Tents are one of those things that have so many entry points of failure that it's hard to find one that leaves you totally satisfied. If a tent successfully wards off a storm, then it's too damn heavy. If it's nice and light, then it has the room of a holding cell at Guantanamo. Easy to set up? Watch it crumple as you read a book by headlamp, effectively turning you into the filling of a 9x9 nylon quesadilla. Which is why we were so surprised when Brooks-Range's Foray – the company's newest two-person, three-season tent – left us scratching our heads as we tried to figure out what was wrong with it.

Indeed, once we'd already lashed the Foray onto the outside of our pack, we realized that we could just as easily have stuffed the tent into a main pocket.