The two obv dome tent contenders (Arc and X) advertise solid inners, but the images show unsealable panels near the top for both. Most of the time this is okay, but when it's super gnarly fine snow dust could cover everything inside. There would be additional heat loss, too. Minimally but still.
Actual full solid inners would add no weight to these otherwise fine offerings, but alas. This is an unfortunate design decision, because a true Scandinavian style dome with all the defenses done right is 600-900g more.
Mids are good choices, but stake points needs to be extra solid, and overnight snow takes some user participation to not shrink the floorspace uncomfortably. I find UL mid inners to be mostly fiddly, saggy and confining - and sourcing a true solid is near impossible.
So for mid use in real winter (year round actually) I skip inners. Then you can dig a footwell by the door and enjoy maximum space. And space is important with all that bulky winter gear and potential inside chores.
My winter tents are a Silvertip mid, an Unna dome, and a Kaitum 2 tunnel
Any good 4-season tent will have no issue holding up to strong winds on exposed beaches. I recommend a sealed 4-season model not just for the stronger poles, but because it will keep blowing sand out of the tent, which can become a huge issue in big storms. I once endured a 20hr, 80km/h+ wind storm on the Nahanni River in my 3 season Mountain Hardwear Aspect 2 tent, and while the poles miraculously didn’t break, the entire inside of my tent was full of sand when it finally let up. Like, a quarter inch of sand everywhere, and I’d been breathing it all night. With every gust the tent would fold down onto my chest, and I’d get peppered with a fistful of sand at my face. It was probably one of the most intense, miserable nights I’ve ever had in the backcountry.
Several of my friends had heavier 4 season tents and slept through most of the ordeal, and had zero sand in their tents.
Something like a Mountain Hardwear Trango, Marmot Thor or Hilleberg style tunnel tent would be your best choice if you’re expecting serious wind. They’re not cheap, but they’ll take whatever you can throw at them.
I own a hilleberg and it’s the most competent of the winter tents I tried out. Very suited to Scotland.
Their red label tents should be acceptable for what you are looking for.
I’d also be mindful of the fact that when camping in woodland l, there can be a lot of beaches ready to come clattering down on your fragile canopy, so make sure you risk asses the area before pitching. Weeks of storm damage can be be forced to fall, by even the lightest wind in our climate.
While I don’t have experience with the specific tents you’re looking at, my advice would be to go with Hilleberg if price isn’t a differentiating factor. I’m sure either would work great for you - beautiful products from both companies.
I have a Slingfun Portal and I absolutely love it, but Hilleberg design is in their own class. I’ve spent probably 40-50 nights in a friend’s Hilleberg, vs. maybe 30 in my newer Slingfin, and the small details of the Hilleberg win the day. Slingfin’s design is top notch and they have great attention to detail, but Hilleberg takes the same care, attention, and no holds barred approach to quality but you know that every detail has been refined through an order of magnitude more cycles of use and abuse in absurd conditions. All the cool details that sound like a great idea on paper but don’t fully pan out in the real world have been weeded out by Hilleberg leaving an absurdly refined design.
A hardware product developer by trade, I can only aspire to that level of design quality.
Hilleberg is solid but damn those prices hurt. If you're not doing serious mountaineering the MSR Hubba series is way more reasonable and still built like a tank
nunatak16
