Quote: Originally posted by nelmo on 19/8/2009 When setting up, I don't do any guy ropes until the whole thing is up.
I put the main poles together but don't put the pins in initially.
Then, starting at one side, put the pins into the 2 main poles, lift them both up as high as possible (only about half to 3/4 of the way) and get the wife to hold them there.
Then, scoot round to the other side and lift the 2 poles on that side (this is the physically hardest part of the whole process). With a bit of effort, you should be able to get the whole half of the tent up and then put the 2 pins into the poles on that side (also can be quite tricky).
Then repeat with the other half of the tent. Guy out afterwards...
Sorry, difficult to explain in words - hope this helps.
PS: you can try looking at that Outwell video but I found it almost useless - they seemed to jump from 'flat tent' to 'raised tent' in one step and even worse when showing the 'packing away' process.
Thanks for replying...is there any difference in doing what you described as opposed to my oh raising two poles at the same time im lifting the same poles from the other side then pinning these two poles before lifting the other two poles at the other end ??? ( does that make sense ?) I just felt when we did this it seemed to put a strain on the fabric with the other two poles in that are lay on the ground ?? Now Im getting confused ....thanks anyway.........
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We've just returned from our second excursion with an Outwell Idaho L and also had problems setting up the tent. Both times the primary issue appeared to be that thefabric pulled towards the back of the tent and that it was almost impossible to get the poles into the pins once we had the tent partially erected. On one of the previous posts I noted the following:
"put the curved poles in first making sure they all face the same direction, then the leg poles again making sure they are facing the right way"
There doesn't appear to be any identifiers on the poles to indicate that there is a correct or incorrect direction for the curved poles or the leg poles. Does anyone know how to identify which is the right way and which the wrong? I noticed that when I laid the curved poles out that the curve is slightly different depending on which end you start from and also that the first break is longer on one "third" than the other end "third". Is this what you mean by right direction? I just want to make sure that we do not have a faulty tent which needs to go back to outwell.