Kelty Late Start Backpacking Tent

I bought 1 of these for a bikepacking trip with my family. We just got done using it and I'll throw out my thoughts in a second. before that though, I will tell you that I have spent about 35 years as an outdoors man doing a variety of outdoors activities including hunting, fishing, camping, bikepacking and backpacking. I have owned lightweight backpacking tents up through wall tents with wood burning stoves. I have spent thousands of hours in the outdoors. I have used Kelty before and really like their products Now for the review of this item..... Pros – 1. This thing is fairly light (although ultralight backpackers would not call this thing light at all). But for the price point it is fairly lightweight. For a true ultralight backpacking tent you are going to be spending 400 or more dollars. 2. This tent is SUPER easy to set up even in the dark. Just unroll the tent, extend the two (2) sets of poles which take about 20 seconds total. Insert the pole ends into the colored sleeves and clip the tent body (mesh) to the poles. The whole thing can be set up by one person in about 3-4 minutes easily. 3. Rainfly gives you a little extra room for gear storage. 4. Good quality. As mentioned before, I have owned Kelty products and they are of pretty good quality. Cons – 1. This is a little heavy for ultralight backpacking 2. This is a little bulky for backpacking. Car camping etc this thing is pretty small compared to in other tents you’d find at a big box store but those are really not the same thing. 3. One of the clips that attaches the rainfly to the tent body didn’t fit right. The male portion of the buckle appeared to be a little to wide for its female buckle counterpart. The other three (3) fit perfectly. Again, I have been using outdoors products and camping for 35 years. In fact, I can set up my 12X20 foot wall tent by myself in about 35-40 minutes. I am mechanically capable and very handy. I don’t know if this was a defective piece but was irritating non the less.. Overall I thought this was a very good value and for the money and fits the bill for bikepacking, car camping or backpacking. My wife and daughters (15 and 7 years old) fit in it and didn’t complain about being cramped.

Works fine. I've used it a couple times now. Super fast and easy to set up, color coding on the tent body and poles makes it a no brainer, and the small footprint means it can fit in small places.

As a backcountry kayak camping guide, I go through alot of gear, and continually try new stuff out. The kelty outfitter pro has been a staple in the arsenal for client because they are simple and super durable. Based on that experience I opted to try out the late start, and am pretty happy with it. For a 2 person tent it's quite light and packs down to half the size of my Big Agnes blacktail. When up it takes up less camping space but is VERY surprisingly roomy inside. Extremely fast and easy to setup/tear down. My first thoughts I didn't like that it only has one door, but the single vestibule just makes it that much easier to fit in compact sites. It would be nice on hot nights to be able to open up the opposite side for airflow but it seems to do ok. My qualms are few but if I could change small details; Add ventilation opening on the top of the rain fly, it was surprising to see no vents as most Tents come standard. The rain fly has a guyline on the back opposite the door to pull it out from the screen but not on the "head" and "foot." It has some midway up for support in wind but I fear in big rain, the contact with the screen might allow for moisture inside. All in all, happy with my purchase and will put it through alot of use.

Why did you pick this product vs others?: This is a great tent, I purchased the 1P and 2P versions. I used the 1P version for backcountry camping at the Scouts Philmont High Adventure Base in Cimarron, NM and it worked out great. Also used the 2P version in our practice trips leading up to Philmont. I had one issue with the tent poles. I contacted the Kelty customer service and they quickly resolved the issue. The tents are very easy to quickly setup and take down. In the backcountry where it gets cooler at night, these tents do a good job of keeping you warm and they are also very good with keeping you dry during rain. I would definitely recommend this tent for backcountry backpacking/camping trips.

This tent is the perfect option if you might split time between car camping and backpacking. It actually could fit 4 people with the bent-pole/vertical wall feature creating more usable space. It is perfect for a couple if you want more space. When car camping, we use two inflatable twin mattresses pushed to the outside walls with a 1.5” Kelty sleeping pad between them down the aisle so our knees have some cushion when crawling in and out of bed. There is still plenty of space for travel bags or packs. I think it is still light enough for backpacking and you have so much space to work with. Setup is a breeze with the pole sleeves, pole clips, and color coding. It really only takes about 5 minutes to set up. There are multiple loops in the ceiling for clipping lights and gadgets and multiple pockets for keys and phones. Ventilation is good and the zippers on the rain fly and tent are both two-way for easy adjustment. You can’t go wrong with this Kelty tent.