kscowboy:
One tent is not going to get it. You need at least two unless you want to carry the weight of a winter tent all summer long.
Most of the time you don't really need a good tent. Say for instance summer backpack fishing trips or early season hunting trips, the worst you can expect is some rain and/or cool temps. In that situation anything will do. I've tried a bunch of different tents and the one I'm currently using is a Big Agnes Copper Spur UL-1, which weighs 2#. It's an oversized one-man tent with a vestibule. If you have to have the extra room of a two-man tent then I would go with the Big Agnes Copper Spur UL-2, which weighs 2 1/2#. I use an REI Quarter Dome T-2 when I take the grandson or the dog. It has two doors and two vestibules and weighs less than 4#
It gets more complicated when you actually need a tent. Some people are going to recommend a single wall teepee with a stove. They work great in the summer when conditions aren't that critical. When it doesn't really matter what tent you have. But when you have to scrape away the snow down to the frozen ground, and setup your tent on that, they suck. Specially when the stove gets going because the ground thaws and you get to sleep in the mud. While you are sleeping, the stove will go out and moisture will condense on the inside of the single-wall and moisture will drip down and get you sleeping bag wet if it hasn't already gotten wet from the snow. Try collecting firewood when everything is covered in a foot of snow. Yeah you can do it, but that sucks too.
For late season elk hunting, sheep hunting, AK caribou hunt, winter camping, you need a 4-season, double-wall tent, with a full-coverage fly, a floor and a vestibule that will stand up to high winds and heavy snow loads. The best on the market are made by Hilleberg. Yeah bite the bullet and pay the price. The Hilleberg Jannu and the Hilleberg Kaitum are bombproof tents and are about as light as you find for a 4-season tent.
KC
