GEAR
WINTER TENTS A COMPARISON By SHAUN MITTWOLLEN TO WINTER CAMP IN THE MOUNTAINS is to experience their truest form. They are raw. Wild. Inhospitable. The peaks are alive as spindrift wafts from knife-edged ridges, as idyllic lakes fill in and become powdery bowls, and as avalanches transport frozen slopes like frenzied rivers. They are places where pleasantries are exchanged for excitement, challenges and the great unknown—the elements that ultimately drive us to explore. When camping in the winter mountains, we are temporary visitors to inhospitable environments; to explore them, we need a space to exist—a tiny home. Inuit peoples addressed the challenges of life in the snow by designing the igloo. Alpinists introduced their own special designations of suffering in the forms of the snow cave and the bivy. And then there is the tent. I am a self-professed tent nerd. For me, tents are the most interesting items of gear; over the years I’ve accumulated a quiver of them, each with its own purpose. Differences in design create key specialities, and the more you experiment, the more you realise there is no single perfect tent. Each has its place in the mountains, each is a compromise of weight, strength and comfort. I own tents that cover three of the main winter-tent designs: the dependable dome, the pliable tunnel and the space-age pyramid. Note that one tent type I don’t own is that of a lightweight, single-skin, breathable tent like The North Face’s Futurelight Assault. But in this piece, I want to share my personal experiences, so I’ll restrict what I say to being about only those winter-tent styles that I actually own.
QUICK TAKES
MOUNTAINEERING DOMES
MOUNTAINEERING DOMES:
showering us with semi-frozen water. The path is obscured and a howling
- Heavy, suiting shorter approaches or longer expeditions
gale shrieks among the rocky pinnacles above our intended base camp. We
with an established base camp
are soaked through and chilling rapidly but so close that we must push on.
- Multiple crossing poles are effective against high wind and
At this stage, any shelter will do as blowing snow circulates quartzite crags
heavy snow loading
before instantly freezing to our outer shells. We move forward knowing our
- Warm and comfortable inside
packs are weighed down by four kilos of tent, The North Face’s Mountain 25, a
- Ideal for mid-winter expeditions in the alpine or with
geodesic dome and a veritable fortress. A mountaineering staple. The dome
extreme weather expected
will keep us safe from the storm at our base camp for almost a week, during
Dense snow clags the scrub as we bury our way upwards, bending limbs and
which almost a metre of wet, heavy snow will accumulate and winds will gust PYRAMID SHELTERS:
over 90km/h. Despite its crushing weight, on the approach at this point in
- Low weight suits fast and light expeditions or big distances
time I’d rather nothing more than that four kilos of tent in my pack.
- Can be time consuming to setup
This is the quintessential space for such a tent: An exposed multi-night
- Handles wind and snow loading moderately well when
base camp where high winds and heavy snowfalls are expected. Warm, its
perfectly set up
double layers will guard us from Tasmania’s lowest recorded temperatures,
- Cold but spacious inside
and its plethora of crossing poles will create a rigid structure to protect us
- Best uses are for spring tours with light winds
from the snow accumulation and battering winds which would collapse a weaker tent within an hour. All of this boosts our morale. While a long and
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TUNNEL TENTS:
arduous approach lugging a heavy mountaineering dome can be a suf-
- Moderate weight suits both shorter and longer expeditions
fer-fest, but sometimes it’s a necessary evil. In an isolated area that is particu-
- Excels in high wind if positioned correctly
larly weather prone, your survival is dependent on your shelter’s survival. And
- Collapses with significant snow loading
here the dome is, from my experience, the strongest and most comfortable
- Warm and comfortable inside without wind changes
option, despite the increase in weight. After a rough and rowdy storm day
- Best uses are for mid-winter expeditions without big dumps
chasing forgotten couloirs and rime-coated ridges, the classic dome is the
or high wind spring tours
tent I most look forward to returning to.
WILD
