Wenzel Alpine 3 Person Tent

I lived in this tent for 1 person camping at Burning Man for 9 days. I was not part of a large organized camp, so I was forced to bring and house all my supplies. I did not have a shade structure. Parts of this review will be specific to Burning Man life.With a twin air mattress running at a slight angle, you have a good place for trash and a small backpack on the far side of the mattress. The remaining space can comfortably fit a duffel bag and a suitcase lengthwise covering 1.5 of the walls. You are then left with enough space for dirty clothes & shoes at the foot of your bed (on one side of door) and water storage at the foot of your suitcase (on other side of door). The covered area just outside the door has enough protection/space to store a vinegar soaking bucket and a camp stool. This setup will leave you will space to sit up on the bed and put on shoes, apply sunscreen, etc. You will have a small open floor space remaining, but be sure to not fill it with stuff otherwise getting in and out of the tent will be hard.The stake loops on the 5 points of the tent are NOT large enough for rebar, but since the tent isn't too big, a very reasonable option is 8-10" metal tent spikes at 45` angles. They can be found at any hardware store.Up until this point in the review, everything about this tent is incredibly positive. Wonderful tent. Excellent for 95% of camping trips. Now let's talk about the realities of Burning Man.Dust: This tent has excellent dust protection everywhere except 2 square feet on the roof, where it has virtually zero protection. You MUST augment the existing (useless) rainfly with substantial dust proofing otherwise you will return to a nice coating of dust every day. I paired this with thermal protection (described below).Sun and Heat: This is an Alpine tent, and therefore it has great thermal insulation for conduction and convection. This is great at night, but radiation heating during the day is typically an advantage of alpine tents. On the Playa, not so much. I built a large Mylar covering that wrapped around 80% of the tent exterior (except for the door). This worked very well for dust and thermal, but attaching the mylar to the tent was a big challenge. The fabric on the faces of the tent is slippery for duct tape, so you are forced to tape to the support poles, the rain fly or the bottom of the tent. This is a tape hog. Also, after covering the tent with mylar, the mylar will still flap around, adding noisy crackling to your sleep. Buy thicker mylar blankets or spray-glue fabric to the thin mylar to solve this problem.Guests: Unless you and your playa lover get along very well, find somewhere else to sleep. Not a great first date lodging, but not horrible.Wind: Excellent wind strength.Sound: Sound penetration is fairly high. Bring headphones if near a sound camp. I didn't need any.Light: The tent has a light-colored fabric on the mid faces. Without aforementioned mylar covering, the light would wake me 30 minutes after sunrise. I could return to sleep for another hour or so before being woken again by the heat & light. With Mylar, you could sleep all day unless the sun shines directly on the door.Summary: If you are camping anywhere except for Burning Man, this tent is awesome. If you are camping at Burning Man, bring a shade structure or do a Mylar covering and then this tent is awesome.

I bought this tent for my son's cub scout camping activity. It served it's purpose so I have no real complaints. It was our first time camping so it's not like we have anything to use as a base for comparison.I would say the tent is simple to set up, but not necessarily easy. The poles seemed a tad too long and were difficult to fit into their respective spots. Some of the more experienced scout parents helped and commented that it shouldn't have been that hard to get the poles in place.The tent stakes are L-shaped metal pieces that look like very long hex keys if that helps you picture it. I was expecting plastic or metal stakes that looked more like ..well, something you could hammer through the heart of a vampire. One stake bent fairly easily since the ground was a little hard. It must be a fairly common thing as the others joked about how they buy new stakes every so often.The first thing I noticed after the tent was set up was that the rain fly was rather small compared to the other tents around us. Most tents have rain flies that cover quite a bit of the tent to direct rain away from the main tent body. The Wenzel Alpine's rain fly covers just the top portion of the tent, but it works (more on that later).This is described as a 3-person tent and from a marketing/advertising perspective, I suppose it passes as such. We had two adults, an 8 year-old, and two small bags and that was pretty much all that would fit. Three adults would probably fit as long as they weren't too tall or big and it would be rather tight.There are two windows and the front door is essentially a third window. Along with the vents at the top of the tent under the rain fly, they provide adequate ventilation. The mesh catch-all that hangs from the top of the tent is handy to place loose things such as keys and phones. There is also a mesh, pencil-case-shaped pouch near the ground on one side of the tent that is convenient. There is a mat at the front door to leave muddy shoes or whatever. The tent isn't very tall so you wouldn't be able to completely stand up inside unless you're 4' tall.The night that we camped, a thunderstorm rolled in and dumped on us for about two hours and then it rained lightly off and on for another two hours. We had a slight leak at one of the seams at the bottom of the tent where the tent attaches to the floor. It was very slight so there was no big puddle or anything overnight. I'm sure sealing the seams would be more than adequate for resolving this. Otherwise, the tent held up surprisingly well.After the storm passed, the wind picked up and it got pretty chilly. It's a three-season tent, but I'd venture to say that third season better be mild. I don't think the temperature dropped below 40, but it sure felt that way. Our sleeping bags are rated to the 30s and that was our saving grace.Overall, I'd recommend this tent if you aren't a serious camper. I thought it did a good job especially for the price. If you camp often or in less than ideal weather, I'd suggest getting a different tent. This one worked for me, though.