It’s an open secret that for years, The North Face has created entire catalogs of gear exclusively for its Korean and Japanese fans. To get their hands on the stuff, outdoorsy types in North America had to either book a plane ticket or enlist a proxy buyer service to pick something up and ship it across the ocean. Recently though, The North Face has started moving these goods our way itself; in January it brought selections from its Purple Label collection to a handful of brick-and-mortar locations in the United States. But the latest item to make the journey across the Pacific isn’t a puffy jacket or a backpack — it’s a geodesic tent that costs $2,000.
The Geodome 4 Tent isn’t unfamiliar — it calls to mind the spherical expedition shelters that you see in photos from far-flung base camps and extravagant window displays. Its construction is based on the design principles of Buckminster Fuller, the very same ideas that led The North Face to make its first geodesic tent in 1975.
The Geodome stands up with six poles in winds blowing as fast as 60 miles per hour, meeting The North Face’s standards for expedition use. That said, the Geodome is more impressive from a design perspective than a backcountry use one; the tent sleeps four people and is tall enough to stand in, plus it has five windows. It’s a futuristic tiny home that looks like it came out of a sci-fi film and weighs nearly 25 pounds, so you likely wouldn’t want to heft it miles into the mountains to your favorite campsite (depending, of course, on how badly you want that perfect Instagram photo).
Gear Patrol also recommends:
Big Agnes Flying Diamond 6 Tent ($490)
Snow Peak Entry Pack TT ($495)
Marmot Orbit Tent ($689)
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