The Terrapod comes with an extendable ladder that will easily reach around 9' tall - you can see in this picture that I have two rungs left unextended and my roof rack is over 7' off the ground.
You can enter from either side or the back - I have a 270 degree awning mounted on the drivers side of my Land Rover so I usually get in on the passenger side but I can also climb up the rear mounted ladder and enter through the "porch" on the roof rack.
The two support poles just pivot up an snap into place in seconds - they are there in case both of the gas struts were to fail or if something heavy were to fall on the tent (watch his tree limb drop test). My SOLO model weighs around 85 pounds.
I've followed the development of this tent since Chad first proposed it and sold a perfectly good Maggiolina to upgrade to the Terrapod. Chad is around 6' 7" tall so he designed a tent that he could stretch out in.
We both worked for aircraft companies (me with Lockheed and Chad with Boeing) so there are a lot lessons learned from aircraft manufacturing techniques in his design from materials and assembly to the custom made extrusions he designed for the frame.
The composite panels are 1" thick and the sealant he uses looks an awful lot like the stuff we used on the F-22 Raptor. I don't think there is a better engineered roof tent on the market - and that's why I bought one.
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