I can personally attest that this tent will keep you DRY !!! That''s what tents are supposed to do. For the second time now, this tent was exposed to torrential downpours with extremely strong windgusts. Allow me to illustrate: One night we were camping in the Texas Hill Country when a line of severe thunderstorms caught us by surprise. After hours of very heavy rain, the floor of our tent, and everything in it started to FLOAT. We were literally sitting in a pool of water about 5-6 inches deep. The tent, however, did not leak one bit. The next day we learned that this storm had ripped roofs off houses, knocked down trees and caused widespread flooding. This test was good enough to convince me that this is one waterproof tent. The setup can be a pain for a single person but with some practice and help, its just as easy as any other high-quality tent. Ventilation is VERY GOOD. I have yet to encounter condensation problems with this tent. Given my experiences with severe weather I sometimes wish there were a few more guy lines, but the ones present should keep you covered for 99% of all cases of severe storms. The two entrances/vestibules are extremely convenient and help to keep the tent dry, clean , and well vented. Weight/size: for a 3-person tent, this thing is extremely roomy and not very heavy compared to the size. I also like that this tent fits into its carrying bag fairly easily. Bottom line: I''m very happy with the Cyclone 3

Customer Service

haven''t used it yet

great tent for the money. This tent has kept me dry several times. Good ventilation. easy setup. I would buy this tent again.

It's a little heavy for backpacking, but for car camping-it works. the vestibules are nice for fire wood, boots and coolers.

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My experience with this tent so far is limited, but does include one all-night rainstorm in which we stayed almost completely dry (I think there was just a bit of dripping via the vestibule door zipper). There were rivulets of water running under the tent also, and nothing came in thru the floor. Also did fine in some high ridgetop winds on another trip.

One concern is that rain/sand/snow could get in under the fly in high winds, since there is a lot of mesh, and no storm flaps (haven't been able to confirm this to date). But this is a 3-season tent, and that's one price you pay to keep the weight and cost down. The fly does go close enough to the ground that this would probably be less of a problem than in most 3-season tents.

This is a highly efficient tent, with lots of useable space per unit of weight. I've carried it on a couple of solo trips and it packs about like my old North Face Aerohead (definitely bigger and heavier, but not much). The huge vestibules and double doors are great for two. A third person would have a lot less convenience, but I think of this as a large 2-person tent in most situations.

Thumbs up.

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I bought this tent on a clearance deal for about $170 and took it on an overnight trip backpacking to a back-country camp site in the dunes on Assateague Island, Maryland.

The wind was pretty strong coming off the ocean (we estimated it at least 25 MPH with higher gusts) as we were setting up the tent, trying to use a low dune as a bit of a wind break. We appreciated the fact that the tent poles are all the same length and they all slide in from one end of the tent (you don't have to connect the poles to anything at their other end - the pole sleeve is like a very long narrow pocket) - it made it a lot easier to deal with in the high wind. One person could easily set up this tent alone in normal conditions.

During the night the wind shifted, so our tent was no longer protected by that dune, and it began to rain. It rained all night, and the wind never let up.

The morning found us still dry and warm inside the tent - outside it was now sleeting with the wind blowing at a steady 30 MPH (I checked the weather report later to confirm that wind speed) and a wind chill factor well below freezing. The tent poles were flexing with every heavy gust of wind, but they never broke or kinked, and the tent never leaked.

Other nice features about the tent: it has 2 doors, & 2 vestibules so we could leave our packs and boots out of the sleeping area, a gear loft, lots of mesh pockets to tuck little items in where they'd be handy to grab during the night, and a neat little clear window on each vestibule door so we could peek out and see if the sky was going to clear soon without unzipping and letting the icy wind blast in. Being a 3-pole design instead of a 2-pole tent, it gave us a little more head room to sit up inside.

This is the first true backpacking tent I have ever owned and I am just totally impressed by how well it performed, keeping us safe and snug in totally miserable weather conditions. I love this tent!

Customer Service

I never had to contact Kelty about their tents, but I did have to about a Kelty backpack. I had gotten a backpack online on clearance (it was a previous year's model) and a year later when I was finally going to get to use it, I found that the hold-open bar was the wrong size for the pack. I called Kelty's customer service and they sent me the correct bar - no charge, no hassle, and it came quickly, in time for my trip. I was very impressed with that, especially since this pack was 2 years older than the current models and I think has even been discontinued.

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