The Best 4-Season Tents of 2024

Now a standard-bearer for far-flung and deep expeditions, some iteration of the venerable Mountain Hardwear Trango 2 Tent ($900) has been on the ground in places like the Kahiltna Glacier, the foot of the Khumbu, and in the Gilgit-Baltistan region since all the way back in 1995, and it doesn’t look to be going anywhere soon. This freestanding shelter is the ideal choice for lengthy, month-long expeditions when you have no idea what Mother Nature will throw at you, and shelter failure isn’t an option.

When you want to talk durable tent architecture, Mountain Hardwear is never far from the conversation, and the Trango is a large part of that reputation. The brainchild of tent designer Martin Zemitis (now of SlingFin Tents), the Trango series utilizes a four pole main structure that has become near-archetypal at this point.

Two poles cross the tent body in an X-fashion, and are then bolstered by two additional poles that intersect one another at the center of the exterior walls. This creates a shelter that is extremely sturdy in the wind, and is free of the fuss of pole sleeves.

The interior design is also just as robust and provides pockets galore, which is a stellar feature for long durations in the field. The entire length of the walls is decorated with broad mesh storage pockets — a total of 11 high-volume hammocks. For a two-person tent, this layout is generous with ample head, foot, and side space to protect everything from mountaineering boots to ropes or rock and ice gear. During a ski mountaineering trip, our team found the setup was easy and intuitive thanks in part to the color-coded poles, rainfly, and canopy.

The fly can face in either direction across the Trango if you need to swap the orientation to better deal with gusts. And the fly connects to poles via gated clips, which are a bit finicky and not totally straightforward, but nice to use when setting up in the wind. The materials are beefy, including the 70-denier nylon-taffeta floor. In fact, nearly everything from the buckles to the zippers is stout enough to withstand burly weather.

The guy-out spots are placed 18 to 24 inches above the ground around the entire tent’s perimeter, which is the perfect height for securing guylines over any snow walls you might have to dig in at an advance basecamp — which is pretty much as far as you’ll want to take this shelter up the mountain. At 8.5 pounds, we found the build to be excessive in volume and weight for alpine routes where you’ll be camping on-route, but for established camps on popular routes, this tent shines. Still, our favorite way to carry the Trango is in a sled.

The ventilation on the tent body is also rather limited (although the mesh doors do help) which means that big temperature swings on the glacier might become stifling if you leave the tent buttoned up. The mesh doors help alleviate this, as does the large vestibule that sports two doors for catching a breeze.

Given its history and performance, it’s unsurprising to note that this is one of the most popular tents that guide services opt to equip their high-altitude climbers with. When it comes to an unfailing indifference to the weather, you’d be hard-pressed to do better than the Mountain Hardwear Trango series.

The Stone Glacier Skyscraper 2P ($645) is constructed to barricade against gust-filled storms and blizzards. This solid two-person tent is a great choice for backpackers and hunters who need protection year-round from snow and sunshine, especially in cooler, drier conditions. We found the ventilation system effective, enabling this abode to be comfortable in the summer, and the tent hardly wavered in 50 mph winds.

The backbone of this shelter is the unique WebTruss system, which takes the strength of a sleeve-pole design and removes it from attaching directly to the tent body. This means that the architecture is freestanding, and can then be clipped into the tent without becoming an alpine sail during a blow. In practice, we’ve found tents that employ some version of this system to be much easier to set up in the mountains, and worth the slight complexity bump over simpler pole designs.

The lightweight 20-denier ripstop nylon floor of the Skyscraper still felt tenacious, and the modular design makes the arrangement versatile. Overnighters can set up the full body and rainfly or save weight by using the fly and lightweight footprint. For checking out the now-cast, a single through-vent at the end of the tent opens up totally to the exterior for a quick survey, then cinches closed when it’s time to button up. We found this portal to not only be key in scoping out the latest, but it was also a huge boost in ventilation when condensation turned up.

Astute observers will notice that this tent is nigh-identical to the SlingFin Crossbow 2, and they’d be correct: Stone Glacier licenses the design and offers the impressive build at $75 less than the real deal, with the only major difference being a slightly thinner and polyurethane-coated fly. So in the end, it really all boils down to color, and for those who are using the Skyscraper for alpine hunting, the blue and dark gray hues may keep your profile just a bit lower.

