Outwell Montana 6
(Sleeping Capacity 6 persons)

The Tent
The Outwell Montana 6 is a 6 berth tunnel tent which utilizes steel poles, Outwell’s power stability system, which ensures the tent is kept secure and rigid throughout most conditions. The tent is supplied with the universal three plus three inner tent, providing sleeping accommodation for six people or a very comfortable four person tent. The bedroom divider can also be unzipped providing a single bedroom if required. The internal dimension of the tent ensures a large living area and more than ample space for a short or long family holiday. The tent is made to a very high specification (see below) and is designed to ensure comfort and durability.

Pitch Footprint, Size And Weight
Width: 415 cm, Length: 585 cm, Height: 215 cm

Packed Size  Canvas: 80 cm x 40 cm  Poles: 80 cm x 45
Weight  Canvas: 16.9 kg Poles: 17.2 kg

 Erection / Pitching

One of the key advantages of this tent is that it is pitched all in one, ensuring that the inner tent will stay nice and dry if pitching in wet weather conditions. All the main tent poles are identical which makes the pitching relative easy. Once the tent is out of the bag we find it easier to loosely peg the four corners first. Once this is done you will need to get as much air into the tent, this can be done by unzipping the front door, getting inside the tent and lifting the material. Snap the poles together and lay in place along either side of the tent ready for the pitching. Insert the four roof bars and starting from the front insert the side legs and locate in the ring and pin system, you will find this is best done with two people, one either side although it is possible to erect on ones own. Peg out the front two guy ropes (either side of the front door) then work your way to the back of the tent locating the side poles on the ring and pins. Once this is complete, starting from the back to the front, peg the flysheet and guy ropes down making sure the poles are square and in alignment with each other. When working to the front during the pegging operation, insert the side porch pole prior to pegging the porch in position.

 The Cost
Around £330 for the 2007 model but the cost may increase slightly for the 2008 season. There are multiple accessories available for this tent from Footprint groundsheet to carpets, canopies and extensions.

The Verdict
Outwell are a very well known and established maker in the camping field and this tent has been around since 2005 and is now one of the best selling tents of all times. It’s not the quickest tent to pitch (around 40 - 45mins) but with practice this can be reduced to around the 35mins mark. We have used our 2007 model for 40 plus days camping this year from a weekend to two weeks and can highly recommend it. The tent is very well ventilated ensuring little if any condensation, has some very nice touches, like the low level bedroom windows, many internal storage pockets etc. I would recommend that a footprint groundsheet and canopy / extension are also considered. The Footprint offers extra protection to the tent groundsheet and helps keep it clean aiding a quicker decamp, whilst the canopy / extension provides valuable extra covered area outside the tent for cooking etc. Finally for those with young children the carpet provides an additional barrier from the earth and helps reduce dampness and also provide a nice living area.

Outwell Montana 6 2008 Supplement

As many of you will be aware the Outwell Montana 6 is still featured in the 2008 Premium collection and for the 2008 season has only gone through some minor changes. 

Roof 

On previous models on the fabric that located the roof bar there was a double piece of material in the centre section, this has been removed this season. This modification would probably be done for ease of the production run. 

Side Windows and Vents 

All the opening windows and side vents have now had the sides extended downwards with the addition of extra fabric. We imagine this will help disperse the water over a wider area in wet conditions and away from the bottom of the openings. 

Temperature Gauge 

All Outwell tents were supplied with a dial gauge thermometer for the 2007 season. This has been replaced for the 2008 season by a traditional looking strip thermometer complete with compass.

Sleeping Pods 

The inner sleeping pods for the 2008 season have the benefit of being secured to the outer tent by four adjustable buckles from the 2007 seasons three. This not only will ensure the weight of the inner once all the organiser pockets are full is more evenly distributed but would be needed with the advent of the new interchangeable kiddie’s bedrooms. 

Centre Light 

For this season the tents centre light mounting point has been replaced from the previous reinforced fabric hanging tab to a round plastic mounting ring. This would provide by the looks of it a stronger mounting point that would be needed to mount the new range of electric lighting / heating for the 2008 season.

Porch 

The external porch for the tent has had some minor updates for the season; this appears at our first look at the tent that the porch rod has been relocated to a higher position. This gives the porch a little extra headroom, also the porch appears to be slightly narrower on the new model.

This may not be the full list of updates for the 2008 season but at the time of writing these are what have been observed.

Information and Links
For further information on Outwell and their products visit Outwell

Reviewed by Rickit