Comments about Kelty Shiro 4 Tent:

This tent is going to be a polarizing item, partially because no one will expect what they get unless they've seen it. The best way to describe this tent is a large fly with two mesh sleeping pods inside. It's not really a tent in a traditional sense. The sleeping pod mesh inserts have floors so you can sleep 4 on the two sides, but all three main areas without the inserts do not have a floor. I had deduced this after many review reads and so came prepared the first time I used it with a giant tarp to put under the whole thing and have since ordered the footprints which (in my mind) fixes the design flaw of not having (or at least including) floors. It was most likely designed to be a flexible 2-4 person with mountain bikes and gear sort of tent, but it's clear the person who designed it wasn't thinking of what people would think when their "tent" didn't have a floor. It is currently discontinued, I would guess because the return rate was so high.

That whole crazy design philosophy aside, it is an amazing tent for a small family. It essentially gives us two separate but very connected sleeping rooms with a common area to stow most of our gear. It is a bit like the overpriced North Face docking station system, only more reasonably sized, less flexible, and especially now that it's discontinued, a lot cheaper.

The tent breathes amazingly well, which means that it's not really a cold weather tent but handles condensation awesomely. We were out in a good downpour on Friday night and it worked better than any tent I've had (I haven't bought a tent in 15 years, so I'm not sure how much that means). The mesh insert hangs away from the fly, so there is no condensation on my sleeping bag in the morning and the numerous amount of vents meant it was not very humid inside.

It requires two people to set up, being as large as it is, but it wasn't terribly complex in procedure. I didn't actually use the instruction manual besides glancing at which pole went first, so that's saying something. The poles did bend a bit when I was putting it up, which really gave me a poor initial impression of their strength. I will keep an eye on them in the future, maybe it was just a clumsy setup fluke.

I actually like the tent a lot, a bit for its quirkiness honestly. I think if you go in understanding what you're getting and bringing a tarp/ground cloth or buying the footprints, you'll have a good experience.