Muskoka Outdoors Network

The Eureka Assault Outfitter 4 is a high quality tent that is simple to set-up, compact (yet spacious) in design and packs some neat hidden features. Suggested retail $375

The tough part about picking out a tent is knowing exactly it’s dimensions and occupancy details. A visit to Eureka’s camping tent website will list tent dimensions and head space (graphically and textually) with each tent they list. I knew exactly what I was getting before the tent even arrived at my door. That means some piece of mind when you purchase an item online.

Setup

Due to the several feet of snow outside my home, my initial review of this tent occurred in my basement (you can chuckle). I will be doing an actual an overnight ‘field’ test later this spring in Algonquin Park while on the hunt for some spring lake trout. I started my stopwatch after I took the tent from the shipping packaging. It took me just 9 minutes to setup the entire tent by myself (minus not having to use tent pegs). Essentially, there were only 6 items easily rolled into the tent bag.

1. 3 13mm collapsing aluminum poll sections (equal length – no confusion or guessing)
2. tent peg and accessories bag
3. the tent
4. the tent fly

I just had to assemble the folding aluminum polls and slide them through their obvious mesh locations on the outside of the tent. Each pole end was easily ‘clipped’ into circular grommet tabs in the tent’s base to maintain the tent’s structural integrity and shape.

The addition of the fly caused a brief moment of thought as I had to determine its orientation over the top of the tent. This was quickly solved by lining up the orange tabbed fly clip with orange colored tab on one corner of the tent. From there, all the fly’s clips were inserted into the corresponding tab on the tent.

Simple.

Size
The Assault Outfitter 4 is listed as a four person tent. Of course, this rating is directly to the size of people who will be using this tent. It would be tight if I had three of my clones in the tent with me, but numerically it works because of its 8’6″ width. I could lie down in it without having to curl my legs up. The tent is 7’6″ long. There is additional space, with tent protection, on the exterior ends of the tent for some critical gear like boots (they probably should not be kept in an occupied tent). You can’t stand up in the tent ( at 4’8″ high), but you don’t feel like the ‘ceiling’ is just inches from your face when you are sleeping either.


Notable Features
* 75D StormShield® polyester ripstop fly with 1500mm coating (allows tents to ventilate and keep the occupants dry)
* Heavy duty 210D nylon oxford floor (tough and dry)
* 40D No-see-um Meshing (keeps the little guys out)

Summary
I don’t recommend every item I am asked to review. In this particular case, I would gladly suggest to my readers that this tent is worthy of your consideration. It is a great size for an Algonquin Park campsite and could sleep up to four campers (3 adults ideally). When fast set-up is a must (like an incoming rain shower) this tent will not disappoint. If this tent is not what you are looking for, consider other backpacking tents from Eureka

Update: I took our tent into Algonquin Park and we encountered high winds, snow and heavy rains over night. This tent set-up quickly and kept us dry and warm (with tent heater) despite the inclement weather we experienced.