Originally Posted by
Doug64
If you look at pictures of Denali and Everest Base Camps you are hard pressed to find a non-free standing tent. There is probably a good reason for this, and it has nothing to do with marketing hype or being too lazy to learn how to set up another type of tent. The mountaineering community tends to use what works. Sometimes an inadequate tent is more than an inconvenience.
I'm not to sure that's the case. There look to be a lot of geodesic dome tents, but also a lot of tunnel tents and more than a few pyramids. There are even a few A-frames, but those look to be permanent structures. A lot of mountaineering tents are designed to be put up on narrow ledges, and freestanding tents do have a smaller footprint.