The Tent, Part 2

Welcome back!

If you're following along with your printed instructions for the Big Agnes Big House 4, we're at step 8

Unfold the rain fly and place it over the top of the tent. Again, the yellow buckles and straps represent the front of the rain fly. At this point, the urge to ignore the instructions kicks in for some reason. I ended up buckling all the buckles, and the then tried to set up the last two poles that give the fly it's shape and support over the doors.

Here's the correct sequence:

1) Make sure the yellow buckles are on the front.
2) Attach the two buckles in the middle of each side of the tent.
3) Then starting on the front, insert the larger pole in the sleeve in the front of the fly. clip the strap to pole running from the middle of the tent.
4) Insert the pole end into the grommet in the strap. Repeat for the other side. See the picture below for detailed view of the Rain Fly Support pole, the strap, and how it clips to the pole.

Repeat this with the pole for the other end of the rain fly.


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There is also a Velcro strap on the Rainfly that wraps around the tent pole.






At this point the tent is almost ready for use If I were really camping, I would stake it down. It looks like you can attach Guy Lines to the rings on the rain fly, and there are additional grommets on the tent strap to stake it into the ground.

After this, I tried too set up the Vestibule. The process is similar to that for the tent. You run a pole through a sleeve on the vestibule, and bend it to fit into grommets on both sides of the front. This is where I ran into trouble.

I could not get the the pole to reach both grommets. Either the pole was to long, or there was not enough space between the straps for the pole to reach. Maybe this was done by the guy that lost his spoon. He was probably off kilter after the missus gave him the who what where when why for losing the spoon...


Overall, I think that we're going to like this tent. It took me about 45 minutes to get it together the first time, but that also included some time taking pictures, reading instructions, scratching my head, re-reading instructions and fixing things that I goofed up.

Aside from the vestibule, the fit and finish seems to be pretty good. The zippers were nice and smooth, and all the straps on tent, rain fly, and foot print line up perfectly.

On the inside, there is a lot of room, but then again this is the BIG House! I'm roughly 5'11", and I could stand straight up inside. There are also three mesh pockets on each side of the tent.

On the doors, you can unzip the inner part of the door from the top to reveal the bug proof mesh, allowing for more ventilation. You can do this on both doors and get a pretty nice cross breeze going in thee. There is also a small skylight, which is a clear portion in the rain fly.

So now I am really jonesing to go camping now and get out under the stars!