Almost everything about getting outside in harsher conditions is more expensive, so we’re liable to take any break we can get. At $645, there’s no getting away with saying that the Stone Glacier Skyscraper 2P is outright cheap, but comparatively, the tent hits a number of the high points without going north of the $800 mark. For those on a budget, this tent will get you into the fray.

Bivy-style tents — those you would use while on a long alpine route where you’ll be excavating your tent platform — all seemingly have the same issue: condensation. Thankfully, the SlingFin HotBox ($650) handily side-steps the problem with a double-wall design, as well as a bevy of other smart features that make this the best bivy tent we’ve ever tested. It is, as one tester delighted: “Finally, a bivy tent that doesn’t suck!”

Unlike many double-wall shelters, the HotBox can be set up with the fly already attached, making close-quarters pitching on hacked-out bivy spots feasible. The ‘WebTruss’ pole structure, too, is self-supporting, and in our testing proved to be a robust design that stood up to multiple Himilayan tempests.

And while livability isn’t the priority in tents like this, the HotBox has it in spades. Eight internal pockets decorate the interior of the shelter, and twin drawstring ports provide access to the side vestibule areas — which are more of gear storage zones, but massively useful for tucking away kit in. The 26.8 sq. ft. internal space is about on par with the Black Diamond Firstlight (and even a little roomier than the Mountain Hardwear AC 2), and for trips where we’re glued onto the wall, this is sufficient space.

In scenarios where we know that all of the precipitation we might encounter is going to be frozen (and the on-route time isn’t too long), we still reach for our single-skin shelters, but more often than not, we find a reason to pivot to the SlingFin HotBox. For a handful more ounces, the added livability and thoughtful functionality it brings add a measure of civility to our alpine endeavors.

While a tarp might not scream 4-season worthiness, properly-pitched pyramid shelters can be rock-steady against a serious blow, and the Hyperlite Mountain Gear UltaMid 4 ($849) is the idea taken to the Nth degree, decked out in space-age Dyneema Composite Fabric which keeps weight staggeringly low, as well as providing a sturdy no-stretch canopy to dig out beneath.

Setting up with either your trekking poles or a separately available carbon fiber unit, the 769-gram shelter (read: 5x lighter than the Mountain Hardwear Trango 2) can provide cover for up to four climbers, and packs down as small as a loaf of bread. The impetus is on you to shore up the shelter with things like snow walls, but when using all of the available guy-out points, we’ve seen mids like this weather storms on Denali.

The 85 sq. ft. of floor space may seem downright huge, but keep in mind that the angle of the walls will negate some of this space in your final setup. Still, digging down into the snow allows you to build out the shelter to your specs, whether that’s a couple of sleeping platforms and a kitchen area, or a stately pleasure dome to invite the whole crew into. Hyperlite also offers a number of different inner options (mesh no floor, half- and full inserts) but you’ll have to fork over the dough for them, with even the half inner demanding $299.

For some, the high-tech material (and brow-raising price tag) might take the UltaMid out of the running, but an equally burly pyramid shelter can be had in the Black Diamond Mega Snow ($450) and to a lesser degree, the MSR Front Range Tarp ($380). Both of these mids use a more familiar polyester or ripstop nylon in their canopies, and as such are going to be heavier, but also will pack down a bit smaller than the DCF UltaMid.

On long expeditions overall weight typically takes priority over bulk, and as such the Hyperlite Mountain Gear UltaMid 4 remains our go-to for long stints on the ice.

More than perhaps any other tent, the MSR Access 2 Tent ($800) best represents the line between 3- and 4-season tents, and is designed for winter backcountry ski touring where you’ll be camping at the edge of the alpine, and exploring the high-country during the day.

And while this tent is best thought of as a “treeline” 4-season tent, Senior Editor Nick Belcaster took the Access 2 to the land of very few trees for an alpine hike of the Laugavegur Trail in Iceland. “In short, this tent prevailed on the Laugavegur. Winds ripped across the island and buffetted the highlands all day and night, but the Access 2 stood tough.”

During his 3-day romp, Belcaster found the Access 2 to excel where other 4-season tents would have been dragged down, namely in weight and packability. Bundled up just as small as your leading backpacking tents, the Access 2 unfurls into a proper wall between you and the weather. The fly is slung low and is well guylined to provide good protection from spindrift (be it snow — or volcanic pumice), and the added mid-line pole that runs over the doors really sturdies up the entire shelter.

