How to Fold Up Your Tent to go Home

How to fold up your standard tent properly before heading home is most important to ensure long life and useage from your tent.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Stuff sacks that normally come with the tent, but if not available, we can still get this done

1. Clean up the Tent, and do some housecleaning before we start the knockdown:
   We have had a lovely dry camping trip and we want to bundle up our tent properly, ready for us to pop it in the car and go, for the next time. If it was a wet trip, see below for tips to deal with that.
   Knocking down the tent is the opposite of putting it up.
   But first, take a moment to clean out any dirt or leaves, etc. inside the tent, before we continue. You might have a little brush+dustpan just for this job. If not do the best to sweep it out the front door.
   If your tent is a really light-weight version, and you didn't use any pegs, then just pick up the empty tent and with the door still unzipped and wide open, give the tent a good shake out.
   Now if you have 4 pegs available, peg the corners of the tent, it will help shortly with the folding.

2. Let's start to knock down the tent:
   Assuming your tent is the newer style and comes with a fly, no matter what size it is, unhook the fly and set it aside for the moment. If it comes with it's own stiffener pole(s) either in sections or one-piece, remove these and set aside as well. If it comes with it's own pegs, pull them out, clean them off as best as possible and set them aside for later packing.

3. Start on the tent itself:
   Zip the windows closed, but leave a gap in the zipper for the air trapped inside to escape!
   Remove all pegs holding the tent, except for the ones at each corner.
   It may be necessary to unhook the tent itself, from the frame work of poles. Carefully take apart and remove the poles that held up the tent.
   These may either form an external framework for the outside of the tent, or may slide into sleeves that criss-cross the tent itself.
   The poles may be aluminum pipes that slide into each other end-to-end and join at the top in a cross-piece.
   Pull to seperate.
   The poles might be more like a long sectional bamboo pole with seperate sections strung together with a strong elastic cord.
   Pull the sections slightly further apart and then fold them back and forth to collapse the long length to something easier to handle.
   Set either of these styles of poles aside until later.

4. Folding the tent:
   Sides get folded flat first- No bunching up the tent! (See why below)
   Here is where the corner pegs play a role.
   Start with the left side of your tent. Locate the top/center point of the tent and pull the top of the tent to the right side of the tent until the left side is flat. Make a fold point on the left side of the tent, so we can fold it back in half. Pull the same top point, back to the left, so we flatten the right side of the tent.
   We want to prevent any sharp creases from developing in our tent, which over time in storage, can cause the tent material to crack and then the tent will rip or leak.

5. Folding the tent: (continued)
   Now we must do the tent material flattening again, but with the back of the tent, and lastly, the front.
   Leave the bottom of the door unzipped, so the air can escape and allow you to fold and then roll your tent into a compact package.

6. Folding the tent: (continued)
   This step of collapsing the tent may require you to fold the tent in thirds or quarters (ie. fold the tent in half and then in half again) depending on how big your tent actually is.
   (For sake of discussion, we will fold our tent in thirds)
   Now pull the pegs at the corners of the tent.
   First go to the back corners of the tent, and fold the back edge of the tent bottom towards the front door, so you will have a tent in thirds, like folding a sheet of paper to go into a long business envlope.
   Fold the front door backwards onto the other part.

7. Folding the tent: (continued)-(finishing off)
   Locate the fly set aside earlier, fold it to fit onto of the tent now folded into thirds.
   Start at one side or the other, and roll the tent up as tight as you can, squishing out any air pockets, so as to make the tent small enough to fit into it's stuff sack it there is one.
   If there isn't one, then secure the rolled up tent with bungy cords or a rope.

8. Final Steps:
   You should have placed a tarp under your tent when you set it up, with any excess tucked under the tent, so it didn't catch any dew or rain and allow it to come under the actual tent itself.
   Fold this up and slide it into the same stuff bag as the tent, either seperately, or at the same time as the tent goes in.
   If this same sack has the room, gather your poles and pegs and slide them into the bag, between the bag and the tarp, so that the poles and pegs don't put a hole in the tent.
   You're done!

Tips & Warnings

• With over 20 years as a Scout Leader in Canada, camping and tenting is second nature. Practice these steps a few times over and over and it will become easy to fold up your tent.
• If you got rained on, or it is still rainging when it's time to go home, and the tent is damp or wet: Flatten everything as above, and using either the bottom of the tent or the tarp as a pouch, fold up everything into the pouch and get home! As soon as possible, hang the tent to dry for a few days as necessary, in your garge, basement or meeting hall. When it's dry, then go back to the top and follow the steps.
• NEVER leave a wet tent as sodden pile of material, it will dry eventually, but it will be very moldy inside. Not only is it unhealthy to use a tent like that, but even cleaning the tent, will not get rid of the smell. It will probably leak or the fabric will tear.