Page 9 - The Tent Handbook 2017

Ease of use
No matter how reliable a backcountry shelter is, if it’s complicated or difficult to put up, it plainly falls short. Every Hilleberg tent features linked inner and outer tents, which provide simultaneous pitching of both as well as the inherent simplicity that allows for simple, straightforward set-up, even in bad weather. For our Black and Red Label models, that means being able to pitch the tents easily, even in high winds and blowing snow, in the dark, alone, and while wearing heavy gloves. Our Yellow Label models, similarly, must be as uncomplicated to set up, by one person, at night, in rainy, blustery conditions as they are in calm ones.
Adam Foss and Guide Cole Kramer hunkering down while on Kodiak Island, Alaska in October. Being able to set up your tent in the most challenging weather is essential. Photo: Mark Seacat/Seacat Creative.
Durability
Given its performance range of use, your tent must be able to withstand not only the daily rigors of your trips, but it must also last as long as possible. Our Black Label tents are designed and built to offer the greatest durability. Red Label and Yellow Label models are made to give the best durability possible given their lighter weight materials. At the same time, we are very conservative, so we over-test and understate the specifications of all of our tents.
Our Black Label tents are designed to maximize durability but also to offer full adaptabil- ity and ease of handling in both fine and foul conditions. Leo Houlding encountered 80 km/h (50 mph) winds during a 56-hour blizzard during his 1600 km (1000 mile) crossing of Greenland. Photo: Leo Houlding.
Low weight
Comfort
Comfort in the backcountry is not mere “luxury”; it’s basic “liv- ability.” That’s why all Hilleberg tents are built with bright, spacious interiors and venting solutions that keep air flowing in all weathers. It is also why all our tents have the small details that turn a mere house into a home: well-placed interior gear pockets; clothes lines; and appropriately placed ring and toggle or clip and loop fasteners for open doors or vents.
In the backcountry, your tent is your home, so maximum usable space is essential to true comfort. This is especially important on extended trips, as seen here, near Lake Titicaca, during Jens Blume’s family bike tour through Peru and Bolivia. Photo: Jens Blume (indiatrek.blogspot.de).
Making a reliable, adaptable and easy-to-pitch tent that is heavy doesn’t meet our standards. But neither does creating a tent that is super light at the expense of any of our other criteria. The key to our low weight principle is that we never consider the weight an end in itself, but as the mortar that binds our other criteria together. The development of both our lightweight Kerlon 1200 for Red Label tents and our even lighter Kerlon 1000 for Yellow Label tents produced a number of choices. In both cases, we opted for the ones that best balanced light weight and strength. We could have chosen a lighter fabric, but it simply would not have met our standards. Our ultimate aim is not to make the lightest tents, but, within their performance range, the lightest, strongest, most reliable, dependable, comfortable and durable ones
9