Our Editors’ Favorite Camping Gear

Camping is a mandatory part of climbing. Whether you’re tucked into El Cap Tower or on Denali’s Cassin Ledge, camping enables us to climb at the world-class areas beyond our local zones.

But camping—or bivouacs/bivys in climbing parlance—is a thoughtful and expensive game. A bad night’s sleep can kill your climbing performance the next day, but so will a cripplingly heavy backpack loaded with a cot and thick duvet. That’s why the editors at Climbing follow a three-pronged approach when choosing any piece of camping gear: (1) Is it unnecessarily heavy? (2) Will it keep me warm and dry? (3) Is it worth the price tag?

Depending on your objective, your environment, and how much you prioritize sleep/are willing to suffer, one of these three prongs will hold more weight than the others. But we’d encourage you to strike a balance as much as you can: a heavy pack sucks, but so does a bad night’s sleep.

Below, find our editors’ favorite camping gear when we’re climbing far from the road.

Meet Our Lead Tester

Anthony Walsh

Anthony is a digital editor at Climbing and avoids sleeping in his bed as much as he can. Based in the Canadian Rockies, Anthony is within firing distance of many serious ranges for his smash-n-grab weekend missions, including the Bugaboos, Rogers Pass, and the Icefields Parkway. He logged many nights bivied below routes for this article, in temps as low as -40.

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