It hardly needs explaining why a tent is crucial to survival in a region where strong, bone-chilling winds can emerge or change direction within minutes. Except for the reliability of the construction, there are a few more things to consider when choosing your tent. How fast can you set it up at the end of the day? That is the moment when fatigue sets in and you are extra vulnerable to the cold. Is it roomy enough to allow bulky sleeping bags, storage of snow for melting, making a toilet, and doing the cooking simultaneously?

What about heat balance? Where is the natural energy of the sun going? Is the tent heating up to a more comfortable temperature by using this free source of heat? Is it trapping the heat inside while still venting enough so that when you are cooking everything doesn't become wet, damp, and/or frozen?

The expedition will be testing the roomy, storm-proof Himalayan 47 dome tent from The North Face. It has additional snow flaps to secure it and to reduce cold air streams over the inner tent. The expedition is also testing a new concept whereby the flysheet is extra transparent in the top and solar radiation is absorbed on a black section of the inner tent. This is exactly how polar bears use the sun to their advantage. The hollow hairs in a polar bear's fur transport the solar radiation to the dark skin where the radiation is transformed into heat, well-trapped in the insulating hair mass.