As it’s made for deep winter use, the walls and ceiling are fairly steeply slanted, which provides for good snow sluffing, but was a little tight quarters for true 4-season conditions. Thankfully, the twin vestibules jut out a good bit, and once you’ve dug some snow wells your gear has a perfect place to idle. This space-shifting is one of the concessions the Access makes to hit its low weight and bulk numbers, but for the conditions it’s made for, it makes perfect sense.

The carbon fiber poles will have to be treated with care (during his tenure as a mountaineering shop manager, Belcaster has seen more than a few guides limp home broken carbon poles), but taking your time with them is a low bar to hurdle in the name of tent longevity. 

Similar tents of the same feather include the REI Co-op Arete ASL 2 and the Copper Spur HV2 Expedition, but we found the Access to edge out all of them for the title of best shoulder-season champ. We are already hatching plans to use the MSR Access 2 during deep splitboard traverses in Washington’s Cascades this winter, and will update our review once this tent has done its time in the chill chest.

For high-alpine elk hunts in the Colorado Rockies and chasing bighorns in Wyoming, the KUIU Storm Star 2 Person Tent ($599) is the right choice for hunkering down while you’re tracking big game. We’ve notched our tags while testing this tent, and find it to be the best shelter to use while hunting long into the shoulder seasons.

Why? Well for one, this tent is burly. We tested this shelter on the top of Berthoud Pass in Colorado during a spring storm, and thanks to the high-tension design and sound engineering, the structure hardly budged under gusts and shed heavy snow well. The fly of the Storm Star uses the same Dimension-Polyant fabric featured in the structure of the Mountain Hardwear AC 2, and it’s obvious why: This tough non-stretch textile doesn’t budge when gusts tug at it, and makes a perfect attachment point for the pole structure to fasten to.

Moving below decks, the durable floor and tub are constructed with 40-denier ripstop nylon, and extend a full foot up the side of the shelter for extra protection. The shape of the interior itself is asymmetric to provide extra width at the tent’s head, and with a waterproof rating of 3,000 mm for the rainfly and 5,000 mm for the floor, water has little chance of sneaking in. We also like the interior webbing loops to help hang soggy gear.

Compared to the Stone Glacier Skyscraper, the extended third vestibule pole of this tent greatly strengthens the design, and we noticed considerably less bowing when wind was coming across the shelters at a full broadside. Also, because the poles are fastened externally on the Storm Star, you can leave the tent body attached to the fly during setup, meaning no more wet tent interior while you’re hustling to get your shelter built. While the Skyscraper does have it licked in a few metrics (slightly larger floorplan, cheaper), we’d happily trade it all for when things get truly medieval outside.

Our only guff with this tent? For one, the two interior zippered vents that open up to the outside aren’t guarded by bug netting, which simply won’t fly when confronted with an Alaskan spring. Also, at 29.5 square feet of internal space for a two-person (the Trango 2 has 40 square feet), you’ll certainly be keeping the majority of your kit in the vestibules. Still, the KUIU Storm Star 2-Person Tent has a near-permanent spot in our hunting load-outs, and is a true 4-season tent for almost any excursion.

Hewn from an electro-spun and air-permeable membrane, the Samaya 2.5 ($1,500) cranks the dial to the extreme in not only overall breathability, but also in weight. The full 2.5-person tent tips the scales at a staggering 3 pounds, 12 ounces, and is the expedition tent du jour if you are treading on the bleeding edge of alpinism and climbing deeper and further than others before.

But let’s start with that membrane. Samaya’s 3-layer polyurethane ‘Nanovent’ variant is a novel answer to the classic trying not to get soaked question, and is an air-permeable single skin that is laid up with a 7D exterior nylon and mated to a Dyneema Composite Fabric floor. This build puts it more so in the “supercar” than the “sedan” side of 4-season tents, and in our testing, it worked admirably.

Currently, there are only a handful of other alpine tents on the market that make use of an air-permeable membrane — the Rab Latok series and The North Face Assualt FUTURELIGHT tents, most notably. These tents all leverage the ability to pass moisture without having to build a vapor differential, something that traditional ePTFE membranes can’t do. Plainly: this tent has a set of lungs, and will easily outperform other waterproof membrane tents.

Moving on to the overall structure, the dome-style design is basecamp-proven, and sets up with three DAC FeatherLite poles in a hexagon shape that sports 34.4 square feet of space. In practice we found this to be the perfect amount of space for two climbers and their kit inside, or for three close friends in less-desirable conditions.

