Just had our first weekend using the Outwell Montana 6, which I bought after some internet research and lots of good feedback on here. It's big, innit?

One question to all the owners though – do you have any tips for erecting it? Getting the poles in is fine, but trying to get them all vertical at once is pretty tough and we had to enlist the help of another camper. Is there an easier method which I'm missing?

On our Vango, you can put all the poles in with the tent on the ground (so you're making the arch, but not erecting the tent, if you see what I mean, so there's no weight on the pole), then, starting at one end, you lift each arch up into the air one at a time.

As the Montana is a tunnel tent (I think?) the same technique might work?

We've got the montana 6 and this is what we do – put all poles through the sleeves, wife stands at one side of tent and puts first end pole on housing then I do the same with other end.. and so on with all poles. Never had any erection problems, snigger.

Flappy doors at the bottom with not enough velcro are a pain though.

Aye – I reckoned we'd have to try one pole at a time. The recommended approach is to stand at the front and pull them all "forward" – i.e. rotate them all to vertical at once. The construction is just way too heavy for me to attempt that!

there you go 🙂

I do my Montana 12 on my own you must just be rubbish lol.

That video makes a lot more sense. We'll give that a go in a couple of weeks time.

I looked at that video before we used ours last year and its really good, me and the SO can 'erect' in in 15 mins.

We've used ours about half a dozen times in a year and generally pleased with it, however some of the eyelets that you peg into have started to come away especially around the additional side compartment, we also bought the Outwell under sheet and its all but shagged, same fault!!

cheers

Nick