Latest news with #Hilleberg
WIRED
3 days ago
- WIRED
The Best Backpacking Tents for Getting Away From It All
WIRED TIRED Built like a tank, yet light Nothing Excellent performance in adverse conditions Full-length rainfly Good ventilation for a four-season tent Simple and fast to pitch The Hilleberg Akto (10/10, WIRED Recommends) is my favorite tent—in 10 years of testing products, it's the only thing I've ever given a 10/10 rating. Made of Hilleberg's Kerlon 1200 fabric (a silnylon) it has stood up to rain, snow, high winds, and everything else I've encountered. It's a weather-proof fortress. It's not the roomiest one-person tent, especially the peak height, which is low, but that low wind profile is part of what makes it so storm-worthy. The Akto has a peak height of 36 inches. I am 5'11', and sitting on a Nemo Tensor Trail air mattress (about 3 inches thick), I am just able to sit up in the Akto without pressing my head into the roof. The Akto's single-hoop design is different than most tents you've probably used. It's not freestanding. The design consists of a single curved pole in the middle of the tent. The ends are then pulled out from that center and staked down, creating a very strong structure, with six points pulling off a single central pole. The Akto pitches as a single unit, tent and rainfly attached (you can separate them, though, if you want). The rainfly is the main structural element of the tent. The pole passes through the rainfly and the guylines all attach to it as well. The inner tent hangs from the rainfly by clips and gets all it's structure and support from the rainfly. The floor plan is a slightly five-sided rectangle. The back wall points out a few inches in the middle where the pole is, which gives you a bit of extra space along that side to stash some gear. Lengthwise, I had plenty of room, and neither my pillow nor the foot of my sleeping bag touched the tent walls. The vestibule is roomy too, and it can be unzipped from top or bottom to help with ventilation. I have had no more issues with condensation than in any other tent, thanks to the multiple ways to ventilate the Akto. As much as I love this tent, especially for where I live in northern Wisconsin, it might be overkill for some. Hilleberg also make the Enan, which is very similar, but lighter, and worth considering if you don't need the four-season robustness of the Akto. Specs Use 4-season Weight 3 lbs. 10 oz. Capacity 1-person Peak Height 36 in. Interior Space 18.3 sq. feet Vestibule Space 8.6 sq. feet WIRED TIRED Short poles for bikepacking Thin, somewhat delicate Lightweight and freestanding You want the footprint ($80) Large twin doors Good interior space for the weight The Big Agnes Copper Spur bikepacking tent is very nearly a clone of our top pick—lightweight, easy-setup, steep sidewalls, good living space for the weight—but the poles are shorter, making then easier to fit between drop handlebars, in panniers, or other spots on your bike. You get the same twin vestibules and doors, but there are a few other bike-friendly features, like helmet storage, and external webbing for hanging out wet clothes. And yes the awnings do still need poles, which is sort of nonsensical for a bike-specific tent, but that's about my only complaint here. As with the regular Copper Spur, I would size up for longer journeys. For example, the two-person is fine for shorter trips without a ton a gear, but if you're doing the Baja Divide I'd go with the three-person model for two, the two-person model for solo trips. Specs Use 3-season Weight 5 lbs 14 oz (2-person) Capacity 2-, 3-person Peak Height 40 in. Interior Space 31.8 sq. feet Vestibule Space 9.17 sq. feet (2)
WIRED
27-05-2025
- General
- WIRED
Six Moon Designs Lunar Solo Tent Review: An Ultralight Summer Shelter
Finding the right tent for a backpacking trip is always tricky. You have to balance packed size and weight against livability and how well it stands up to wind and rain. I've always erred on the side of a sturdy tent over any weight concerns, which is why I love the Hilleberg Akto, but I don't always need the Akto. There is a short season in my neck of the woods called summer, when storms are less likely, and the temps don't drop much below the 60s. This is when I've been using the Lunar Solo, Six Moon Design's flagship ultralight 1-person tent. After several late and early summer trips around the north woods of Wisconsin and Michigan, it's proved itself a capable shelter. It weighs just two pounds, packs down quite small, and checks a whole lot of other boxes on my tent wishlist. Plenty of Space Photograph: Scott Gilbertson There is no one tent to rule them all and trying to find one is a mistake. You're better off with two tents, knowing the limitations of each and using each when it's the best for the job. Which is to say, I love the Akto, but I also think Six Moon Design's Lunar Solo is excellent for summer trips when you prize traveling light over withstanding intense storms. That's not to say the Lunar Solo won't keep