CAMPING | Camping In The Coleman Rocky Mountain 5 Family Tent – Review

June 21, 2017 Shell Robshaw-Bryan

camping news, Family Camping, Homepage Feature, Reviews, Tent Reviews

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What is it?

Coleman Rocky Mountain 5 Family Tent RRP: £350 [no longer available]

Also available: Coleman Rocky Mountain 5+ & 5+ XL
Expect to pay: £280 – £349
Stockists: Amazon | Outdoor World Direct | Go Outdoors

Features

BlackOut Bedrooms™ block out 99% of sunlight and regulates temperature
Two extra large bedrooms
4,500mm hydrostatic head
Integrated PE groundsheet
Reflective guylines
Ventilation panels
Flysheet is fire retardant and features UVGuard, providing SPF 50 protection
Ample pockets and hanging points
Editors Choice winner, 2016 Camping awards

Coleman Rocky Mountain Tunnel Tent Green and Grey 5

We’ve written previously about the Coleman Rocky Mountain 5 tent after seeing it at the Caravan, Camping & Motorhome Show earlier this year, so when Coleman got in touch with us, we were keen to field test one for ourselves.

What did we think?

On arrival at the campsite the tent took the 2 of us about 15 minutes to put up. It’s a traditional tunnel design tent with a front living area, and a rear bedroom that can be separated using a clip in divider. To put the tent up there are 3 poles to assemble which are colour coded and are attached in place using a simple ring and pin system. We found set up to be simple and intuitive and although the tent can be pitched as one, first time around, we needed to attach the bedroom compartment inside.

The tent includes a large full width front door which can be fully unzipped and rolled up, or you can choose to unzip and roll-up just the outer flysheet, keeping the bug mesh in place. There’s also a smaller but still generous door on the side, which again features the same bug mesh. Because it was so hot, we unzipped both the flysheet and and bug mesh for maximum airflow.

Kitchen area inside tent — *Our kitchen set up inside the tent with both doors rolled up*

We camped on the hottest weekend of the year, with the temperature hitting 30 degrees. Having the addition of the side door and a rear window in the bedroom compartment meant we could open everything and let air flow through, and boy did we need it! In fact, for most of the weekend we had the large front door rolled up as well as the side door next to the kitchen unit, which also meant we could safely cook thanks to heaps of ventilation which made the front living area feel more like an airy awning.

There are triangular windows in the front corners of the living area which have covers that can be easily opened up to let more light in, and on the right hand side opposite the smaller door, there’s an air vent and a large clear window so you can make the most of the view from your pitch.

Inside the living area as well as a cable entry point, we found plenty of storage pockets, as well as lantern hanging points and velcro around the bedroom compartment which allowed us to tidy away the cable from the HUBi light we use.

Coleman Rocky Mountain 5 Blackout bedroom — *The Rocky Mountain 5 Blackout bedroom with the rear window open*

The verdict?

As the previous owner of 2 Coleman tents, we’ve always found that price wise, you tend to get slightly more for your money than say a similar spec of Vango tent. The quality of the Rocky Mountain 5 is good, and it’s not difficult to see why it’s an award winning tent.

Coleman Rocky Mountain Tunnel Tent Front Door

For such a spacious tent, the pack size was fairly modest and once up, we thought it was surprisingly spacious. We also really liked the fresh green colours of the tent too, especially the funky lime green used for some detailing.

We found that the blackout bedroom made a real difference; in fact at night you couldn’t see a thing inside the bedroom area without putting on a light, it was liking looking into a cave!

If you don’t have heaps of space available in the car, but need something that’s big enough for a family of 4, then the Rocky Mountain 5 would be a great choice. We always prefer to have space in a tent, and because we use camp beds and have a full kitchen set up, space wise, it’s ideal for the 2 of us; we certainly wouldn’t camp for more than a night or two in anything smaller but then we do recognise that we take a lot of stuff with us when we camp!

Coleman Rocky Mountain 5 Family Tent Review

Colemany Rocky Mountain 5 Pros and Cons

ProsCons

The tent was fast and intuitive to set up with colour coded poles and good instructions inside the bag if you do get stuck
A decent 4,500mm HH means I’d be confident camping in this tent in all seasons
Oversized bag which meant after packing the tent away again, everything fitted back inside with very little effort
We loved the tab system at the base of the tent which made pegging it down and tightening everything up very easy
Ample lantern hanging points, bug mesh across all windows and doors plus a cable entry system which was ideal for running our HUBi solar hub through
Good size living area with plenty of space for a table, two chairs, our enormous kitchen unit, cool box etc.
The blackout bedroom made a huge difference and it was very effective at blocking sunlight

The height inside the bedroom was quite limited, leading to even me at 5.6″ having to bend slightly when inside the bedroom
The extra large bedrooms didn’t impress. Despite removing the central bedroom divider, our Outwell Posodas double camp bed only just fitted inside the sleeping compartment, causing the rear of the tent to bulge out slightly so we felt the length of the bedroom could have done with being a bit more generous
Although it’s classed as a 5 person tent, as is often the case, you’ll only sleep 5 if you are using very narrow single SIMs
There were precisely enough pegs with no spares provided… and we bent one almost straight away, so we’d recommend investing in some sturdier pegs

We think this is a great looking tent, with a good technical specification that offers a decent amount of space, though we’d have liked the bedroom compartment to be a few inches longer. We loved the clever blackout bedroom (Ideal for early rising little-ones) and we think the Coleman Rocky Mountain 5 offers very good value in the sub £300 family tent price range.

A big thank you to Coleman who supplied the Rocky Mountain 5 for us to test.

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Shell Robshaw-Bryan

Editor & Owner at Camping with Style

Shell loves all things travel and outdoors and is a nature-loving, comfy-camping kinda girl. Shell started the Camping with Style blog after a serious snowboarding accident which left her with a broken back. Despite this she used the outdoors and healing power of nature to aid her recovery and she continues to spend time outdoors whenever she can.

From open water swimming, snowboarding and kayaking to hill walks and meditation, Shell shares her travels and microadventures here on the blog and in various publications she's written for, Shell has a particular interest in promoting wellbeing and the many benefits of nature therapy.

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