North Face Bastion Tent 4 season Review

This is North Face's answer to Mountain Hardwear's Trango 4. I havent used the Trango 4 but the specs are very similar. Trango has all clips while the Bastion has clips and pole sleeves. The Bastion is basically a sized up north face VE25 that claims to fit 4 adults. Its billed as being big mountain ready. split two or three ways the weight would be OK to carry. Its taller, wider and longer then a ve25. 8 ft x 8 ft x 54 inches. There is adequate room for three six footers. Four tall people would be cramped. four small skinny people would fit.

Pros: Decent head room for a four season tent. No gear loft needed with two ceiling pockets, as well as 12 wall pockets.
Setup was fairly easy with two folks. Ventilation is good with two doors and two roof vents. Fly has roof vents too that allow airflow. Front vestibule is big enough for four packs. Reflective accents on tent and guy lines and glow in dark zipper pulls are very handy at night. I used this in high wind but not in snow. It is very stable in wind. It has many guy out points and pole cross points and I don't know if it would reach a limit on wind or snow before collapsing. Yellow and white color is cooler then darker tents and very visible.

Flaws: One snap on rain fly broke the first use. The rear/little vestibule is very small, big enough for two packs. small rainfly porthole window not very useful. Its hard to get the front vestibule to keep its support pole taut and have the vestibule at max height. I couldn't get big vestibule fully extended vertically and still use all the zippers easily. Front vestibule fly zipper is tight to use zipping from bottom to top and back, the easier way to get in the tent through that side. Little vestibule fly easier to use.
Bottoms of the vestibules don't stake down all the way around. They are meant to be covered with snow and rocks. I'd prefer if the fly went all the way to the ground

If you need a medium/large size three man 4 season tent with more headroom, prefer this to the Trango 4, don't want to spend more money and can get it for the price of a VE25 its a good deal. Not sure if any dealers carry it in a brick and mortar store. The Chicago North Face store and all REIs didn't.