advice for Four Person & Four Season Shelter

You may have better luck with two two-person shelters. Easier to find spots to pitch them, easier to split up to carry, more available options.

We just had this same question last week in a thread about shelters for winter camping.

So this is for camping in the Sierra Nevada in winter below tree line, yes?  How long are your trips?  If they are one, two, or  three night trips where you have a reliable weather forecast of no serious storm appearing, I would recommend a mid because 1) they are light and 2) when properly pitched, they provide more than enough protection from wind and a snow showers in the Sierra Nevada winter.

You can get ones large enough for four people from MLD and Oware USA.  If we get some snow, once you have a sintered up snow platform, you can dig down so folks can walk into the shelter. You can even carve benches for people to sleep on. So you end up with a palace for four. Don’t forget that you can build your snow kitchen right on your front porch.

Any 4-season, 4 person, mountaineering tent will be 1) only big enough for three people and 2) weigh in at over 8 or 10 lbs when it is dry, 3) not really needed below tree line in the Sierra Nevada when you can choose your days in context of forecast weather.

I sure am hoping for snow this winter! Right now we are planning a couple of 2-3 night trips and they will be below tree line. I will take a look at a mid. It sounds like there are no other magic tent options which are light and carry themselves :) Thank you for the advice!

Just to cause a bit of a drift- I am also trying to figure out sleeping arrangements for my 1st and 4th grader. For the 4th grader I was going to double up on the backpacking quilts (2 x 30 degrees) and for the first grader go with a 20 degree sleeping bag and a backpacking quilt (30 degrees) over it. I’ll come up with a way to fasten it all together.

The 1st and 4th grader are going snow camping is this for another trip?

I did a lot of shoulder season car camping with my kids while  they were still in diapers but waited until they were older to take them backpacking.  The small ones get cold if there is too much space inside the bag for them to heat up. So multiple layers might mitigate that effect. Later I learned to make hot water bottles with 1 liter Nalgene bottles.

The Luxe Octopeak is a budget option with 4P inner tent? Seen good reviews for family use.

Though not the same fabric quality of Oware/Seek Outside/MLD etc.

https://www.backpackinglight.co.uk/shelters-3/WG109-WG116.html

Looks like one  is currently unavailable over there?

https://luxe-hiking-gear.com/collections/lightweight-camping-tents/products/octopeak-4p-tent-system?variant=12285708533843

Yes, this would be a shelter for the family. My kids have been lobbying to go camp in the snow for over a year now. The first trip will be only a mile or two in from the trailhead and we will take a bunch of extra clothing. Once we have a sense for how careful they are with their mittens (not very…) and that they are warm enough, we can start paring down our packing list. The goal for the first time is to stay warm and have fun.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone!

@Peter

Be sure to plan snow play but check the kids for frozen snow in their base layers before bedtime.

I took my son snow camping with the Scouts when he was in 5th grade.  The older Scouts built a sledding hill above the camp. Right before dinner my son was body surfing on the sledding hill.  When he showed up, I did a cursory check, brushed him off, etc.  He did not want to change into dry sleeping clothes because it was probably 20 degrees inside the tent at sunset. But about two hours after we went to bed he complained that there was water in his sleeping bag. ::-((  So I helped him change into the dry clothes in the middle of the night but it took a long time for him to warm up and I did not know the hot water bottle trick then.

It took about two years before he wanted to go snow camping again. For that trip, I made sure his two best friends were signed up already, then told him Mark and Alan are going.  In the end he became quite an accomplished snow camper and I had him help me lead trips to Dewey Point in Yosemite.

if you don’t have a place picked out yet, the western shore of Alpine Lake above Bear Valley on SR4 is easy to access.  It is a bit noisy during the day from the snow mobiles but it is down hill all the way to the lake.

My daughter was an 8YO when I took her snow camping/ski touring for the first time, it was hard work but very rewarding.
I too am going to suggest a couple of good strong 2-man tents [ I say 2-man because the average male is bigger than the average female and you need the extra space ] or 3-Person tents plus a strong tarp and use the tarp to enclose extra space between the tents.