In this review, I’ll be going over what I’ve found using my REI Base Camp 4 tent at different So Cal locations, including windy Gaviota State Park, Big Bear Lake, Los Padres National Forest, and everyone’s favorite, El Capitan State Beach.
Summary
The REI Base Camp 4 is a great car camping tent for everything So Cal has to offer, from warm beaches to cold, high altitude mountains. Its heavy duty materials and components are durable, and easily stand up to significantly adverse weather conditions. As such, the tent will work into the winter season, keeping sleepers warmer than they otherwise would be in a higher mesh area tent, like a backpacking tent. It is truly a 3-4 season tent.
The tent’s unique ventilation system, that relies on chimney style convection, minimizes condensation while still retaining heat inside its body, during the colder months. Conversely, in the summer time, the mesh in the upper areas of the doors can be exposed by zipping down their coverings, allowing for breezes to wander through to hot sleepers.
With 20 or 30 minute’s time, a solo camper can set this tent up, but it’s best tackled with a partner.
Though I find it’s best to just glamp with it, with two people and a blow-up queen mattress, it can handle 3 people easily on wide sleeping pads, or even 4 people, if they don’t mind being up in each other’s business. If you’re going to use it with 4 people, I’d say it’s best for 2 romantic couples with double wide sleeping pads.
The primary vestibule is generously spaced, allowing one to even comfortably use it as a kitchen, if need be (and you’re not in predator country). The secondary vestibule, though smaller, is still large enough for packs and shoes.
Though it’s credibly heavy, its stuff sack has a well made strap to carry it, via your hand or shoulder. Though it’s in no way a backpacking tent, it wouldn’t be too bad to carry over your shoulder, a small ways into camp.
Pros and Cons
Pros: Heavy duty materials and design make the Base Camp 4 stand up well to adverse weather, and resistant to wear and tear. Large primary vestibule allows for plenty of storage or utility space. It traps warmth in the colder seasons, but has options to expose more mesh in the summer to stay cool.
Cons: It’s not the easiest tent to set up for one person. The pole sleeve design, which makes the tent weather hardy, makes assembly harder than a tent whose body just clips to the poles. The natural curvature of the poles make them susceptible to accidental bending, during set up, if you’re rough with them.
Quality and Durability
The tent body and fly are made of thick polyester fabric, with a hardy 150 denier Oxford woven floor. 150 denier is about the largest thread thickness on the tent market, with a few exceptions, while the Oxford thread weave is designed to maximize durability and resistance to puncture, over more conventional weaves.
I’ve had both my girlfriend’s dogs use their claws to try to dig through the bottom of the tent to make their beds, and the tent has just taken the abuse with no signs of wear or tear. I’ve also had my girlfriend rip off the manufacture’s tag by hand, that was woven into the tent’s inner corner, with no apparent problems.
Polyester is generally less stretchy than nylon when it comes to tent material, however the REI Base Camp 4’s material is so thick, it likely makes up for the lower strength to weight ratio, albeit at the expense of more weight. However, because the Base Camp’s rainfly is less resistant to stretching, compared to nylon, it’s a lot less likely to sag or stretch inward when wet, or under wind or snow load. And I’ve put it under some serious wind loads before with no problems; more on that below.
Polyester is also naturally more water resistant than nylon, and I’ve never had rainwater migrate through the fly during use of the tent. Though I will admit my experience in the rain with this tent is limited.
And it’s also more UV resistant than nylon. I’ve never had any problems with degradation of the rainfly due to sun exposure, during my use with it.
Tent poles are strong, but I accidentally bent one of mine during set up
The thick, wide diameter, aluminum poles have stood up to the massive wind loads referenced above (and explained below). However, I’ve managed to bend one of the sections of one of the blue colored poles when rushing to put the tent up, last time I used it. Thus it’s still a good idea to be gentle with the poles. The manufacture has strategically added some curvature to a few of the sections, and these parts are the most susceptible to bending if you’re not careful.
