Customer Reviews

Eureka! Bitterroot -Tent (sleeps 5-6)

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First of all let me say that from experience I can tell you without a doubt that we will ONLY buy Eureka brand tents because of their quality of construction, durability, and speedy ease of setup/breakdown.

I bought this tent under the Amazon review/recommendation that two queen beds would fit inside. The truth is that technically they do "fit" inside but not comfortably. When this tent arrived we set it up in the yard to make sure everything fit well together before taking it on a trip. I inflated two of our queen mattresses and put them inside. They fit *exactly* side by side with NO room between mattresses to put a lamp, gear, or even your foot. There is plenty of room at the foot of the beds for your gear but if you are like me, when you get out of bed you want to be able to put your feet down and stand up, not having to shimmy your way to the foot of the bed to crawl out at the foot of the bed. Queen mattresses are 5' wide. Together that is 10' which leaves only 1-foot of space between them which sounds like it would be okay but it isn't because mattresses with bedding are poofy and take up all the space. Period. I believe this tent would best accommodate one Queen with one Twin, or, Two doubles. In rainy weather you'd want to move your items away from the inside walls of the tent, with two Queens side by side you can't really do this so trust me, this tent is better suited for a queen and a twin.

That being said, this tent has some EXCELLENT features. The ceiling height is absolutely HUGE. I could not touch the ceiling even on my tippy-toes. The gear loft is marvelous and would be very useful. There are two vents in the ceiling and windows on all FOUR sides which I really like for maximum ventilation! I also love the high/low vent on the door. I love the interior pocket. I love the deeply pitched rainfly over the windows - serious protection from rain coming in the windows and the fact that the seams are taped as well as double sewn. Very well done Eureka! The color is gorgeous, the rainfly sparkles like a new copper penny in the sun. The mesh is ultra fine - better than any other tent I've ever owned. The tent took mere minutes to set up right out of the bag and was just as easy to break down. The zippers worked smoothly, no chance of the zipper fabric getting caught in these because there isn't any! Another finely engineered tent by Eureka! My only regret is that this tent does not come in a 13x11 size.

I want to say once again that the peaks on the rainfly are ideal for keeping wet weather away from the windows... just compare them to any other tent style to see what I mean. It's a no brainer. The ceiling height is cavernous, really excellent of them to finally make a super tall ceiling. You'll want to play basketball in there.

I also want to say that Eureka is spot-on when it comes to guy-line free tents! This tent is stable even without being staked down and there will be NO guy lines for you and the kids to trip over, not to mention never having to rely on the soil's ability to hang on to a stake. Anyone who has had their stakes come out in soft or sandy soil knows exactly what I mean! No worries with this tent!

PS: We also own the Eureka Sunrise9 which fits the teens' two twin beds beautifully and has a lot of great features. It's also a keeper!

UPDATE! Over Memorial Day weekend we ended up taking the Bitteroot on a Disney Camping trip... gave it to the kids to use as a 'spare' tent and OH WHAT FUN they had! They were able to fit 2 twin mattresses in there with loads and loads of room to spare. Even I, Mom, was envious. The tent is is giagantic and roomy inside but I personally wouldn't put two queen beds side by side in there. There was so much room in this tent it was unbelieveable. They had a lot of camp-site-friends come in to play - no problem at all and ventilation was great even with a lot of goofy kids inside. It was very easy to set up. I was skeptical because we had planned to take the 9x9 but ended up packing this 11x11 instead. This tent plus another 13x10 AND a 12x10 canopy will fit in a Disney Fort Wilderness tent site no problem!

Another Upate: This tent spent it's second trip at Hillsborough River State Park over Thanksgiving. People actually stopped by to ask about it because they watched us set it up in minutes and it's so pretty and large. They couldn't believe how big it was inside. Later that trip we added a third twin bed with no problems. This tent also took it's first rain like a champ with no leaks or odd smells. I love this bitteroot!

