10 Best Lightweight Tents for Winter Backpacking

Winter tents and shelters for mountaineering, winter backpacking, and backcountry skiing tours need to be stronger and warmer for camping in exposed windy terrain that may be subject to snow loads. We prefer lightweight tents and tarp shelters because no one wants to lug a heavy tent all day when climbing a peak, snowshoeing, or backcountry skiing if it’s avoidable. What follows are our recommendations for winter tents and shelters that can handle moderate snow loads and wind while being lightweight enough to carry comfortably in a backpack.

1. Hyperlite Mountain Gear UltaMid 2

2. Mountain Laurel Designs SuperMid

3. SlingFin Cinder Cone 4P

4. Durston X-Dome 1+

5. KUIU Mountain Star 2

6. Black Diamond FirstLight 2P Tent

7. Tarptent ArcDome 2 Ultra

8. MSR Access 2

9. NEMO Kunai 2

10. SlingFin Hotbox

4-Season (Winter) Tent and Shelter Selection Guide

When evaluating winter tents and tarp shelters, it helps to research the climate conditions you expect to use the tent in, particularly snow loads and wind speeds, as this will inform the degree of tent pole strength and ventilation required.

Tent or Tarp?

Tents are almost always heavier than tarps, but they offer a lot more comfort and protection because they have floors. They can also be much easier to set up if they’re freestanding, so you can get out of the weather quickly and change into dry clothes. While tarps are substantially lighter, they can take a while to set up since you have to freeze your guy-out points in place in snow, a process known as sintering. This can take 20-30 minutes, during which time you’ll get much colder. You have to decide which option best suits your needs.

Pole Architecture

Many winter tents have several crossed poles, anchored inside or outside the tent walls. Exterior poles anchored in sleeves are much stronger than poles that connect to an inner tent via clips or velcro tabs. They’re much more wind-resistant and can withstand heavier snow loads. For tarps, most require one or two poles to set up, although ones with high ceilings may require that you lash two trekking poles together, usually with a flexible ski strap, to attain the proper height.

Guy Out Points

It’s important to secure your tent or tarp to the snow when you set it up so it doesn’t blow away and so the walls don’t collapse under wind pressure. Winter tents typically come with gear loops instead of guylines for this purpose so you can use gear to anchor your tent, like skis, poles, ice axes, etc. If you use snow stakes, it’s important to freeze these in place by packing snow all around them and letting it harden. If there’s no snow on the ground, you’ll have a very hard time pounding regular tent stakes into the frozen ground. When this happens, you’ll quickly realize the advantage of using a freestanding tent.

Ventilation

It is important to minimize and reduce internal condensation. This is achieved by keeping the tent door(s) open when feasible, through peak and side vents, and in some cases through the use of breathable wall fabrics. You can never have too much ventilation in a winter tent or shelter because you’re sleeping on top of water, frozen water. Look for tent doors with mesh screens, as this lets you keep a door open at night for ventilation while blocking snow from blowing into the tent.

Interior Space

Winter tents designed for high alpine mountaineering are often cramped because weight savings are so critical when you have to climb many thousands of feet to reach your destination. When selecting a winter tent, be realistic about your length and width requirements, particularly when choosing a two-person wedge-style tent, as livability can be compromised. Consider purchasing an add-on vestibule if available because they make a good “gear room” for you to store wet or snow-covered gear or to cook and melt snow under (with proper ventilation to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning) if you have to wait out a storm.

Number of Doors

Tents designed to hold two occupants are more comfortable and convenient to use if they have two doors and vestibules because you can come and go without waking your tent partner. Dome-style tents often provide greater covered vestibule storage, which can make a significant difference in livability.

Floorless Shelters

Winter tarps do not have floors in order to save weight. Most people dig into the snow with an avalanche shovel to create “furniture” for sleeping or sitting, and to increase the usable space under the tarp. Some people even cut out the floors in their freestanding tents, including the Black Diamond FirstLight, for the same purpose, because it improves livability.

DCF (Dyneema) Tents and Tarps

While tarp shelters made with DCF (Dyneema Composite Fabrics) are lighter-weight than ones made with silnylon or polyester, snow slides better down the sides of silnylon and polyester shelters because they are slicker, reducing the weight of snow loading on the tent poles/ski poles holding up your tent or tarp. In addition, DCF tarps are much bulkier to pack making them less desirable in winter when backpack space is at such a premium.