Chinook Twin Peaks Guide 6

Chinook Twin Peaks Guide 6 Brief summary:

I spent about a month researching different tents and even borrowed a few to try them out. I had my eyes and heart set on getting a Marmot Halo 6, but let’s face it most of your big name brands are ridiculously priced to some obscene amount of money and they are just not worth it.

Now on to my review of this tent, notice you will see no cons or pros, there is nothing that I dislike about this tent.

The Twin Peaks Guide 6 comes in two forms, fiber glass poles and aircraft aluminum, I don’t plan on camping in snow, so I don’t need the extra weight, I went with the fiber glass. The poles are very well made, flexible and they are colored according to where they go on the tent. Heavy duty, oxford nylon floor, the flooring in this tent is like no other I have seen full bath tub style, all mountings are double sown and fully taped inside the tent and on the outside all seems are hidden. The tent also has a full rain fly, this is something you don’t usually find in family style large tents.

Real time use:

Setup This weekend I showed up late to the camp site and my wife, “who has never setup a tent before”, and father had the tent up in about 20 minutes. They were able to setup the tent using the color codes and without no instructions.

Size:

We had a 7 year old on a spider man air mattress, portable crib for a year old baby girl and a Big Angus double wide self inflating mattress inside the tent. We still had room inside the tent. On the outside in the screened porch with the rain fly coving it my French Mastiff and all of our clothes, baby’s stuff and toys were stored with plenty of room for the kids to play and us to sit to get out of the rain.

Sleeping conditions:

The temps were in the 100s this weekend and at night it would drop down to about 80 degrees, the tent did not sweat at all and we did not have the damp feeling in the morning when we woke up.

Weathering:

On Saturday we had high windows, down poors and thunder storms, I had the full rain fly staked out and the guide line in the ground. The tent did not leak at all, we did have a little water in the front of the screened porch from the large ground pad for the kids was hanging too far out and acted as a channel for the rain to drain into the corner, “bad choice on our part and not the tent”.

Air flow:

With the rain fly unzipped the air flow is fine, just make sure that you steak the rain fly properly or the air will not flow.

Overall:

For anyone looking for a great high quality tent at a price that stomps the rest of the tent makers in the ground, take a look at Chinooktec.com, you cannot go wrong with there tents.

Pictures can be found in my profile.

I purchased this tent online in April 2011. It is very well designed in that it was very easy for me to put up by myself and I am only 5ft 2inches tall. I only had a little bit of a problem inserting the ridgepole - it was easier to do with the fly still on the ground.

Also, the proportion of sleeping area vs sitting (porch area) is just right and both are a good height. As with all tents, the '6 person' designation is meant for kid size in the sleeping area. The size of this tent is just right for 3 or 4 adults, unless 2 more will sleep in the porch area.

The tent comes with a poly floor that can be installed in the porch, but in order for this to be a truely bug-free sleeping area there needs to be a better seal between the floor and the walls.

I gave this tent only 3 stars because it leaked. I pitched it on high ground with good drainage away from the tent, and pegged out the fly. We had rain off an on for three days and on the second day a puddle had formed in the middle of the floor of the sleeping area.

When taking down the tent I noticed that a small section of the stitching at the peak is puckered, but the seam is taped correctly. I will need to seal these seams but find it awkward to do because of the height of the tent.

The other annoying thing was that not enough tent pegs were supplied for all the tie downs and the guy lines. I guess people are supposed to find trees to tie the guy lines to? I found this lack of sufficient pegs a 'cheap' thing to do! Luckily I had some extra pegs with me.

To summarize, the tent is very well designed, has all the features a tent camper like me wants, is easy to put up, but the workmanship and quantity of pegs supplied drops my rating. I could return the tent because it is under warranty, but I like it so much that I will try the seam sealer first.

One thing I would have liked to see is a bigger stuff sack. It is awfully hard to get everything back into the sack provided. The care instructions that came with the tent state that the tent should be rolled loosely to store. If that's the case, a bigger sack would be necessary!

I purchased this tent last year 2010 beginning of summer and once I received. The tent was missing a pole ferrule, guy line, screen area was ripping after first set up, and lastly tent poles were bent permanently. 

I contacted Chinook warranty and they are not helping me even though I sent them pictures and reciept of purchase. After a year of waiting it is 2011 and they only contacted me back since I contacted the better business bureau because of this issue. Warranty place is still running me around in circles trying to not warranty it.