Topic: The Best 4-Season Tents of 2023, Tested and Reviewed (Read 35 times)
previous topic - next topic
It's your post, so post it!
Topic: The Best 4-Season Tents of 2023, Tested and Reviewed (Read 35 times)
previous topic - next topic
No one plans to get stuck in their tent during a winter storm, but if it was going to happen to me, I’d want to be in the Stone Glacier Sky Solus. First off, for a one-person tent, it’s exceptionally roomy. Just about everyone will be able to fit not only themselves (the diagonal measurement is well over seven feet), but also the majority of their gear inside the tent with them.
It also takes an unusual approach to the vestibules. Rather than having a single vestibule outside the door of the tent, it has two smaller ones on the sides of the tent. You can access these from inside the tent via a cinch-cord opening. They aren’t massive vestibules—big enough to stash the best hiking boots or backpacking rain jackets—but it’s enough to hold anything you don’t want in the tent with you, and they are very protected from the elements by the low-lying rainfly. Generous mesh pockets provide additional storage options on the inside of the tent.
The sides of the tent are protected enough that you could conceivably leave the access points to the vestibules open for extra ventilation overnight. An additional cross-breeze can be obtained by partially opening the door to the tent and a third, small opening at the back of the tent. (When packing up this tent at the end of your trip, ensure the cinch cords are pulled closed from the inside.)
Even the setup of this tent takes the challenges of stormy conditions into consideration. There are two fabric sleeves for the poles that can be unhooked from the body of the tent. This means that in exceptionally bad weather, you could assemble your poles and slot them criss-cross into the sleeves, providing extra stability before you battle the winds to attach the fabric body of the tent.
Winter camping—whether you are backpacking, ski touring, or hunting—means extra gear, sometimes a lot of extra gear. And most of it—snowshoes, crampons, boots—can’t really co*e inside the tent with you. So a healthy-sized vestibule should be high on your list of considerations when choosing a winter tent.
The vestibules of the ALPS Mountaineering Tasmanian are massive–easily the biggest of any winter tent I looked at. Either of the two vestibules could have easily held all the excess gear for two people. The extra square footage co*es from a separate pair of poles that hook into each corner of the tent and then thread through the rainfly itself, pushing it outward. (I promise in practice this was fairly simple to set up.) The result is so much extra space that not only could you store all your gear with room to spare here, you could also suit up in the vestibule before opening up the rainfly to meet the elements.
The ALPS Mountaineering Tasmanian also had the most interior square footage of any two-person tent I looked at; two large people over 6 foot 5 inches would easily fit inside this tent with room to spare. Of course, the downside to all this extra space is that this is a very heavy tent—about twice the weight for two people as my best overall pick.
While this tent was reasonably easy to set up, I found that it took more effort than with other models to achieve a taut, storm-ready profile. Plan to set this one up in your backyard a few times before taking it out into the field.
It happens to the best of us; we’re headed out for what we thought was a late summer or early fall adventure—the last hurrah before a white layer coats the higher elevations—when an early season snow hits. Always fun staying up half the night punching snow off the top of your three-season tent.
If this is happening to you regularly, then the NEMO Kunai could be the tent you need. It bills itself as a three to four-season tent, and it is exactly that, something in-between seasons. It’s not the tent you want for the height of summer, and it’s not the tent you want in the depths of winter, but it excels at the in-between time frame when you’re not quite sure what to expect.
Like other NEMO products, setup is fairly straightforward—if you’re an experienced backpacker then you can get away with setting this up for the first time out in the field (as I did). The one hiccup you may run into is the lack of stakes and guylines. Only six stakes are included (four for the four corners of the tent and two to pull out the vestibule), and the only ropes that could be used as guylines (no tensioners) are attached to the body of the tent, not the rainfly. In mild, tree-sheltered conditions, you can achieve a taut structure with just what’s provided, but if you expect weather then consider purchasing additional stakes and moving the guylines to the rainfly.
What gives this tent its inter-seasonal bonafides is the sheer number of windows inside: two large windows at the side and one medium window at the back plus the door at the front. With all of these rolled down, you get significant airflow, perfect for unexpectedly warm nights. But if conditions take a turn and temperatures plunge you can zip them right up and get the bombproof protection you need to sleep through the night.
