New to camping and have an Outwell Monterey 5. Do you have any good tips on taking down the tent, getting air out of a tent and rolling it up prior to packing it away. There are so many youtubes about putting tents up but haven't many on taking them down.
Many thanks
Jo
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Wait for a dry moment and reverse what you did to get it up. Open the doors fully to let the air out and roll in such a way as to protect the fly from the dirt/moisture on the bottom of the groundsheet (this is easier if you've bought a footprint)
Come on Campingworld....... thats not good enough !
We all know that tents never go back in the bag the way they first came out.I have even begun to wonder if I should leave the doos closed, get to the end of the first two folds ( each end into the middle) then stick the bed pump into the door cavity and run it to deflate, th way you do for the aor bed.
Even when you watch something like the edit on the " how to put up your Outwell Montana " they remove all the poles etc fold the thing up to a strip and then walk away. When they return the tent is in fact so flat that I would be willing to bet that there is an edit back to the unboxed tent after its first two unfolds.
So is this just a newbie thing or is it something everyone finds ?
What campingword1 said, plus here is a good way to fold. I'm assuming the tent is vaguely rectangular - if not, just adapt this accordingly.
1) Take out all the poles but leave the corners loosely pegged; ie loosen their tension straps.
2) As you take out poles, push the flysheet in towards the middle of the tent so it's lying on the groundsheet and not the ground.
3) Draw an imaginary line across the exact middle of the tent, then fold each end in to that line (fold the end without a door first to help get air out). Now the whole of the tent has groundsheet on the outside and flysheet on the inside so no matter what you do now the fly is kept clean and dry when you fold it up and when you unfold it later.
4) Fold it into a long thin rectangle, a bit narrower than the width of the bag and get rolling. Again, if there's a side door, roll towards it to allow the air to get out.
Also, with poles, always remember:
The Golden Rule Is *Push* Not Pull.
And don't forget to dry everything when you get home.
------------- Kate
Ye're no here tae enjoy yersel.
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are we the only ones who now store extra kit in the tent bag as well as the tent? Even with the bedroom pods in situ when we fold it up it is much smaller than when we got it and I now keep 2 windbreaks (in their bags) and 2 kids camping chairs (also in their bags) in there too. Maybe my tent just came with a ridiculously large bag?? Or perhaps my husband is just very precise (anal) about folding and packing lol. It does take us a couple of hours to clean and refold the tent when we get home.
As above (not brickiemum's way, though, that's not packing that's sorcery) and, for the Monty, we get the children to roll over the folded tent to help get the air out!!
Brickiesmum
am glad we're not the only ones who never struggle to get the tent back into the bag!! Ours also goes in easy, and we could probably get extra stuff in there too. But it's heavy enough with whats in there.
------------- Shelli
Campers do it in the mud!
Hubby says we can't camp as much this yr mmm we'll see!!
camped in 2009= 27nights
Booked for 2010 = 30 nights.
YAH I win!!
Looks like I was right he he
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Lol, I'm 5ft nothing. I leave lifting the heavy stuff to hubby who is a 6ft ex-builder. Mind you I haven't told him there is extra kit in there yet I'll wait until he's got it into the car *whistles innocently*