ALPS Mountaineering Rendezvous Chair Review: Fast Setup, Compact Pack, Real Trade-Offs

Introduction

The ALPS Mountaineering Rendezvous Chair is a low, compact folding camp chair built around a simple idea: get it out of the bag fast, sit low, and put it away just as quickly. On paper that sounds like a small thing. In practice it changes how often you actually bring a chair along.

This closer look at the Rendezvous covers the details that matter most in daily use: setup and pack-away time, measured seat dimensions, mesh coverage, materials, packed size, weight, and the trade-offs that come with such a low seat. Where ALPS Mountaineering publishes specifications, those figures are set against real measurements.

Who This Chair Is For

This is a chair for short, casual sits rather than long evenings of lounging. Its natural home is an outdoor concert, a festival field, or a spot near a campfire where you want something off the ground but still close to it. The seat sits low, so you can stretch your legs out in front of you without propping your feet on a cooler or carrying a separate camp stool.

It is not the right pick if you want to sit upright at a table, get in and out of the chair easily, or have somewhere to rest your neck. Anyone who needs a higher seat or more support will be better served by a taller chair.

What makes it appealing is how little it asks of you. The chair is small when packed, quick to open, and simple to carry, which makes it an easy thing to throw in the car on the way to a one-off event rather than a piece of furniture you plan a whole trip around.

Setup and Pack-Away Speed

Setup is genuinely quick. Undo the drawstring on the carry bag, release the cinch, stand the chair upright, and locate the four corners. Pull two opposite corners away from each other and the frame unfolds.

The backrest fabric is not permanently attached to the poles, so it can pop open during unfolding. When that happens, the fix is straightforward: press the poles back into the pole pockets and straighten the chair. Timed from bag to sitting, setup took 12 seconds.

Packing away is nearly as fast. Grab two opposite corners, lift, and pull everything together, then place the chair feet first back into the bag, stand it upright, and shake the rest of the chair in. The whole pack-away, including getting the chair back into its bag, took about 20 seconds.

That speed is the chair’s standout quality. Compact chairs that require assembling poles before attaching the fabric can take more than a minute to build, and by that measure the Rendezvous is several times quicker to set up and break down.

Seat Dimensions and Comfort

Unfolded, the chair measures about 22 inches from armrest to armrest, about 23.5 inches from the back of the chair to the front of the seat, and about 23.5 inches from the ground to the top of the chair.

The seat itself is about 20.5 inches wide and 14.5 inches deep, roughly half an inch smaller than the published specs in both directions. It is not a large seat, but it offers enough room to sit comfortably for a person of average height and weight.

Seat height measured about 8.5 inches at the front of the seat when unoccupied. With someone seated, that height drops to about 4 inches, an inch lower than expected, which suggests the published figure refers to the unloaded chair. The backrest measures about 21 inches high, matching the published spec, and about 20 inches wide, with a recline angle of roughly 21 degrees. It covers most of your back but gives no neck support.

Materials, Build Quality, and Stability

The fabric is 600D polyester and the frame is powder-coated steel. The thinner centre poles measure about 0.67 inches across, while the thicker side poles come in at about 0.87 inches. Stitching is clean all around with no loose threads.

Roughly 36 percent of the seating surface is mesh, with the remaining 64 percent fabric. That is a decent amount of ventilation for warm weather, though water pools on the mesh instead of draining through it as readily as it does on some other chairs.

Stability is a strong point. The feet are reasonably large and the centre of gravity sits very low, so the chair feels planted. The armrests are the weaker area: they are only slightly padded with a foam-like material, slanted downward, thin, and not adjustable.

Portability and Weight

Packed, the chair measures about 29.1 inches long, 7.75 inches wide, and 6.75 inches tall, slightly larger than the published packed size. For scale, that volume is roughly comparable to a two-person camping tent.

The chair itself weighs 6.8 pounds and the carry bag adds 0.34 pounds, or 5.4 ounces, for a total of about 7.1 pounds. That is a touch heavier than the marketed figure but still light enough to carry comfortably. The bag has an adjustable, non-padded shoulder strap.

Other details worth knowing: the chair has a 300 pound weight capacity, is made in China, and carries a limited lifetime warranty.

Main Strengths

The compact packed size is the first thing to like. At roughly the volume of a two-person tent, the Rendezvous is easy to store and easy to carry to an event.

The second strength is speed. Setup and pack-away take seconds rather than minutes, which is unusual for a chair this small. The low seat height is the third: it lets you stretch your legs out without adding a cooler, a camp stool, or any other gear to your setup.

Things to Consider Before Buying

The Rendezvous is not a feature-rich chair. There are no cupholders, no pockets, and no neck support. The armrests are thin, non-adjustable, and not especially comfortable.

The bigger consideration is the seat height. Sitting only about 4 inches off the ground means getting up takes more effort and you cannot sit at normal table height. If you want a chair for long camp evenings, meals, or anything that involves standing up and sitting down often, this low position will wear on you quickly.

Buying Advice

Buy the Rendezvous if your use case is narrow and specific: an outdoor concert, a festival, or a spot around a campfire where you mainly want to sit low and stay put. In those settings the fast setup, small packed size, and light weight are exactly what you want.

If your plans involve longer sits, higher seating, or more comfort features, look at a taller or more fully featured camp chair instead. The Rendezvous is a specialised tool, and it works well within its limits rather than across a broad range of uses.

Conclusion

The ALPS Mountaineering Rendezvous Chair does two things exceptionally well: it opens and closes faster than most compact chairs, and it packs down small enough to live in the car. Everything else follows from its low, simple design, including the lack of features and the low seating position. Match it to short, casual outdoor sits and it will serve you well.