I bought this tent and used it for the first time recently. Good points: The tent is HUGE. I am 5'9" and could stand all the way up in the tent. The gear loft is nice and there are lots of storage pockets inside. Bad Points: Tent Poles are outragously heavy. This is definately not a tent you would want to carry very far. There are a few seams at ground level, one right in the middle of the floor. It rained the first night we set up and some moisture came in from the bottom of the tent. Luckily we had a footprint on the inside of the tent as well. Overall this is a good buy for the price I paid. I bought the tent for $99, and noticed the price is now $179. I don't think I would pay that much for this tent.

You certainly wouldn't want to take this backpacking, but for use at a campground, this tent would be hard to beat. I purchased it from a gold box offer shortly before Memorial Day, and just got back from a camping trip. Everyone was jealous of this HUGE tent. I am 6'5'' and could stand up comfortably in the center of this tent.

It rained 2 of the 3 nights we were out there, and one night it POURED. Despite the usual loudness of the rain on the fly, this was a pleasant experience. No rain got into the tent, and thanks to the ceiling vents and well designed fly, we stayed cool and happy the entire night.

Easy to set up, easy to take down. Easy to shake off after a rainfall to pack up immediately.

1 adult and 4 kids was no problem, everyone had PLENTY of personal space. I imagine 4 adults fit in quite comfortably.

Eureka hasn't let me down, and if you are in the market for a HUGE tent, this is the one to get.

I laid out a footprint and I set up the tent by myself in my backyard. It only took me an hour. Time was not really the issue here. The size of this thing is. I took my time making sure I put it up correctly. It is big! I love it. I swear you can hear an echo inside without furniture. So I moved in. I put in a full sized airbed along with two cots for the two kids. I had plenty of room to spare. I could have easily put in my queen sized airbed with those two cots and still had room for a lot of gear. I am 6'1" tall and had plenty of room to spare before reaching the summit of this tent.

I spent the next 2 nights in this condo with driving rain and wind keeping me awake. The wind was about 20-to 30 mph gusts. The poles are so sturdy the tent shook all night but there was no chance this tent was going anywhere. It continued to rain 4 inches here in Atlanta over three days. There was a little leakage however. The fly leaked a little and the zipper at its stop. I had put a footprint under the tent that was larger than the tent (big mistake). This caused a lake affect under the tent. It felt like I was on a water bed. I didn't realize this until I stepped on the floor the next morning. I used my arm as a squeegee and it just filled up again. BUT there was NO leakage on the bathtub type floor. Those seams are sealed tighter than my uncle's wallet.

When it quit raining I sealed the fly and the zipper stop. Then it snowed heavy huge snowflakes. Imagine that. Atlanta got 6 inches of snow. The fly drooped with the weight of the wet snow but the inside stayed dry. I just wacked the edges of the fly and created an avalanche effect around the tent. It did not seep into the tent.

The next week I took it camping for 3 days and it was nice and dry. Set up was a little easier this time but it became dark upon arrival and a couple of nice folks helped me set it up. It took us about 15 minutes. I recommend that two folks work together to set up this big honking tent. Also make sure your footprint is smaller than your tent and seal the fly. I purchased a smaller tent and will use the Bitterroot as a base-camp as I participate in Bigfoot expeditions. With the tent being as cavernous as it is I feel like I need to bring more stuff than I should. Therefore it takes longer to pack up than it should because of all that EXTRA stuff I bring. The tent is a snap to disassemble and pack up. 15-20 minutes when doing it solo.

What a nice big tent! And it is very nice looking too. I got more than a few compliments about its size, sturdiness and color scheme.

I purchased this item two summers ago. This is a great campsite tent it is probably too heavy for hiking in. This tent is easy to assemble and easy to disassemble the bag they give you to repack is oversized and makes it easy to pack up this is great because after a long weekend of camping last thing you want to do is stuff a tent in a bag that is too small. I have set up and disassembled many tents and most of them give you bags that are too small not this one though. This tent is also great in rain conditions I was very surprised to see how dry the inside of the tent stayed during a medium size rain the bottom of seemed thin but don't let that fool you not a drop of rain came through the bottom. This tent is very well built and very stable in high winds. I used a oversized ground cloth underneath. I would recommend this tent.

