Somebody somewhere will probably buy the First Ascent Katabatic tent for car camping, but holy windstorm, Batman, that’s not why it’s made. This is a high-alpine tent designed to handle high-alpine conditions — big blows, big snows. It took Peter Whittaker, Ed Viesturs, and the other members of the development team three years and seven prototypes to work out all the bugs before bringing it to market. Even the version that collected hundreds of nights on Mt. Everest wasn’t deemed good enough, and First Ascent went through two more iterations before it passed muster.

First Ascent faced two main challenges (and plenty of small ones). To make extended stays in the tent more livable, the walls are near vertical, which gives more shoulder- and headroom and less claustrophobia. But that puts them more oblique to the wind and “you can pretty much count on constant wind above 20,000 feet,” Whittaker said. The solution was to add a pole for stability and tweak the design of the tent itself.

The second problem was also wind-related: keeping the fly tight. “A poorly fitted flysheet in a 40 mph wind is like trying to sleep inside a garbage bag in a wind tunnel,” said Whittaker. Early versions were loud and blustery. Solution: They closed the gap between fly and tent body.

The final product has a smaller footprint than the competition (TNF and Mountain Hardwear), but still has 49.5 square feet of floor space and a vestibule large enough to cook with ease. It’s double-walled, weighs 10 pounds five ounces, and is built for two people, three in expedition conditions. For more on the R&D process, see the video below.

$599 Available after April 1

Tagged as: expeditions, shelter, tents