Originally Posted by
mod7rem
There's a lot of things to consider to recommend just one system. Over many years of mountain hunts I've used 3 season (including tarptent), 4 season (sierra and hilleberg), and used floorless with woodstove. When in the mountains you dont just need a place to sleep, you need a shelter. If you're tentbound for multiple days with bad weather, you need a shelter and not just a place that you have to be curled up in a sleeping. I've been in enough crappy situations that I personally wouldn't choose a tarp & bivy setup unless I knew I was going to be in sheltered timber the whole time and a reasonable distance to hike out to safety if things went bad. It'd be hard to ride out a storm in tarp and bivy. On 2016's sheep hunt we were in the worst storm I've ever been in, and even using a 4 season hilleberg we came very close to being in a life and death situation. Tent tore loose in the middle of the storm, this is with big rocks on top of all stakes, one pole bent very bad but luckily didnt break and tear the tent open. There was so much moisture in the air from the driving snow and rain, that it was literally raining in the tent. Everything soaked, we were borderline hypothermic and barely maintaining body temp and use of our fingers. If we'd have lost the tent completely it would have definitely been life threatening. Good thing the storm only lasted 12 hours and the weather changed to just light rain for a few days, giving us a chance to hike down low on the mountain and recover. A tarp and bivy would have become just a bivy very early on in the storm, and a 3 season would not have stood up to the storm.
So my preference is either a light weight 4 season (we have Hilleberg since 2008 ) or floorless with stove, depending on what type of mountain hunt.