The only catch here is that condensation inside this tent can get pretty serious if the windows are rolled up. On an overnight when temps dropped into the low twenties my partner and I woke up to find the body of the tent soaked to the touch (with the exception of the foot of our camping quilt, our gear was dry). We had the top window open, and part of the door, but in the future I would likely leave all of the windows open to prevent excessive buildup of moisture.
With summer backpacking, there’s always a chance that you won’t need the rainfly—just a simple mesh enclosure to keep out the bugs. But that’s not the case in the winter. Even if bluebird skies are in the forecast, you’re going to put up the fly to protect you from icy winds and to provide an extra boost of warmth overnight. So why even have a separate mesh body?
The single-wall Black Diamond Hilight (available in both the two- and three-person models) takes this to its natural conclusion, and saves on weight in the process. The two-person version of this tent is under four pounds, which is exceptionally light for a winter tent. It’s also impressively sturdy. During testing, this was one of the few tents that needed no stakes or guylines to achieve a taut setup, which is important if you’re looking at serious winds or snowfall. Though notably, it doesn’t have a vestibule, which makes it virtually impossible for two people to share the two-person version of this tent. However, one can be purchased separately.
Unusually, the poles for the Black Diamond Hilight are set up inside the tent, rather than outside. While theoretically this might allow you to stay dry during setup, in practice this design proved to be a hassle. First, to get both poles into the tent, you’ll need to leave the door unzipped long enough to push them into the metal grommets at the four inside corners of the tent. Experienced users will be able to do this fairly quickly, but it will still leave the interior of your tent exposed for longer than it would be with an exterior pole design. Once you’ve done that (and zipped up the tent to keep out the elements), you’re still likely to find yourself covered in folds of fabric until you push the tent poles up into place and secure them with the velcro straps. Needless to say, I reco*mend practicing the setup of this tent a few times before taking it out into the field.
Because of its single-wall design, this tent handles ventilation differently than other models I looked at. At the top of the tent is an arched dome held in place by four stiff (but pliable) rods, with two small vents underneath. The door, which has a small overhang, can also be unzipped to allow for additional airflow, as can a half window on the opposite side of the tent.
Packing away this tent has some minor challenges to it. The rods holding the dome for the top vents get in the way when trying to roll up the tent (they are also difficult not to bend out of place in the process). I initially liked that the stake bag was attached to the interior of the pole bag, but in practice found that it was difficult to put everything away without something slipping out accidentally.
One of the biggest reasons backpackers don’t invest in a winter tent is cost. The best four-season tents typically run about twice the cost of a standard three-season tent, but only get a fraction of the use. For plenty of people, it can be hard to justify the expense. Fortunately, in addition to the somewhat heavy ALPS Mountaineering Tasmanian, the Marmot Fortress provides plenty of protection for entry-level winter adventuring at a cost that won’t set you back on rent.
While I like that the Marmot Fortress co*es in at about 2.5 pounds lighter than the ALPS Mountaineering Tasmanian, there are a few things I wish were different about this tent. First, the interior didn’t provide the same storage options as the ALPS Mountaineering, and the vestibules were significantly smaller.
Like the ALPS Mountaineering Tasmanian, it also was difficult to achieve a taut structure with this tent, even after fiddling extensively with the co*plicated tensioner system at the pole ends. While the Marmot Fortress does co*e with an adequate number of guylines, unusually, these must be pre-assembled before heading out. Individuals who choose this tent should stay below the treeline on their initial excursions until they are practiced at staking out and guylining this tent to achieve a storm-worthy visage.
OK, so I know I said that this story was going to focus on four-season tents suitable for lowland camping at approachable price points, but here’s the thing about the Samaya Radical1: Its structural integrity given its weight (just a pound and a half) is in a class by itself. Even if this isn’t the tent for you (and it probably isn’t), it should at least be on your radar.
First let’s talk about what this tent is not for: This is not the tent for a casual winter camping trip. It shouldn’t even be your primary tent for a true mountaineering expedition. This tent was designed for alpinists on their last push to the summit. If things go well, they won’t even take it out of their backpack. If the weather turns (or if they run across another climber in distress), then voila: a true freestanding tent, with the chops to protect you from the elements. But there are plenty of backpackers and hunters, too, who head out planning to eschew tenting entirely, whether it’s because they intend to cowboy camp or make it back to the trailhead before nightfall. And that, sometimes, does not go to plan, for all kinds of reasons. This tent is a true emergency shelter for inclement environments—wel