Most winter tents are designed to weather the elements, but they can still collapse after a huge storm. Take the following precautions to keep your tent standing.

1. Use a winter tent (also called a four-season tent) if you know that you'll be camping in snow. Winter tents are structurally designed to shed snow and to withstand high winds and the weight of snow.

2. Avoid pitching your tent beneath trees. These may collect snow in a storm and then dump it on your tent.

3. Use snow stakes (these are thicker, flatter and stronger than three-season tent stakes) and pound them in securely. If you don't have snow stakes, use ski poles, trekking poles or ice axes as stakes in the snow.

4. Shake the fabric of the tent gently from the inside if snow begins to accumulate on the roof of the tent.

5. Use a snow shovel to shovel snow away from the door of the tent, to keep snow from accumulating around the tent, and to brush snow off of the roof from the outside if shaking the tent from the inside is inadequate.