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Old 11-05-2022, 11:34 AM   #5
Bill
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Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: The mountains of Scottsdale, AZ, and the beaches of Maine
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I'm not going to pick a high-wind tent for you, but I will make a few suggestions for how to find and evaluate a tent. First, it might be a good idea to get away from mass-market outlets like Amazon and Cabela's. Do your Google search on terms like "mountaineering tents", since mountaineering routinely involves high winds in unprotected locations. My quick search brought up a number of sites like this one:
https://www.theadventurejunkies.com/...ineering-tent/
You might also check into real outdoor stores and brands like REI and NorthFace.

Other thoughts? The dome is the best shape to resist wind, since the wind doesn't have anything to "grip", and slides over the dome. Anything that interrupts the dome shape will tend to catch the wind and make trouble. I look at "vestibules" as high on the list of wind-catchers. I'm also suspicious of pull-over flies - basically a tarp that you pull over the outside of the tent and fasten down kind of loosely. If it begins to flap, it can wreak havoc on the actual tent beneath.

A tent for high winds must be securely fastened to the ground, of course, with a number of stakes. More is better. And in my thinking, there ought to be a sewn-in floor, rather than a separate floor, so that the weight of anything inside helps anchor the tent.

A tent for high winds needs a very sturdy frame. This means that it may not be the easiest or fastest to set up, or the lightest to carry. If the frame is external, there must be a lot of attachment points to tie the tent fabric to the frame. An inside frame must have a way to tie the tent fabric to the frame - pockets seem like a good choice - so that the fabric doesn't start to flap. Again, flapping fabric is your enemy.

You get the idea. There is no "best tent". You have some tradeoffs to make, such as the number of people you expect to sleep in it, how high a wind speed you expect to encounter, any setup restrictions (like setup time, expected soil type for driving stakes, and bundled size and weight), and of course how much you are willing to pay.

Interesting challenge. Good luck.

Bill
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