What is it?
Coleman Rocky Mountain 5 Family Tent
Features
- BlackOut Bedrooms™ block out 99% of sunlight and regulates temperature
- Two extra large bedrooms
- 4,500mm hydrostatic head
- Integrated PE groundsheet
- Reflective guylines
- Ventilation panels
- Flysheet is fire retardant and features UVGuard, providing SPF 50 protection
- Ample pockets and handing hooks
- Editors Choice winner, 2016 Camping awards
We’ve written previously about the Coleman Rocky Mountain 5 tent after seeing it at the Caravan, Camping & Motorhome Show earlier this year, so when Coleman got in touch with us, we were keen to field test one for ourselves.
What did we think?
On arrival at the campsite the tent took the 2 of us about 15 minutes to put up. It’s a traditional tunnel design tent with a front living area, and a rear bedroom that can be separated using a clip in divider. To put the tent up there are 3 poles to assemble which are colour coded and are attached in place using a simple ring and pin system. We found set up to be simple and intuitive and although the tent can be pitched as one, first time around, we needed to attach the bedroom compartment inside.
The tent includes a large full width front door which can be fully unzipped and rolled up, or you can choose to unzip and roll-up just the outer flysheet, keeping the bug mesh in place. There’s also a smaller but still generous door on the side, which again features the same bug mesh. Because it was so hot, we unzipped both the flysheet and and bug mesh for maximum airflow.
Our kitchen set up inside the tent with both doors rolled up
We camped on the hottest weekend of the year, with the temperature hitting 30 degrees. Having the addition of the side door and a rear window in the bedroom compartment meant we could open everything and let air flow through, and boy did we need it! In fact, for most of the weekend we had the large front door rolled up as well as the side door next to the kitchen unit, which also meant we could safely cook thanks to heaps of ventilation which made the front living area feel more like an airy awning.
There are triangular windows in the front corners of the living area which have covers that can be easily opened up to let more light in, and on the right hand side opposite the smaller door, there’s an air vent and a large clear window so you can make the most of the view from your pitch.
Inside the living area as well as a cable entry point, we found plenty of storage pockets, as well as lantern hanging points and velcro around the bedroom compartment which allowed us to tidy away the cable from the HUBi light we use.
The Rocky Mountain 5 Blackout bedroom with the rear window open
The verdict?
As the previous owner of 2 Coleman tents, we’ve always found that price wise, you tend to get slightly more for your money than say a similar spec of Vango tent. The quality of the Rocky Mountain 5 is good, and it’s not difficult to see why it’s an award winning tent.
Top: Front view of the Rocky Mountain 5 with door fully open Bottom Left: Easily adjustable tent peg loops Bottom Right: Roll up bedroom window with mesh cover
For such a spacious tent, the pack size was fairly modest and once up, we thought it was surprisingly spacious given it’s pack size. We also really liked the fresh green colours of the tent too, especially the funky lime green used for some detailing.
We found that the blackout bedroom made a real difference; in fact at night you couldn’t see a thing inside the bedroom area without putting on a light, it was liking looking into a cave!
If you don’t have heaps of space available in the car, but need something that’s big enough for a family of 4, then the Rocky Mountain 5 would be a great choice. We always prefer to have space in a tent, and because we use camp beds and have a full kitchen set up, space wise, it’s ideal for the 2 of us; we certainly wouldn’t camp for more than a night or two in anything smaller but then we do recognise that we take a lot of stuff with us when we camp!
Colemany Rocky Mountain 5 Pros and Cons
ProsCons
- The tent was fast and intuitive to set up with colour coded poles and good instructions inside the bag if you do get stuck
- A decent 4,500mm HH means I’d be confident camping in this tent in all seasons
- Oversized bag which meant after packing the tent away again, everything fitted back inside with very little effort
- We loved the tab system at the base of the tent which made pegging it down and tightening everything up very easy
- Ample lantern hanging points, bug mesh across all windows and doors plus a cable entry system which was ideal for running our HUBi solar hub through
- Good size living area with plenty of space for a table, two chairs, our enormous kitchen unit, cool box etc.
- The blackout bedroom made a huge difference and it was very effective at blocking sunlight
- The height inside the bedroom was quite limited, leading to even me at 5.6″ having to bend slightly when inside the bedroom
- The extra large bedrooms didn’t impress. Despite removing the central bedroom divider, our Outwell Posodas double camp bed only just fitted inside the sleeping compartment, causing the rear of the tent to bulge out slightly so we felt the length of the bedroom could have done with being a bit more generous
- Although it’s classed as a 5 person tent, as is often the case, you’ll only sleep 5 if you are using very narrow single SIMs
- There were precisely enough pegs with no spares provided… and we bent one almost straight away, so we’d recommend investing in some sturdier pegs
We think this is a great looking tent, with a good technical specification that offers a decent amount of space, though we’d have liked the bedroom compartment to be a few inches longer. We loved the clever blackout bedroom (Ideal for early rising little-ones) and we think the Coleman Rocky Mountain 5 offers very good value in the sub £300 family tent price range.
The front living area with the side and front doors fully open
Tent shown next to my car to give you an idea of size
A big thank you to Coleman who supplied the Rocky Mountain 5 for us to test.
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The post We Field Test The Coleman Rocky Mountain 5 Family Tent appeared first on Camping with Style Camping Blog | Activities • Glamping • Travel • Adventure.
from
http://www.campingwithstyle.co.uk/coleman-rocky-mountain-5-family-tent-review/
My kayak after a paddle on Coniston Water, a short walk from the site
Me taking a dip in Coniston Water
Out and about in Coniston
What are they?