No wear or tear after moderate usage
I’ve used this tent maybe a dozen times over a few years. So far I’ve not seen any wear or tear happening to it. Nor do I see any pre-failures happening on any of the components. No material stretching, no seam tape coming unglued, no fraying anywhere, no zipper problems, etc. The heavy duty aspects of this tent are evidently built for longevity.
Weather Resistance
In this REI Base Camp 4 review, I think weather resistance is likely the most important feature of the tent.
Rain Resistance
I’ve yet to use it in strong rain, but it has kept me dry in light rain, just playing around with it in the back yard, a few years ago. However, other reviewers on the REI Base Camp 4 product page have used it in worse conditions with good results.
Wind Resistance
Unlike my lack of hard rain experience, I do have significant experience with the tent in high winds at Gaviota State Park. This park’s campground is a notoriously high wind area on the coast near Santa Barbara, CA.
We’re talking winds that lasted from the time the tent was pitched in the afternoon, to the time it was taken down the next morning. Winds with gusts that made the tent walls momentarily collapse down a little, before springing back to shape, over and over again, disturbing my girlfriend and her poodle all night.
I didn’t even have guy lines at the time, and the tent just took the hard winds all day and night, with no problems. Its aerodynamic, dome-like shape kept it relatively stable compared to less wind hardy tents at the campground. Our next-door camping neighbors, who had less wind resistant tents, ended up with tent failures in the middle of the night when the wind went nuclear. They ended up getting in their cars and leaving frustrated, in those early hours. The worst that happened to us was when our foam cooler lid flew off the cooler’s body, and blew away towards the ocean, faster than I could run to get it!
I can personally recommend this tent in adverse windy conditions. I know people don’t like feeding poles through narrow sleeves to get their tent up (see set up, below), but this design keeps the tent going when the wind starts punching it! This is one of the main points I want to get across in this REI Base Camp 4 review.
Colder Temperatures
The Base Camp 4 is an excellent tent for So Cal winters. It has less mesh on the body than a backpacking tent, and thus less wind driven air convection is happening inside of it.
I’ve used mine at Big Bear when the night time temps got down in the low 40’s. I’ve also used it in similar night time temps at El Capitan in the Fall time.
Once you’ve gotten into bed for a while, and have generated some heat in the tent, there is a notable temperature difference between the inside and outside. During both the times I’ve camped with it in the cooler temps, I ended up just sleeping in my underwear, under a single bed sheet doubled over, on my foam mattress topper. Keep in mind I’m a hot sleeper though. And that I had another person, and two dogs generating heat in there!
Ventilation and Breathability
Even with the aforementioned girlfriend and dogs sleeping with me in cold temperatures in the tent, I’ve never had any condensation issues with the Base Camp 4. Though the body does have less mesh than a lighter tent, its ventilation design keeps the humidity down inside of it.
Body wall and ceiling vents
There are two triangular, zippered vents on opposite sides of the body walls, near their bottoms. When opened, alongside the ceiling vents in the fly, they create a small chimney effect that circulates a bit of air. And this is just enough to avoid any condensation build up, without causing much convection based heat loss in the colder seasons.
Vents on the doors of the tent
The doors also have large area, mesh windows, that can be exposed by zipping down the solid wall covers covering them. This allows for more circulation of air in the warmer seasons. But keeping them zipped up also gives you warmth in the colder ones.
Still hot during solar gain with the rainfly up
Like every tent, if you have your rainfly installed, and you’re getting direct sunlight on it, it will be hot on the inside.
Ease of Set-Up
You can certainly put up the tent with only yourself, but it’s much easier if you have a second person helping you.
With a second person, you can string the poles through the lengthy sleeves more readily, and with less hangups, where otherwise a pole end can get stuck, and won’t move forward through the sleeve. A second person can also keep the blue pole ends in the grommets, on the opposite side of the tent from you, as you attempt to raise the tent body by tensioning the poles towards, and into their corresponding grommet holes. And they can help in getting the rainfly in place, on top of the tent, especially if it’s windy and it wants to turn into a sail.
