However, the tarp-style floor becomes a little hot in the sun and tends to collect dirt, sand, and water. The Easy Up is a self-contained product with no assembly required, making it easy to set up, take down, and store in your garage, coat closet, or car trunk. Five large-weight bags attach and can be filled with sand to keep everything in place.
Our hands-down winner in this category is the Eurmax Standard 10×10. It offers impeccable craftsmanship and is even graded as “Entry Commercial” by the manufacturer. This canopy’s stitching and heavy-wear stress points are reinforced. Additionally, its 600-denier canopy fabric is the thickest we’ve seen. Likewise, the roller bag is made from commercial-grade components and fabrics, and the frame is thicker and heavier than other canopies. The Tagalong and Caravan V-Series scored slightly lower than our top scorers, but they still have straightforward setup processes.
Our experts teamed up to develop a rigorous test plan, which we applied to every canopy tent in this review. We learn a lot about each model by testing in varying environments, including mountains, forests, ozark trail backpack lakes, beaches, and dunes. Each canopy was set up and broken down repeatedly to assess its ease of use and craftsmanship, separating the well-designed from the failure-prone or confusing models.
That said, we also feel its applications are somewhat endless. No assembly is required; this shelter is ready to go right out of the box and can be fully deployed in less than a minute. We admit there is a small learning curve to setting up the Escape, but once you’re locked in, popping this canopy into place is really fun and even somewhat addictive.
It is created by a stream flowing over the edge of a rock cliff. There is only 4-5 feet from the top of the ledge to the earth below, where the water keeps flowing down the hill. It feels like winter was still holding on, not ready to let go just yet. We both stay bundled up as this side of the mountain is in the shade.
However, once on the ground, their roller bags make it extremely easy to pull them over concrete, dirt, and grass. The canopy tent has mesh walls on all four sides and an edge of polyester fabric (also DWR treated) at the ground that deters mosquitos and other critters from invading from below. Like many tents of this type, the REI Screen House Shelter has a fabric hook in the center of the ceiling that accommodates a small lantern or other light. The REI Co-op Screen House Shelter is easy to set up and pleasant to use, providing good protection from bugs, sun, and gentle rain showers. A high ceiling makes the tent feel brighter and more airy than other camping shelters with a similar footprint. That’s not the case with a slant leg canopy tent which, as you may have guessed, features legs that are slanted and form an angle of less than 90 degrees with the floor.
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