The Hilleberg Akto:
A true quality tent for the longterm.
To get things started let me say just this one thing: The hilleberg Akto is the best made solo tent on earth. Quality wise it is simply perfect. This is the kind of tent that will last a life time and then some if treated with care. There are a lot of reviews about this tent stating it’s among other things “bomb proof”, I’m sure it is…
My experience with this tent is mixed; the design is amazing for a solo tent, it’s also one of the roomiest solo tents available. I have used this tent for about 7 different trips for about 20 nights in over a year now. It has held up perfectly in every kind of weather from heavy snow, to rain to bright sunny spring days. It’s easy to pitch and relatively light for the room and durability.
The positives:
Extremely high quality construction and materials, you simply can’t find a better made tent on the market. This tent is relatively light for the construction and size.
There is no other solo tent on the market that even comes close to the size and usability of the vestibule. I’m pretty sure you can fit a horse in it if you needed to. Most solo tents have what they call is a vestibule, but in reality it’s just a small hole that you put your shoes in. The Akto you can put all your gear in and have room over to make food and wait for better weather.
As long as your tent pegs are in properly and your guy lines fastened this tent can withstand most conditions that you could find yourself trapped in. It really is a sturdy beast that is hard to compare with other solo tents.
The negatives:
Do you really need a bomb shelter 99% of the time? This thing weighs 1.77 kg and can withstand a hurricane – but would you want to camp in a hurricane to begin with? You can get excellent protection from tents that weight half the weight and still be extremely comfortable, if not more so – I will explain more later.
Another negative is the setting up of the tent – it requires 6 guys lines and 6 tent pegs – 12 tent pegs altogether and a tent pole. Compare this to something like the six moon designs Skyscape trekker which only requires 5 tent pegs and your trekking poles; EASY. While I don’t think it’s a major hassle, it still seems a bit unnecessary for a solo tent.
While this tent is roomy and cozy, it has one more major drawback, and for me besides the weight this one drawback is actually the reason I sold my Akto in the end. When the tent gets condensation in it, the inner tent gets really heavy, which means that in winter camping you wake up with a wet, damp and cold inner tent glued to your face. This is quite possibly the worst feeling known to man; I’m sure there are a few feelings that are worse.. But not many.
Because this tent is not freestanding, during winter camping this is a major drawback as it’s not always the easiest task on earth to erect a tent that requires 12 pegs in white powder, even after digging down a bit. Also, when it snows heavy this tent will sag even more, even more face raping from the inner tent. (it really is a horrific feeling)
Conclusion:
While the Hilleberg Akto is an incredibly well made solo tent – probably the best tents in the world are all Hilleberg for that matter. The Akto just doesn’t really seem to fit anywhere – it’s a bit much weight wise and setup wise for summer use, and it’s not enough for winter use. (at least not snowy winter conditions; which is actually the funnest time to be out)
With the Hilleberg Akto you get a high quality tent that you pay for in both money and weight; it is probably the only tent that most weekend hikers will ever want or need. But for me it’s just too heavy, too fussy, the face rape thing, and simply not comfortable enough to justify carrying it along.
With that note I do have a few suggestions for hilleberg;
1. Follow the same design and idea as with the Anjan – get the akto to around 1 kilo
2. Tighten up the inner tent so it doesn’t sag so much
If Hilleberg can make these kind of changes to this tent, I will find myself gravitating back without to many doubts.
Ultralight and ultracomfortable rating: 3 of 5
[…] say how it stacks up there, I can say however that no inner tent was sagging on my face. (read my Akto review) and setup though a little tougher is actually pretty easy even in the […]
[…] My site is after all called ultralightandcomfortable.com. My reviews and why I don’t use the Hilleberg akto and Skyscape […]
[…] say how it stacks up there, I can say however that no inner tent was sagging on my face. (read my Akto review) and setup though a little tougher than both the Duomid and Akto is actually pretty easy even in […]
Well, what can I say? I’ve had an Akto since 1994 and haven’t experienced the condensation issues mentioned above. For me, I love the peace of mind in high winds. Yes, your lighter weight tent may well survive the night, but will you sleep through it or spend it worrying? With the Akto you can just stop worrying and go to sleep in confidence. Priceless!
Set up tough? Too fussy? Please! It’s basically a rectangle that need pegging out to the point where you iron out any wrinkles in the ground sheet. If that’s hard, perhaps stick to a child’s ‘Wendy’ tent!
Heavy snow is a different matter, and I’d agree that it’s not the best for that.
Thank you for the comment. While I agree with you that the Akto is a stabil and in all honesty a fairly awesome tent, I can also state without hesitation that the Dumid can easily stand up to to kind of weather the akto can, and even more as I would take the duomid on a winter trip without hesitation.
with that said, I do think the Akto is a great tent, and I think for shorter people it’s probably just fine size wise. For me who is 190cm it’s too small as the inner tent sags on both my feet (hence sleeping bag) and face. This however is fixed with the Hilleberg Enan that in my opinion is a far surperior tent to the akto.
For me what got really figgety was that I had to keep adjusting everything from the tie outs to the inner tent to the distance of the center pole in desperation to keep the innertent off my face. The Enan fixes this issue buy supporting the innertent with center stitch instead of two side stitches.
Also where the Akto needs atleast four pegs and the center pole the Enan can be setup with two. But I get your point, the Akto is a simple tent to setup.
I had a converstation with the people over at Hilleberg a few months ago and they stated that they have fixed a lot of the innertent issues with the older aktos but I haven’t gotten around to checking that out as I am perfectly happy with the Enan, duomid and trailstar alternatives that are lighter, faster and roomier.