Field Notes: Careening into Winter

The new titanium mug has been added to this season’s Merch Drop!

The Senchi pants are HOT when worn under my cold-weather softshell pants. It needs to be pretty chilly to make that combo work. The alpaca leggings make a more comfortable leg base layer across a wider range of temps. Plus, they’re more durable, and on some trips, I like to wear leggings under running shorts, and the Senchi has too much porosity to make them comfortable in cold wind as an outer layer.

Rob, for camping where I have some natural shelter (treeline or lower), I think a double-walled, solid inner, two-trekking pole shelter like the Tarptent Dipole DW or Durston X-Mid Solid would be fine.

For above-the-treeline use in bad weather (high winds and blowing snow), I lean towards a true double-wall solid inner tent where all mesh can be sealed. My personal preference is for two vestibules (one for gear storage, one for cooking/entry/exit. I like a to-the-ground fly, lots of guyline attachment points, a fly that attaches to the poles, no pole hubs (all poles should terminate at the ground), and pole sleeves instead of clips. All of this points to wind stability and snow-loading strength. The lightest shelter I’ve found to meet all of these criteria is the Slingfin Crossbow.

But the Crossbow is definitely a “specialist” shelter. It’s a legit mountaineering-class tent *IF you extensively guy it out. If you don’t, then there are plenty of lighter options. If you’re looking to use the Crossbow without the guylines, then you’re probably carrying more weight than you need to. I don’t see this as an all-purpose winter tent.

I think the Tarptent Dipole DW or Durston X-Mid Solid are probably better choices for an all-purpose winter tent if you’re looking to save some weight and have “enough” stability to hold up under a few inches of snow and some strong wind gusts here and there. But then again, a small pyramid can usually deal with those kinds of conditions as well. The tents are much warmer when it’s really cold, and that’s kind of nice.

If I’m not expecting much wind or snowfall, I still like bivies and tarps, even in winter.