How to Put Up a Dome Tent

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Charlie, your outdoor expert. So you found that perfect camping spot for the weekend, a week, however long you feel like being out in the wilderness. Well, now it's time to setup your tent, let me show you how. First what you want to do is examine the area. Kind of make sure you get a nice, flat ground. If you've got any sticks or pointy things just pick them up and just toss them to the side. Next thing you want to do is put down a nice ground cloth because certain times of the year you get dew that comes up through the ground and it'll get everything wet. Now I've got the tent flattened out and right here is my door and it's going to where my campsite is going to be. Next you want to do is you want to grab your poles. Now you should have two different sets of poles that come with every tent bag. These are the ones for the tents and these are the ones for the rain flap. The ones for the rain flap we'll get to later. Now there's different kinds of pole setup. This particular pole set is crossed like an X. Some of them are individual poles that just kind of go over and make that particular dome shape. Now I've got the poles situated where they're supposed to be. On this particular tent, the top of the tent here has got a hook and it hooks here. Now you got to make sure you follow the directions because each tent is going to be setup differently. On these particular tent poles, the way they attach to the tent with this little peg. You just take it, kind of got to bend it a little bit and you just stick it in like that. And you go to the opposite side and do the same thing. Now once you've got your tent poles pretty much setup how they're supposed to be, on most tents the next thing you do is you take the clips you extend them out to the pole and this is starting to give you more of that dome tent look. Now once you've got your tent poles in place and you've clipped the rest of the tent on, it's either the nice dome tent shape that it's supposed to have. The next thing you is you stake it down. Now keep in mind that your ground cloth is probably going to be a little bit longer so what you want to do with the ground cloth is roll it up underneath. Not this way, if you roll it this way, you get dew or moisture coming in, it's just going to go and seep underneath your tent and get everything wet. So it's best to kind of just go up underneath it, kind of acts like a gutter, just roll it up a little bit and then take your stake. On this particular tent it's got like a little metal circle and you just insert the stake right there, kind of at a nice 45 degree angle till you get all the way down to the ground. Now as you can see your tent is starting to look more like the picture that came on the bag but there's still one more thing to do and that's to put on the rain flap. Once you got your rain flap draped over the top of the tent, most of them come with these hooks attached to a rubber band. And all you do is take the hook and go down to this round circular and hook it right there and you just do the same thing on all four corners. And there we go, now it looks just like the directions said, and pretty much like the picture."