you dry. It will. The silicone nylon, or silnylon, is plenty waterproof, though you'll either need to seam seal it yourself with some Seam Grip, or have the Six Moon Designs do it for you before they ship it, which costs $35. My testing tent arrived seam sealed, but being old enough to remember when you had to seam seal just about every tent, I've done it enough times to say it's not hard should you choose to DIY it. The Lunar Solo is single wall, single pole tent intended to be pitched with a trekking pole. This makes for a very small and light tent, but also has two potential drawbacks: structural integrity and condensation. More on those in a moment. Once pitched, the Lunar Solo offers 26 square feet of living space, a peak height of 49 inches, and the vestibule offers 8.5 square feet of additional gear storage. Overall I found the Lunar Solo to be plenty spacious for one person with gear. The rear wall expands out slightly, giving you a place to stash frequently needed items without pushing them up against the tent wall. The 20D silnylon and mesh walls feel as durable as anything you'll find at this weight, unless you want to go with a Cuben Fiber/Dyneema tent, but to my mind the high price of Cuben puts it in a different category. The floor of the Lunar Solo is a more robust 40-denier (40D), and has a bathtub shape to help ensure water doesn't get in. The rear of the Lunar Solo has a 6-inch mesh portion between the floor and the main wall that helps with ventilation. Any single pole tent is going to struggle in wind, no matter how many guyline points it offers. I did find the Lunar Solo compressed a good deal when I pitched it in high winds on the exposed shores of Lake Superior. It was admittedly not a great campsite from a seeking shelter point of view, not one I would pick if I wasn't testing the wind resistance of a tent. But it did convince me that the Lunar Solo needs either a trekking pole or a heavier tent pole than the ultralight pole Six Moon Design provided (I did a good portion of my testing while bikepacking so I didn't have trekking poles).
WIRED
08-02-2025
- WIRED
The Hilleberg Akto Is the Best Solo Tent You Can Buy
Hilleberg, a small, unassuming Swedish company, has been quietly churning out some of the sturdiest, toughest, most wind- and weather- resistant, best-made backcountry shelters you can buy for decades. The Akto was first released in 1995 and has seen only one design change in all those years. This is why Hilleberg has something of a cult following. Hilleberg tents are also very expensive, which has always left me wondering, 'Are they worth it?' To find out, I had Hilleberg send me its iconic four-season, one-person, hoop-style tent—the Akto. With a retail price of $740 (though you can find it for less on sale), it's not cheap, but after using it for nearly two weeks this fall and into winter, I think it's absolutely worth the money. The Akto is the best tent I've ever used by a very wide margin. It's not perfect, but it's the best solo tent you can buy, and I'm pretty sure it's the only thing made of nylon that might have a shot at making our Buy It For Life guide. Think Different Photograph: Scott Gilbertson The Akto was a groundbreaking tent when it arrived on the scene in 1995. (For reference, the name means 'alone' in the language of the Sami, the indigenous people of northern Scandinavia.) Back then, almost no one was making four-season one-person tents, no one was using silicone nylon—now the standard fabric for lightweight tents—and no one was making hoop tents. Fast-forward to today, and while a significant portion of the outdoor industry now makes such things (e.g., Tarptent's Scarpa 1), the Akto remains more or less the same tent. When something works, don't mess with it. (Although technically, Hilleberg did add the little vent hood over the fly door at some point, and I'm glad they did. It might be my favorite feature.) Enough history, let's get into the tent. Unless you've been using cottage industry ultralight tents, it's probably very different than most backpacking tents you've used. There are two things that set Hilleberg's Akto apart. The first is the hoop-style design. The other thing that makes this tent different is the fabric, which is tougher and lighter (albeit maybe not ultralight) than most other tents I've tested. More on that below. The Akto is not freestanding. The design consists of a single curved pole in the middle of the tent, like the hoop of a covered wagon. The ends are then staked out from that curved center pole, with two stakes at each end. There are some advantages to a freestanding design, like being able to easily move the tent after it's set up. But after spending time with the Akto and other non-freestanding designs, I have found that I'm fine with the trade-offs. Skipping the freestanding design gives you a lighter tent, with a great low-end wind profile, while remaining plenty strong enough should the wind shift in the night. It's also easier to pitch. Photograph: Scott Gilbertson