However, if you’re putting the tent up solo, don’t expect quick results, like you would with a backpacking tent. This is a good 20 to 30 minute process, by yourself.
Stringing the poles through the sleeves
Unlike a lot of backpacking tents, where you simply put the poles into their final place, then clip the tent body onto them, the REI Base Camp 4 requires that you string its poles through sleeves on the body. The longest sleeves to deal with are the main blue pole sleeves, and it’s easy for the pole ends to get stuck when first stringing them through, because they are so lengthy in nature. But if you take your time, or have a helper, you’ll get there.
Raising the tent body with the blue poles is the hardest step for one person
I’ve put up the tent multiple times by myself and it is less efficient, but doable.
Unfortunately during my last excursion, when initially raising the tent in a hurried manner, via tensioning the first blue pole towards its grommet hole, I bent it doing so. These are massive diameter poles, and can handle large wind loads, but some of the sections of each pole aren’t perfectly straight, as they are designed to fit the curvature of the tent body. I ended up bending this pole at the point in its natural curvature. Now I have to send the pole off for repair to Vancouver, WA. More on that later. I’m just saying to be careful in setting your tent up with one person during this step.
If you can get past the erection of the tent body with the blue poles, then the black colored poles are a breeze to put into place, through their grommets, and clip on to the sides of the tent.
Getting the rainfly situated
Another point of difficulty, if you’re putting this tent up by yourself, is the rainfly.
It’s not perfectly obvious which side the large vestibule is on until you’ve thrown the fly up and over the body of the tent. Heck I’ve even put the fly on upside down, and not realized it until it became apparent, when I situated the middle of the fly over the middle of the tent body, and could see what was going on.
And indeed you do have to throw the fly up, over the body, if working alone, which can be problematic if there is wind involved. Sometimes I’ll throw it up onto the tent, then as I’m walking to the opposite side of the tent to pull the leading edge down towards the ground, the wind blows the fly off the tent. Or sometimes I don’t get a good cast of the fly over the tent, and gravity takes it down before I get to the other side.
Excellent buckle system that secures the rainfly to the tent body
One thing that is really excellent about the fly, is its rugged plastic, snap-together buckles that attach it to the bottom of the tent body. With these, you put the fly on correctly every time, with the perfect amount of ventilation space between it and the body. And they make it easy to secure your fly.
I’ve used this tent under heavy winds successfully, without guy lines, as mentioned in the weather resistance section above, because of this heavy duty buckle system that firmly marries the fly to the body.
I wish my backpacking tent would use this same system, just with smaller, more light weight buckles.
Bottom line on set up
Bottom line: this tent is made for 2 or 3 occupants; possibly 4 if you don’t mind your wide sleeping pads touching edge to edge. It’s best to have one of those other occupants help you raise this tent and put the rainfly on.
I have used this tent on solo trips, but the amount of time and effort involved in getting it set up, and breaking it back down is not worth it, unless you know you’re going into a hostile weather environment not suited for smaller tents. It’s much easier to use a backpacking tent on solo trips.
Space and Comfort
The inside floor area of the Base Camp 4 is 100 by 86 inches, or around 60 square feet. The primary vestibule area is 27 square feet, while the backdoor vestibule area is 17 square feet. Plenty of space for lots of gear. The peak height is 5 feet. Let’s get into what that means for us:
Though a normal adult is not able to stand all the way up in the tent, it still owns a relatively roomy amount of headspace. This means you can throw in a tall, luxury queen sized, blow up bed, and still be able to sit up in bed without vertical hindrance. You know, the queens that rise good foot or two off the ground when blown up.
Occupancy
Best for 2 person glamping
And even with a queen sized bed in the tent, there’s still enough room on the sides for two campers to have their own areas for their packs, shoes, clothes, etc. Back when my girlfriend could camp, we would use the Base Camp 4 with a big queen and foam mattress topper. And there was still space left over for a full sized poodle to sleep on one side of the tent floor.
