The Basics: Part 1

Generally speaking, tents are classified by two criteria:

1. Size.
2. Seasons

Size is pretty straight forward, a "1 man" tent is designed to sleep one man, or woman. As far as tents are concerned these vastly different types of individuals are completely interchangeable. It's weird. 

Seasons are a bit more complex yet still easily understood by virtually any mammal that walks upright. A "1 Season" tent is good for 1 season, can you guess which one?  (If you said 'fall' or 'spring' you're hopeless.) Right, summer. You may be thinking it right now, and if you are, I'm glad to hear it, the "2 season" tent, doesn't really exist, due to spring and fall being the only two synonymous seasons.  

So, to review, a 1 season tent is for summer, a 3 season for spring through fall, and a 4 season is for everything, though often a bit much in seasons aside from winter.  Probably the most iconic tent to the average man is a 4 season tent; the North Face VE 25.

The VE 25: a 3 man, 4 season tent

It's that yellow dome thing that people sleep in before sacrificing all of their personal belongings, their family's well being, and their self respect to die on a mountain no one was ever meant to climb (If they were God would have put a hot spring at the top or a "Starbucks Everest" location at the least).

Kyle's tent is a Big Agnes Elkhorn 2, a 2 man 3 season. Heavy on the mesh, light on the weight, and fits perfectly on top of a queen size mattress (in case you hiked that in). Mine on the other hand is the 3 man, 3 season EMS Thunderlodge. Premiered in the early 90s I think I've used this tent twice prior to this last month and one of the times was in my bedroom.  Kyle, with a mild online shopping addiction, acquired his tent off of www.whiskeymilitia.com for no better reason than that it was on www.whiskeymilitia.com (this phenomenon recently repeated itself, to be discussed later...).

You will note, as it is noteable, that neither of us is sleeping in a 4 season. There isn't some sort of strategy to this, it's just a consequence of failing scouts and being short on basic reasoning.  However, we have engineered basic adaptive techniques to deal with the environment that is Utah in the winter. Look forward to that in Part 2.