Written by Dave Gillen

It wasn’t until my old tent needed to be replaced that I realized just how many different makes and types are available today. It looked like I'd have to narrow down my list of criteria in deciding what I wanted in a new tent.

When I finally ran across the MEC Apollo tent, it looked like I might have found myself a winner.

MEC Apollo Tent

Rated Capacity

I needed a tent that could sleep two people comfortably. All of my previous tents were rated as three person tents which always seems to translate into two person. Never could figure out how they came up with those numbers. Anyway, the Apollo tent was no exception.

The Apollo tent is rated as a three person tent, so I figured it should sleep two canoeists comfortably. The floor size is 2.34m x 1.91m (7.68’ x 6.26’) which worked out well for two people with gear but I’m not really sure where I’d fit a third.

The Vestibule

The tent had to have a good size vestibule. My last tent lacked one and although using a small tarp outside the tent door worked, it was not a solution I wanted use again.

The Apollo had the vestibule I was looking for plus more. The Apollo tent doesn’t have a dedicated front door but rather two doors. One on each side. With the spacious fly, this twin vestibule design gave me the extra storage space I was after all within easy access from inside the tent. Now I could leave my shoes and gear outside the sleeping area and still keep them dry.

Ease of Set-Up

Ease of set-up and packing was another consideration. I didn’t want a tent that required a circus crew to put up or tear down. It had to be simple enough for one person to set up and pack away.

The first thing I noticed when I set the tent up for the first time were the poles. The shock corded poles are made from aluminum connected to a central hub. No more lost or forgotten poles!

Once the poles were put together and placed into the corner grommets of the tent floor, it was a simple matter of clipping the tent to the poles. No fussing with pole pockets.

The fly simply draped over the tent and poles and attached to the corners. The vestibule areas were staked into the ground.

The connectors between each pole section float between them making future repairs simple. Raw tube can just be cut to length. The central hub made the tent a breeze to set-up and take down.

Packing the tent also proved to be easy. No more folding the tent up just right to get it to fit the bag. This tent stuffs away in the pack and fits every time.

A Tub Floor

Probably the most important thing I was after was a tub floor. This type of floor wraps up the side a few inches to create a floor that’s like a small tub. This eliminates the seams that might be prone to leakage in a rain storm and really helps in keeping things inside dry.

All the tents I had used before this one were the cheap 7’x7’ design which had the familiar blue plastic tarp tub floor. The material was heavy and noisy, but it always kept me dry. I was expecting the same with the Apollo tent.

But instead of the tarp material the floor is made from a high tenacity 70-denier taffeta nylon which is polyurethane-coated. It was soft to the touch and silent to move around on. It was waterproof and had the tub layout I was after as well.

Still, I wasn’t convinced it was strong enough to survive the wear and tear the Canadian shield would throw at it. So I bought the additional footprint as added protection.

The First Trip

The tent was taken for it’s first trip up to Temagami on Obabika Lake and to Wakimika Lake in September of 2007. It was on that trip that I realized just how good a tent I had.

Of the nine days camped, it rained off and on for six of them with the tent standing up to the weather far better than I expected. No leaks and no wet sleeping bags. The vestibules provided ample space for my gear and shoes and kept them dry and safe from the elements.

My only real complaint about the tent is the vestibule doors. They way they opened and closed made getting in and out of the tent a bit of a chore. To access the zipper you had to reach out the full length of the vestibule to the bottom to open it. It would have made more sense to put the zippered opening off to the side rather than in the front.

Conclusion

Although the Apollo tent does have a few drawbacks, it makes up for them in the quality of materials and construction and it's ability to keep it's occupants dry. And really, what more can you ask for in a tent right?

All in all I’m happy with the tent and would recommend it to anyone else considering a new tent of similar construction and design.

Customer Service - A Footnote

After three years of great camping one of my aluminium poles cracked at one end and I was forced to use the included repair kit to continue using it. The repair kit was a blessing because it had a sleeve in it to slide over the break and allow me to continue my trip.

But it wasn't until I returned home when I realized the customer service MEC gives it's members.

I made a call to the MEC office in BC and talked with a service tech named Dan about buying some replacement poles. He sourced out some poles for me and sent three of them to my home sans charge. That's right, no charge for the replacement poles. And extra poles too!

It's people like Dan and the service I get from MEC that keeps me going back to them. Thumbs up to you Dan!