3 person sleeping pad setup
Even if you wanted to use it with 3 people and wide, 25″ sleeping pads, you could still have 12″ of space between the pads. This gives sleepers enough room to operate, when getting up and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Further, were these sleeping pads to own the standard 72″ in their lengths, there would still be an extra foot of space for personal items as well.
4 person sleeping pad setup
Things get tight as alluded to above in the set-up section when you have 4 occupants. Your wide, 25″ sleeping pads will touch. I’d say your best case scenario for hosting 4 people is to have two, 2-person sleeping pads installed for two romantic couples. We’re talking the Klymit Double V, or Big Agnes Rapid SL 40″ wide sleeping pads.
Zippers
The zippers on all the parts of the tent – the doors, and vents – are excellent and never snag or get caught. They are awesome.
Pockets and loft areas
I have no complaints with the amount of pocket area the tent has. It’s kept my phone and glasses at the ready faithfully, with further room for my USB battery bank, flashlight, and ditty items. Indeed it’s rare that I would find enough items to use all of the pocket space the tent has.
And though the tent has no central loft shelf, it does have nicely sized corner loft pockets to turn a headlamp into an overhead light. There are also plenty of overhead hooks for bungee cords or the like. I’ve used the hooks to hang a 12V fan, to keep us cool at night. So they can bear some weight if need be.
Vestibule Space
The smaller vestibule space is good for mostly packs and shoes.
The larger one could house snow equipment, large plastic storage containers that hold your camping gear, a large dog bed, and allow for cooking in non-predator areas. I use mine to shade my solar battery bank, so the sun won’t overheat the batteries. And I always put a small tarp down in mine, and sit there and watch the outdoors.
I have actually used the larger vestibule to cook. I used a Coleman butane canister stove, and 10″ iron skillet, during a wind storm, when it was impossible to cook outdoors, even with multiple wind barriers. So yeah, you can turn the place into a kitchen if need be. I’ve used a backpacking stove in this space also, to boil water and make breakfast.
Weight and Packed Size
The Base Camp 4 weighs close to 17 pounds, but it fits nicely into a ‘roll bag’ stuff sack that comes with it, which has a strong shoulder strap for ergonomic carrying. This bag, when packed with everything, is a little under 2 feet tall, by a little under 1 foot wide.
Though it’s not a backpacking tent, its dimensions would allow it to fit inside a 55+ liter pack, on top of a sleeping bag. So if you could convince a couple partners to divide up the communal loads, and carry some of your stuff, theoretically you could hike in to a camp with it. It just wouldn’t be fun for a multi-day backpacking excursion.
Storage bag is fairly easy to put the rolled tent into
Once you’ve broken down your tent and rolled it back up, the bag is fairly accommodating, when attempting to put the tent back in it. There is some effort involved, where you need to stuff the tent into the mouth little by little, while turning the bag in a 360° fashion. But at some point it concedes that it must go into the bag, and gravity will take over, if you hold it upright, and off the ground.
I have a video explainer on breaking the tent down and getting it back into the bag:
Accessories
Though REI now states the guy lines come with the Base Camp 4, mine did not. Hence you can use MSR tent guy lines if you find yourself in the same position as me.
If you want a footprint, and have a 2019 or younger model, REI does sell them. I have a commercial tarp that is approximately the same dimensions as the floor, so that’s what I use. As previously mentioned, I also use a small secondary tarp for the primary vestibule area.
Replacement Poles
There are no replacement poles for this tent. If you bend or break a pole section, you’re going have to do what I’m currently doing: I’m mailing my bent pole to TentPole Technologies to have its particular troublesome section replaced. I’ll be interested in if they can match the section’s original curvature, but even if they just give me a straight piece, that will still work fine. The curvature is very subtle over any one section.
Further Reading
Thanks for reading my REI Base Camp 4 review! Now check out my camping gear page for other tent and gear reviews.