Kelty Late Start Backpacking Tent

I bought 1 of these for a bikepacking trip with my family. We just got done using it and I'll throw out my thoughts in a second. before that though, I will tell you that I have spent about 35 years as an outdoors man doing a variety of outdoors activities including hunting, fishing, camping, bikepacking and backpacking. I have owned lightweight backpacking tents up through wall tents with wood burning stoves. I have spent thousands of hours in the outdoors. I have used Kelty before and really like their products Now for the review of this item..... Pros – 1. This thing is fairly light (although ultralight backpackers would not call this thing light at all). But for the price point it is fairly lightweight. For a true ultralight backpacking tent you are going to be spending 400 or more dollars. 2. This tent is SUPER easy to set up even in the dark. Just unroll the tent, extend the two (2) sets of poles which take about 20 seconds total. Insert the pole ends into the colored sleeves and clip the tent body (mesh) to the poles. The whole thing can be set up by one person in about 3-4 minutes easily. 3. Rainfly gives you a little extra room for gear storage. 4. Good quality. As mentioned before, I have owned Kelty products and they are of pretty good quality. Cons – 1. This is a little heavy for ultralight backpacking 2. This is a little bulky for backpacking. Car camping etc this thing is pretty small compared to in other tents you’d find at a big box store but those are really not the same thing. 3. One of the clips that attaches the rainfly to the tent body didn’t fit right. The male portion of the buckle appeared to be a little to wide for its female buckle counterpart. The other three (3) fit perfectly. Again, I have been using outdoors products and camping for 35 years. In fact, I can set up my 12X20 foot wall tent by myself in about 35-40 minutes. I am mechanically capable and very handy. I don’t know if this was a defective piece but was irritating non the less.. Overall I thought this was a very good value and for the money and fits the bill for bikepacking, car camping or backpacking. My wife and daughters (15 and 7 years old) fit in it and didn’t complain about being cramped.

This was my first Kelly purchase in many years. Our family started using more REI products for backpacking over the years due to the easy return policy and discounts for members. Our REI Quarter Dome 4 finally needed replacing. After much searching, reading reviews, and comparing brands and models, the Kelly Late Start 4 won out as our best option for size, weight, usage, and cost. We’ve been extremely happy with this tent. It fits my wife, two daughters, myself, and our small dog perfectly. We have just enough room to fit our packs inside as well. The vestibule is good sized, allowing our boots and other items to stay dry outside the tent. The tent goes up very quick and easy. The color coding makes it simple. I can have the tent staked and up in about 5 minutes with no help. Total weight is great. It’s easy to pack and carry on long backpacking trips. The quality seems top notch. The tent doesn’t come with the foot print, but is sold separately. Overall I give this tent two thumbs way up. We will be using more Kelly products in the future, if this is what we can expect from all their products, built well, lightweight, and affordable.

This tent is the perfect option if you might split time between car camping and backpacking. It actually could fit 4 people with the bent-pole/vertical wall feature creating more usable space. It is perfect for a couple if you want more space. When car camping, we use two inflatable twin mattresses pushed to the outside walls with a 1.5” Kelty sleeping pad between them down the aisle so our knees have some cushion when crawling in and out of bed. There is still plenty of space for travel bags or packs. I think it is still light enough for backpacking and you have so much space to work with. Setup is a breeze with the pole sleeves, pole clips, and color coding. It really only takes about 5 minutes to set up. There are multiple loops in the ceiling for clipping lights and gadgets and multiple pockets for keys and phones. Ventilation is good and the zippers on the rain fly and tent are both two-way for easy adjustment. You can’t go wrong with this Kelty tent.

My first piece of backpacking equipment was Kelty in 1991. In all that time Kelty has always represented good value to me and this tent does not fail that expectation. At this price point for a 1 person tent with a vestibule and room for me to sit up inside is ok in my book. Quality is also good, well made no defects I could find. All seams in the floor and fly are taped and sealed. It did not rain so I cannot speak to its waterproof-ness. The bug net zipper does bind just a bit in the lower corner but not enough for me to be concerned. There is a small gear loft, if you will, just big enough to hold my water bottle. There are also 2 other gear bags on both sides of the tent near the entrance near the floor. Plenty of room for my bag, pad, extra blanket boots and other gear. The vestibule is nice but it would be tight i think to do any cooking. Setup is a breeze, quick and easy. The color coding for the fly is a great idea and the sleeve for the poles is genius, so much easier than my other tents. I took off 1 star for the weight. On my scale 4lbs 2 oz over the spec but next time I'll leave the stakes at home and cut my own.

I looked at a lot of bigger lighter tents in the $400 to $550 range. They had universally a much larger footprint with two doors and vestibules requiring at least 4 stakes. If I had wanted a hiking base camp, they would be the way to go. But the complex setup and big footprint (not to mention thinner more fragile fabrics) are not ideal for cycling stealth camping. The Late Start is perfectly functional with just two stakes and takes perhaps a third of the setup time as say a Big Agnes tent and similar "freestanding" tents. Sleeves instead of grommets makes it faster as does only two poles and no hub. Comes with 10 stakes. Since I'm only taking 2, the packed weight comes to 4 pounds, 4.5 oz. About 5 oz more with the full complement of stakes. The only feature I might have cared about is no roll tie to tuck the vestibule door out of the way that I could find. I can tuck it out of the way, but a windy night would defeat that and cause flapping. I was also surprised to find a seam across the floor (sealed, but really)? My previous tent, an inexpensive Diamond model from the late 70's didn't have that. I really miss that tent, not freestanding but super simple 2 poles in sleeves and 3 stakes. Gave it to a German girl when I left after 6 months in New Zealand. So all I did was a quick yard setup, but that was enough to know this tent was good enough. That Diamond tent was quite a bit longer at 95" inside, which meant you could bring your panniers inside and still have sufficient room for two to sleep. Easy choice of course if opportunity strikes while I'm using this tent. Super roomy for one with panniers.