Well I must say I have had this tent for a few years now and it has been the best dome tent I have ever used. The quality of materials and the ease of assembly is great. It has been through over 100 days of camping in all sorts of extreme weather and I have never had a problem with it. It has never leaked and I have yet to have to rewaterproof the seams. The only downfall with it s the floor is thin so you will need to put a tarp or cut a piece of 10 mil plastic to use as a ground tarp underneath it and I would do that for any tent I use.. besides that there are no poblems. This is definatly a good tent for the money.

The inital backyard test setup results:

Pros
* Easy one person setup..took me 15 mins to setup
* The inside height is awesome
* Looks greats
* Two storage pockets below the side windows are a nice feature
* In addition to the rain fly having guy lines that attach to the bottom of tent, the rain fly has hooks that attaches to the tent frame--making the fly more secure
* Plenty of ventilation, it did not feel stuffy
* I didn't have to struggle to put it back into the bag

Cons
* Two long seams along the middle of the floor (it should just be one solid piece, not several seamed together) It seems this is weak point where water can get in
* The tent floor isn't very thick; I plan to use a tent footprint to protect the bottom
* Inside mesh gear located on top of the back window can not be removed and gets on the way

I wish
* The tent included a zipper on the side to accommodate a power cord coming into the tent from the outside. A workaround is to run the cord thru the door
* The tent bag had a handle along the side to make it easy to carry

Over all this is a great tent, I would recommend it to anyone who needs a large family tent. It looks nice, seems to be made of quality material and I'm looking forward to the first camping trip (Feb 28) in it!

UPDATE
Just got back from our first camping trip using the bitterroot. It was great! It was easy to setup & roomy. A cool front blew in during the night and we had wind gusts up to 35 mph -- the frame held strong. Just wish the bottom was made from a thicker material-plan to use a tarp underneath.

This tent is HUGE! Big enough for our queen airbed and our pack-n-play, and our 70lb dog, with room to spare. The ceiling is so high, I had to stand on my tippytoes to reach the loop to hang our lantern (I'm 5'9"). This tent is very nice, has good ventilation, and is easy to set up (for two people anyway). It would be tougher with one person, but why would one person need a tent this big anyway? Eureka is a brand you can trust, and this tent was an amazing bargain. Highly recommended for car camping. A bit too heavy for hiking though.

This is a perfect tent. Extremely easy to put up and looks great. It is plenty big. The first time we used it we had four people (one queen and one single) and had tons of room. I don't know how six adults could sleep in it...But four is perfect. The rain shield is wicked easy to put on or off...And the venting is very nice. So far the tent seems very durable. We had one clip on the rain shield come off, but had no problem getting it back on. If you are planning on doing some camping this summer, this is the tent for you.

This tent is very user friendly. We used it for family camping in Julian,CA during Thanksgiving weekend and it was worth the money. Due to traffic, it was dark when we reached our campsite. Fearing that set up would be difficult due to lack of light...I was worried. But this tent was so easy to set up, it only took me and my husband about 15-20 minutes to set it up in the dark with only one lamp. It is very spacious! I was able to fit 2 full size air mattresses and accomodate 2 adults, 1 teenager & 3 school age kids. And with plenty of space for our gears! It got pretty windy the following night but the tent did not even falter. I love the zipper to the door...the kids kept going in & out of the tent, they were able to open & close the zipper without any trouble. It didn't get caught on any fabric since there isn't any! The ceiling height is amazing. My husband is pretty tall but easily stood up inside the tent. I also appreciated the gear loft. It was convenient to stash away small items. Not to mention that this tent is guy-line free tent! I didn't have to worry about the kids tripping over any guy lines. Taking it down was a breeze. Typically, tents will not fit back in their bags after it's been opened. For this tent, we were able to fold everything back and place all the poles back in the bag without a problem. A must buy for family camping!