Marmot Limestone 6P Tent Review

    I recently returned from a great week long camping trip with the family and thought that I'd do a gear review on a piece of equipment that has seriously blown me away.  First off - to all those that follow my blog strictly for the fishy posts - I did try to do some red fishing but the constant 30mph winds and downpours of drenching rains real killed that idea.

  Looking on the plus side however, the rains and chilly winds that battered the coast over the five days that the family and I spent camping allowed for some great family bonding.  It also allowed us to thoroughly test out the new Marmot Limestone 6 Tent and boy did it get a test.
  Our last tent was a Target special that had served us for the better part of a decade but for the last two years my family and I discovered that in rainy weather it was little more than a water collection device.  On our last adventure to the hills in the upstate of South Carolina we had so much water in our tent that our sleeping bags acted as gigantic sponges and we all braved a restless night only to awake and find we all had an epedimic of trench foot.  Only a good two hours near the fire allowed us to again become functional humans

  That is why when my wife and I saw that REI (An outdoor store we love) had a Marmot Limestone 6P for sale, we jumped on it like a tick on a hound dog.
(Incidentally, for those camping on the Carolina coast, or any heavily wooded area, ticks are a real serious hazard.  Just ask my poor little boy who got a few - including one on a place no male should ever have to use a tweezers... ouch!!)
  Anyway... The Marmot Limestone 6 person tent came in two colors; the traditional o.d. green and the new bright orange.  Being a guy that doesn't necessarily like to be a beacon in the woods for every passerby, I opted for the green but the orange is still a sharp looking tent.

  The setup was ultra easy, with two main poles and two short struts that slide into fantastic rod socks on the outside of the tent, it all came together in a few minutes.  The rain fly also was literally a snap as it hooked directly to the main tent at the anchor points.
  Once the tent is set up, we went in and were completely blown away by the space we had.  Our last tent we could barely stand up but in this baby there is just about enough headroom to put in a ceiling fan. Another feature we really enjoyed was the added vestibule in the rainfly for keeping hiking shoes and dirty sand shoes dry before we got into the tent.  With the onslaught of rain we had, this little feature got plenty of use.  Nothing is worse than mud and sand on the floor of your tent and this nice addition allowed most of the dirt to remain outside.  As anyone who has ever camped with kids knows - this is no small accomplishment.

  As for the tent handling the rain - all I can say is that it did its job way better than I would have expected.  In fact, not a single drip of moisture ever fell from the rainfly or seeped in from the sides or floor.  On one of our days it rained so HARD that even the tarp we had spread over out picnic table leaked on us, the Marmot Limestone Tent however- which was fully exposed to the 30mph winds and rain - repelled the water all day long.  When we went to bed it was awesome to find our sleeping area bone dry.
  Simply put - the Marmot Limestone 6P Tent is a fantastic rain proof shelter I would recommend to anyone!