ATuffy Instant Tent

A few months ago, I was searching the web for something, and I came across a mention of Apache Tents, which is a company that makes tents that they describe as "instant". Like most people, this brought to mind the tents used in the movie "Congo" that do pop up instantly, but are not very sturdy, not easy to take down, and kind of large to lug around. But, I looked at the reviews and the video on the Apache web site, and I decided to give their ATuffy 2-man tent a try. I found a deal for $220 for the 2-man version - not cheap, but a reasonable price for a good tent with the right specs.

One of my old tents is a primitive version of this tent. The poles stay in it, so when it's time to put it up, you unroll it, shake the poles until they are together, and put them into place. This doesn't always work - if you get the poles mixed up the tent is all twisted and you have to pull it apart again, which is annoying when you arrive at camp after dark. This is also a tiny tent, so I don't use it all that often.

Anyway, I ordered an ATuffy 2-man tent and when it arrived I gave it a try. It's not a gimmick. You unroll the tent, grab it by the top, swirl it around until the poles snap into place, reach inside, and pull the umbrella mechanism. You attach the umbrella pole to a T-hook inside of the tent. If it's not cold, rainy, or windy, you're done. If you need to put up the rainfly, that's also pretty quick. You unroll it, unfold the pole (which is attached to the fly), snap the pole into a hole in the top of the tent, and unfold it over the tent. It takes less than a minute to put the rainfly on. The tent comes with enough stakes for a full stakedown if you need it.

Taking the tent down is pretty easy. The rainfly poles come apart and the entire rainfly rolls up easily. There are bungee loops to keep it rolled up. Taking down the main tent takes a little bit of practice, but it's really not hard to learn. One really nice thing is that the bag is big enough to put the tent and rainfly in without having to roll it perfectly or spend 5 minutes tugging on the bag.

The tent is made with good quality material and well constructed. There are pockets in the corners, and T-hooks in the ceiling for a gear loft (sadly, Apache doesn't sell these, but they are probably a standard size). Most of the tent is nylon fabric, with 2 small net windows. The doors have both fabric and net panels with 2-way zippers. There are doors on the long sides, so it's easy to get in and out. It weighs under 7 lbs. I have another tent that is around the same size and cost a little more, and it weighs 2 lbs more and takes a lot more time to put up and take down.

I recently used my tent on a 7 day rafting trip. We only had rain one night, and the tent was brand new, so I can't really make a fair assessment of how it will hold up in strong rain and with lots of use, but I didn't get wet that night. Overall, I found the tent to be very comfortable. It was easy to open and close the doors without getting up, so it was easy to control the temperature. The one complaint I have is that the walls kind of droop a little. For me, this means that I need to push my Paco Pad into the foot of the tent, which leaves some room at the head for my pillow to fall off. I fixed this by putting my small drybag up there.

I plan to try out this tent in an inflatable kayak trip soon.