohio and checked out a lot of tents. A scout near us had the three man version and said he loved it. I was concerned about how hot it would be in the summer, but he said he used his through summer camp with no problems.

 

Generally I don't like Coleman quality, we adults had a big Coleman that just wouldn't stand up to the wind last weekend, but I have been doing the research and these are the only tents in their price range with the full fly and vestibule.

 

It's always a conundrum to decide what tradeoff to make between price and quality. I think we'll probably only get about 3 years out of these but they are only 1/3 to 1/2 the price of an equivalent Kelty or Alps. If you beleieve the market is efficient than the relative price reflects the relative quality and in the long run the economics of them should be equivalent.

 

For myself earlier this year I made the opposite decision and bought a very good but very expensive family tent from REI, I expect it to last me 10+ years, but I'm not a 12 year old scout. Scouts are hard on tents, even well meaning and well disciplined scouts, and accidents are going to happen no matter how well you train them or they train themselves. If the Colemans last three years that will probably cover the peak camping years for most of our scouts. They'll have raised the money for them, they'll get the most use out of them, and they'll wear them out.

[BrentAllen]

1/3 to 1/2 the cost of Alps? What price are you comparing to, retail? Just want to make sure you realize that Scouts get a 45% discount off the retail price on the Alps page. For instance, if you are looking for a 4-man tent, the Alps Taurus 4 with fiberglass poles retails for $189.99 but will cost you $104.50. It weighs 2 lbs less than the Hooligan 4, and has two doors, on opposite sides of the tent.

 

We have been using these tents for 3 - 4 years (2-man versions) and they still look brand new. The boys all own them, the Troop doesn't own any tents. We have used these tents in some pretty strong rain storms, and they have stayed very dry.

 

When we went to Northern Tier in 2009, they provided us with Alps Mountaineering tents. They get some very hard use up there, and they were in very good shape.

[BrotherhoodWWW]

+1 what Brent Allen said! I have and use the Alps Mystique 1.5. The only complaint I have is it does not have enough headroom for me. Pleanty of room for my thin 14 yo Scout. IMHO it is hard to beat Alps when you factor in their discout to Scouts and their customer service.

[Gutterbird]

So where do we buy the ALPS brand tents with the 45% discount? Website?

 

Thanx

[ManassasEagle]

www.scoutdirect.com

[oldsm]

Register at www.scoutdirect.com.

They'll sent you a pricelist via email.

They're excellent to deal with, and the quality is first rate.

 

We used to use Timberline 2XT exclusively (great headroom, traditional styling, but relatively heavy and took up a lot of room). Two years ago we tried Alps tents for our youngest patrol (don't recall the model, but they're 2-man). The scouts love 'em: plenty of headroom, light weight, easy to setup (use clips instead of sleeves). This will become our new standard tent, I think.

 

I bought one (a step up) for myself at the same time. I love it! Got caught in torrential rain a few weeks ago with water 2" up the outside (just below the door zipper level). Not a drop inside!

[goheelz]

We just bought a supply of hooligans after a bad experience at a camporee with our old tents. Rain and 25 mph winds made for a bad evening. The troop next to us had hooligans and had no leaks or other problems. You can register as a non profit at www.coleman.com/nonprofit to get a good discount. the hooligan 4s were under $70. I'd recommend getting the $2 bags on the site for storing the tents since its hard to get them back in the original bags.