The weather has been crap in British Columbia. Can I say that? Because there’s
really no other way to say it. Weeks and weeks of rain. We might have a few
days of kinda nice weather sprinkled in there—high fluffy clouds, sunshine, a
light breeze. Then back around at you with the crap, like a tetherball
spinning on a pole in your grade school courtyard. Remember those? You really
had to pay attention so you didn’t get whacked. Same thing with spring weather
this year. Impossible to plan a week-long fishing trip because you never
really knew what that tetherball was gonna do when it came around again.
Did I say the weather has been crap? So, not exactly the best conditions to
enjoy spring lake fishing. A little rain is fine. But cold, nasty,
hard-driving rain, hail and thunderstorms, and overnight temperatures down to
freezing puts a damper on the fun part of fish camping. But strangely enough,
this is exactly the kind of weather that makes for a great tent
review. Which was kinda the point anyways.
A few months ago, when my Plan A of a Ford F350 and a giant camper got
derailed by Covid and the Kremlin, I needed a big comfortable place to sleep
that wouldn’t break the bank. So the good folks at Big Agnes sent me a
3-season tent, the Tensleep Station 6. The objective was to get it out before
fishing season and bash around a little in camping country to see how it held
up. But the late, wet and cold spring kept delaying things, and it took a
while to actually set up an extended period where I could give it a good test.
Eventually it became clear that the test wouldn’t happen in advance of the
fishing season, which wasn’t such a bad thing. Still, week-long fishing trips
were planned and cancelled several times, because the weather (and the
fishing) just weren’t cooperating. Finally I’d had enough and decided it was
time to go, come hell or high water.
The high water did indeed arrive, along with the minor league hell that
accompanied it. It rained daily for a week. Not the pleasant “let’s go fishing
and bring your rain gear” kind of rain. Nope, this was the biblical kind. The
kind that makes you worried about whether your roof at home will hold up. Your
tent? Well, let’s just say I kept my expectations very low. Way down
in the hole low, to extend the biblical reference, with thanks of course to Mr
Tom Waits.
On the afternoon up, we drove a mountain highway to elevations around 5,000
feet. Along the way it rained and hailed so hard that we pulled over because
we couldn’t see. And when our wipers were able to clear a little water from
the windshield, we found that every incline had a river running down it, so
high speed travel was rather dangerous, the truck hydroplaning at speeds over
30 mph, even with the great tires I have on it. When we finally got to the
lake we quickly set up my friend Scott’s tarp and huddled under it while we
waited for the storm to pass. After a few hours the worst seemed behind us,
but we could see more coming. So I decided to set up.
I pitched the tent without a practice run during that evening’s lull in the
monsoon. Now I know you’re always supposed to do a dry run at home before a
trip, but I wanted everything to be as authentic as possible. So I rolled the
dice and set it up for the first time, a wet run I guess you could say.
Without any help, and stopping here and there to review the clear instructions
that are affixed to the tent’s storage bag, it took me maybe 20 minutes. With
an extra pair of hands it would have been faster. The only challenge, really,
was keeping the tent poles in the grommets as I moved around the tent. But I
quickly discovered that inserting the pole end into the grommet and then
pushing the pole towards that grommet while I wiggled the other grommet on the
opposite end of the pole into place worked quite well. Once I figured that out
the rest was pretty easy. The tent’s three-pole design makes it quick business
to have it free standing, and then you clip the rest of the tent body to
the poles and you’re almost ready to move in.