During testing in the Washington Cascades this summer, Senior Editor Nick Belcaster used the Samaya 2.5 to summit some remote glaciated peaks, and found the small packed size to be a huge boon in keeping his pack as small as possible. “Some other tents might be smaller, but none provide as much breathability, which is typically where a lot of other bivy-style tents wilt.”

Obviously, all of this space-age tech comes with a space-age price, and at $1,500, it’s easily one of the most high-dollar rigs in our line-up today. But considering that oftentimes airfare alone to get into the remote ranges where this tent shines will cost you that, and the caliber of alpinist it’s aimed at, it makes a good bit more sense.

If you’re going far and need to go light, the Samaya 2.5 is a 4-season tent to hang your alpine aspirations on.

Ready to be shoehorned into your bivy ledge on the Cassin Ridge, the Mountain Hardwear AC 2 ($750) is one of our top choices for a small footprint on-route shelter that can be deployed dang near anywhere. Compared to the obviously similar (and quite popular) Black Diamond Firstlight, the AC 2 has it just about licked in a number of different facets, and none of them minor — making this tent a much better bivy-style shelter in our opinions. 

For one, the AC 2 makes use of a proper waterproof canopy (speccing out at a waterproof rating of 10,000 mm), whereas the NanoShield fabric of the Firstlight is only water-resistant and not seam-sealed. In ground-truthing, we found the material of the AC 2 to stand tall against the autumn tempests that roil the Pacific Northwest, while the Firstlight could not, leading to our guide pals to grace the later tent with a rather sorry nickname: the FirstWet.

While it’s true that tents of this stripe are best used in altitudes where any precip you might encounter will be frozen, practice has shown us that folks will use them just about anywhere, and having a proper waterproofing adds a good amount of versatility. Moving on to the structure, the AC 2 erects with an X-patterned arch system of non-stretch Dimension-Polyant fabric, which serves as a strong backbone to suspend the tent on. We found this much easier to set up over the internal pole system of the Firstlight, and was a good bit sturdier. Another point to the AC 2.

Ventilation is the Achilles heel of any bivy-style tent, and while the AC 2 gained an extra peak vent over its predecessor the Direkt 2, it still struggles in high moisture-content conditions to really move air around the tent. The second mesh screen door is a big help here (given it’s not actively raining), but in most other situations, you’d better hope it’s cold enough to frost, or deal with it.

Granted, there are a few areas we’ll concede to the Firstlight, including a slightly larger floorplan (82” x 48” to the 81” x 45” of the AC 2), as well as a good bit cheaper price. The weight of the AC 2 is also approximately 10 ounces more, and for real ounce-counters this might make a real difference when everything on-route is being accounted for.

Finally, while there are hyper-bivy tents that make use of Dyneema and carbon fiber poles, they demand you fork over two grand for the luxury, and we found the price tag on the AC 2 to be at least palatable for your typical expedition climber. When the route is steep, and you’re looking at the prospect of digging in for the night, the Mountain Hardwear AC 2 is the bivy tent to do it in.

One feature that sets apart the freestanding MSR Remote 2 Two-Person Mountaineering Tent ($860) is the lofty overhead space. When we tested this tent on a ski mountaineering mission, we were impressed with the tent’s roomy ceiling.

While organizing gear and changing layers, it was easy to sit upright or move around and get dressed in a flat-footed crouched position without feeling cramped or head-bumping the roof. We also appreciated the large storage area for gear in one of the vestibules, which features additional loops to hang items.

To exit or enter each vestibule, there’s a side door, so half of the space remains shielded from the weather. Each door’s zipper is double-enforced with Velcro, which is a nice touch but tough to maneuver one-handed. We also liked that the fly featured four vents with snow flaps, which provide ventilation and help reduce condensation while keeping out spindrift.

Likewise, the upper portion of each door features a mesh or fully open window for cross-ventilation. The color-coded pole clips made the tent setup quick. The bathtub floor is waterproof and durable. And the rainfly is a 68-denier ripstop polyester fabric treated for waterproofness.

A cursory glance at this tent and the MSR Access 2 might lead you to think that they were fairly similar, but in pretty much every way, the Remote 2 is tougher. Where the Access uses a single forked pole over the canopy of the tent, the Remote uses the more traditional two crossed poles, in addition to the vestibule poles that both tents share.

