Quote Originally Posted by marchyman View Post
I ruled out some great tents because they required staking out. I can't remember when I last pitched a tent and didn't stake it down, but I find I often do some fine tweaking of the position between pitching and staking to make sure the tent is properly positioned with respect to any slant in the ground. And it seems like there is alway some slant wherever I camp.
i always position my ground cloth and then lay down on it prior to setting up the tent. there is nothing i hate worse than having my head pointing downhill.

but you're right, a free-standing tent is a nice convenience, especially if one is, um, required to move the tent in the middle of the night. damhikt

the Andromedia II tent i posted about above is not free standing but can set up very quickly with three poles and four stakes. technically it should be staked out better, but at least this quick set up gets the big vestibule available quickly to get stuff out of the rain.