The rainfly was probably the biggest challenge for one person. It’s big, and
for folks under say 5’10” it might be a bit problematic tossing it over the
main tent and lining it up right. Of course, with an extra pair of hands this
wouldn’t be a problem. I’m just a tad under 6’2”, so it wasn’t a big deal. The
fly, of course, wanted to slip off the main body of the tent, but once I got
it lined up with the color-coded clips on the main tent body things got pretty
simple. There’s one pole that supports the front vestibule of the fly, and
once this is in and the ends popped into the grommets, the fly is pretty much
sorted. Clip it in, attach the Velcro straps to the tent poles, and the worst
of it is done. Big Agnes thoughtfully supplies enough tent pegs to secure
everything, so it’s just a matter of walking around the tent, sliding a peg
into each loop and tapping them into the ground with a hammer or the back of a
hatchet head. I didn’t use all of them because I didn’t guy out the tent 100
percent. I used about 1/2 the attached guy lines and that was more than
enough, even in the really bad weather I experienced. I was fairly well
sheltered from the wind though— if I wasn’t I would have used all the guy
lines.
The main tent body has two doors that have mesh panels along the top half, and
the walls are ½ mesh paneled for ventilation. As this is a three-season tent
there isn’t an option to zip fabric over these. To keep any rain out, you need
to set up the rainfly. The fly has two doors as well, and the front vestibule
is pretty slick. You can easily seat two in there with camp chairs and a small
table, and zip it right up to keep the rain out. This vestibule also has a
variety of rigging options that allow you to use it as kind of a little tarp
when using separate tent poles or trekking poles. You can also roll this right
up to allow for maximum ventilation, or roll up one side or the other. Because
of the rain, I just left it in its original configuration to provide maximum
protection from the elements.
The one criticism I had of the rainfly was the lack of a guy line about
half-way along the bottom, which would allow a person to pull the fly away
from the main tent body. There are loops down there, but I had to attach
additional, longer loops of paracord to these and then use them to stake out
the bottom of the tent. This is a minor thing, but in the rain that I
experienced it was good to have all the edges of the rain fly as far away from
the tent as possible to prevent water from pooling right next to the tent
floor. Sure I could have gotten out my shovel and dug a trench around the
tent, but who really ever does that?
Before my trip I read the online info about the Tensleep Station 6 and was
expecting a monster of a tent. While it’s certainly a big tent, it’s not
gigantic. I learned a long time ago to take the number of sleepers a
manufacturer rates their tents for and divide it by two. So while the Tensleep
Station 6 could probably cram six roughing it campers on the floor, it’s
really a 2-3 person tent, at least for the kind of camping I like to do. I set
it up with a huge Teton Outdoors XXL cot, some carpet runners, and a couple of
camping tubs as night tables—it was the perfect size for me to spread out and
feel at home. But it would have been tough fitting anyone else in there,
especially if they wanted to be comfortable. Using smaller cots, this would be
a great tent for two cot sleepers to feel comfortable without being cramped.
Something I immediately appreciated is the internal height of the tent. I’m
easily able to stand up in it by just dropping my chin slightly. This is great
for layering up or down, or navigating the interior of the tent half-asleep if
you’re dealing with those late night nature calls.
During the week of testing the outside temperature ranged from about 36 to 72
Fahrenheit, a good workout for a 3-season tent. That almost steady rain made
certain the humidity was high, a real test of the tent’s venting system, not
to mention the reliability of its rainfly. Despite my expectation of a wet
interior, every night when I unzipped the front door, I found that everything
was dry. Well, dry-ish, because of course nothing is ever really dry when
humidity gets that high. Especially sleeping bags and pillows. But none of
this had anything to do with the tent. The Tensleep Station 6 brushed off the
weather as nothing more than a minor annoyance. Each morning a few beads of
condensation were evident near the bottom of one of the walls, but that was
it. Everywhere else was dry. To say I was impressed is an understatement.
Under pretty extreme conditions, the Tensleep Station 6 surpassed all of my
expectations.
The Tensleep Station 6 comes complete with everything you need to set up a
bomber basecamp shelter. The main tent and fly are both made of durable
polyester, and the fly is polyurethane coated to 1,500mm waterproofness. Four
aluminum poles and a bunch of aluminum stakes are provided. The footprint
(which protects the bottom of the tent—highly recommended) and other
accessories are sold separately. Check out the Tensleep Station 6 and other
Big Agnes tents at bigagnes.com.
$500