In addition, the fabrics on the Remote are bulked up across the board, with a 68-denier fly protecting the tent versus the 20D ripstop nylon of the Access. When Mother Nature really comes knocking, we’d reach for the Remote.

We haven’t experienced harsh winds or heavy snowfall in the MSR Remote 2 yet, but the construction is protective, warm, and strong. This tent is both burly and capable of harsh conditions, and we’ll continue to test it to find out the limit.

Another dependable, lightweight, freestanding four-season abode is the Big Agnes Battle Mountain 3 ($900). This construction excels in mountaineering trips and against super-windy conditions, and when we tested the shelter with ascents of both Mt. Baker and Mt. Rainier, as well as during ski touring in Colorado’s Gore Range, it was unflinching in its performance.

The tent itself is supported by a set of four DAC NSL poles (in a similar configuration to the Mountain Hardwear Trango 2) that cross over one another in multiple areas to bolster strength. These attach to the tent body with both twist clips and wide-gated hooks, which makes for easy set-up even when wearing gloves. The fly itself requires one additional pole to set up, but gaining the large 13-square-foot landing area makes it all worth it. In deep snow conditions, we dug down into this area to make a perfect footwell for putting on boots and storing gear.

Similar to the design of the Stone Glacier Skyscraper, the Battle Mountain also makes use of internal guylines that can be cinched down to add further rigidity to the structure, in addition to the Velcro tabs on the underside of the fly that affixes it to the pole structure. These small additions really help shore up the Battle Mountain against harsh winds and snow loads.

At 44 square feet of internal space, the Big Agnes Battle Mountain 3 feels like a true 3-person tent, but two climbers will find it downright palatial, with plenty of space on the interior to store all of their kit. And coming from Big Agnes, we felt that this tent drew a lot on that backpacking and camping legacy to bulk out the livability — something that larger, more mountain-focus brands can glance over. This is an excellent shelter to wait out a storm in.

Read Review: Big Agnes Battle Mountain 3 Tent Review: Passing Alpine Blizzard Tests With Flying Colors

The NEMO Kunai 3-4-Season Backpacking Tent ($699) is a solid freestanding choice for a broad range of conditions from hot, humid environments to rain, high wind, or snowy blasts. Setting up the tent was super quick, and it has a number of features that boost the overall livability.

In a similar vein to the Big Agnes Battle Mountain 3, this is another 4-season tent from a brand with deep roots in backpacking shelters that have taken what they know there and applied it to the rough and tumble Kunai, a shelter that doesn’t shy away from a poor forecast. For summer and fall backpacking trips into the alpine, this build is light, strong, and a top pick. For a long mountaineering expedition, it’s a friendly weight for carrying up a mountain, but wouldn’t be our first pick for a 2-foot dump or hunkering down in an ongoing blizzard.

Laid out in a familiar manner, the Kunai uses a four-pole set up to bolster the ends of the shelter, but stops shy of extending that fourth pole down to the middle of the tent body. This saves a bit of weight, but it does create a slightly less sturdy shelter overall. The Kunai also employs a good bit more mesh in the inner design over other tents, opting for two long windows along the sides of the inner. You can’t actually see out of these apertures (as the fly blocks them), but they are great for optimizing venting in shoulder season scenarios where condensation might rear its head.

Turning to the interior of the shelter, we were impressed with the six passive vents around the fly, and along the walls, there are seven mesh pockets of varying sizes to help organize accessories. The canopy is a 20-denier nylon ripstop fabric and the floor is even tougher, with a 30-denier rating. The single door will be a bit of a drag for the full complement of three climbers, but the vestibule does make a good staging area.

Perfect for extending your hiking seasons (or predictable weather on popular mountaineering routes), the NEMO Kunai 3 is an adaptable shelter that is lighter on the back, but still puts up the good fight.

For more than a decade, the Hilleberg Allak 2 ($1,165) has served mountaineers, paddlers, peak baggers, and backpackers alike. This super-popular tent still ranks high for good reason. The dome structure is freestanding yet strong beneath a load of winter’s fury, due in part to the crossover design of the three tent poles.

A lightweight and well-ventilated build means this tent serves recreationists year-round, even when they need warm-weather comfort. The exterior fabric, Kerlon 1200, is a 30-denier high-tenacity ripstop nylon that’s silicone-coated on each side for extra strength.

The floor is a 70-denier fabric that’s highly puncture- and abrasion-resistant. And the 30-denier interior is durable and water-repellent.