Typical cathedral tents offered a 10×10 floor space, whereas many more niche tents had varying sizes. Another key aspect of functionality is the extra convenience features provided by various models. For example, hanging loops, storage compartments, and built-in pockets make canopy use easier and more organized. The canopy fabric is made of a lightweight denier polyester, offering water resistant features and 50+ UPF, which we love.
In our tests one camper took less than 10 minutes to put it up on the first try. Two shorter aluminum poles cross to support the roof while four longer poles join to the roof poles at the top of the tent and slide into pegs at the ground. The tent roof is made of polyester taffeta treated with a DWR (durable water repellent) coating. The walls are made of fine no-see-um nylon mesh edged with polyester taffeta.
In addition to costing you a few extra clams, this product doesn’t pack up very small. When stowed in its carrying case, it could easily be confused with a winter travel bag carrying snow skis. Its packed size is more than six feet, making it difficult to fit into an average-sized car. But if you’ve got a big enough rig, this is a dream canopy tent to add to your campsite. The canopy tent has mesh walls on all four sides and an edge of polyester fabric (also DWR treated) at the ground that deters mosquitos and other critters from invading from below. Like many tents of this type, the REI Screen House Shelter has a fabric hook in the center of the ceiling that accommodates a small lantern or other light.
Below, we discuss the metrics we used to score each model and highlight impressive models in each performance area. Fully enclosed and ready to protect you from sun, wind, rain, AND bugs, the Clam Outdoors Quick-Set Escape is a perfect shelter for the campground. No assembly is required; this shelter is ready to go right out of the box and can be fully deployed in less than a minute. We admit there is a small learning curve to setting up the Escape, but once you’re locked in, popping this canopy into place is really fun and even somewhat addictive.
But as you look at different slant leg tents, you’ll also notice the frames use less steel and have fewer plastic connection points. Here’s a sketch one of our engineers made to explain the slant leg design. That team is also pretty helpful to have when our marketing team needs to explain why a straight leg canopy has more structural integrity than a slant leg canopy.
Although we always recommend using anchors such as weighted sand bag or stakes with guy lines attached to the top corners. The ozark trail canopy very well might be one of the best selling 10×10 tent brands of all time. The easily recognizable logo has been seen by nearly everyone at youth soccer tournaments or beach vacations in recent years. That’s not the case with a slant leg canopy tent which, as you may have guessed, features legs that are slanted and form an angle of less than 90 degrees with the floor.
The Eurmax was followed closely by the Quick-Set Escape and E-Z Up Pyramid. Every stress point on the Quick-Set Escape is reinforced, and all its seams are double-stitched and taped. We feel the E-Z Up Pyramid is almost as well-made as the Eurmax; however, its frame and canopy materials are slightly thinner. Heavier cathedral-style canopy tents can often be challenging because of their weight; however, most are fairly simple to deploy. The Eurmax and E-Z Up are counted among these heavier tents, but setting them up was surprisingly straightforward.