Hilleberg Kaitum 2GT

Having been spoilt by the spacious interior of our old tent, the MSR Hubba Hubba HP, we found it a real challenge to find a suitable replacement. Everything we tried felt cramped, with sloped walls and headroom limited to just one ‘sweet spot’.  We also really wanted to keep the two-door set-up but also wanted to have bigger vestibules and better ventilation.  Oh, and we wanted all this to come in at under 3.5kg if possible.

We looked at a number of tents, but in the end it came down to a toss-up between another Hubba Hubba with the addition of a Gear Shed extension or the Hilleberg Kaitum 2GT.  We were also rather intrigued by the design of the more budget-friendly Wild Country Aspect 2.5, which met our criteria for good headroom and two entrances, but we weren’t sure if the vestibule space would be adequate and were unable to view one in the flesh.

In the end we chose the Kaitum as it combines two enormous vestibules with an airy interior that has good headroom throughout, and it seems to be very well-made and will hopefully be a little more durable than the Hubba Hubba.  We also like the way the Kaitum’s extended vestibule can be rolled up to give an awning-style cover to protect the inner tent from rain whilst retaining good ventilation through the two full-mesh doors.  When the doors are all closed up, ventilation is still available through two high-level openings that are protected from rain and snow by large hoods, so hopefully this will mean the tent is less stuffy than the Hubba Hubba in the rain.  It’s heavier than the Hubba Hubba, and has a larger pack size, but we think it’s a price worth paying for the extra vestibule space, and other features.

We’ll write a proper review when we’ve used it out in the big wide world.  Our biggest concern is that at over 5 metres long we may find it challenging to find places to pitch it.

Review after six weeks

Conditions of use:
We’ve been using the Kaitum 2GT every night for six weeks now (7 May to 19 June in Holland, Germany, Poland and Lithuania).  The weather has been mixed with everything from torrential rain, thunderstorms and hail to some very nice days with temperatures up into the high 20s (Celsius).  We have moved camp most nights, but there have been two or three occasions where we’ve remained in one place for 2-4 days, and at the time of writing we’ve been at the same site for 5 days now waiting for Keith’s bursitis to subside.  We have usually been able to pitch the tent in the shade, so it hasn’t had much UV exposure yet, but the current site has few trees so we’ve rigged the tarp that usually covers the bike over the tent to provide additional cover against the midday sun.  We’ve got the main body of the tent fairly well covered but cannot shield both vestibule areas.

So has it lived up to expectations?

For the most part, yes.

The cavernous interior certainly holds all our gear and still gives us plenty of room to relax in, and most importantly, to cook in when there’s bad weather (of which we’ve had plenty).    This was the main thing we wanted from the tent and we’ve been very pleased in that regard.  The inner tent is just as good for headroom as our old Hubba Hubba, and is also slightly longer and wider, which is nice for arranging your personal items.

Organised storage in the tent is good.  The tent has four pockets, one at each corner of the inner and these are nice and deep – big enough to poke a map into – and the washing line is great for drying the tea-towel and flannels overnight, and will hold quite a few clothes if the weather turns inclement unexpectedly.

The two doors are particularly useful as the tent is so damn long it’s often easier to nip round the outside and access something at the far end from the other door rather than try to scramble through the tent; but for general ingress and egress we only use the larger vestibule as this is where our shoes are kept.

It’s quick and easy to pitch and it’s a nice touch that the poles slide in from one side only into a closed pocket so when only one of you is pitching it you don’t have to run back and forth around the tent seating poles into grommets on both sides.

Whilst it can be erected with just 4 pegs, we usually use 10 of the 22 available: the 4 corner bases, the 2 guys on the vent hoods, and the 4 guys on the end poles.  If it’s noticeably windy we will add the 4 guys on the middle poles.  On one occasion, when it was blowing an absolute hooley, we also used the 8 remaining pegs to secure the base of each pole.  We’ve had no concerns about it blowing away, and so far, luckily, had no problems with stony or sandy ground.

So far our fears of it being difficult to find places to pitch in the wild (on account of its 5m+ length) have been unfounded…but in saying that it should be borne in mind that the terrain we’ve been travelling in has been particularly easy to camp in, with lots of flat woodland, so the size of the tent, which is obviously one of its biggest attractions, may yet prove to be a frustration too.

Despite it being a much larger tent than our old one, with careful packing we can fit it into our old Hubba Hubba’s bag, which is great as it doesn’t take up as much room in our trailer as we’d initially expected.

We haven’t had any really hot nights yet so can’t comment on the adequacy of the ventilation in those conditions, but on warm days (high 20s but pitched in a shady locale) it’s remained comfortable inside.  The full mesh doors which can be covered with a zipped panel are great for moderating the temperature and we regularly sit in the tent, looking out at the mosquitoes whilst eating dinner, and then zip the panels up to keep some warmth in as the night draws in and the temperature falls.

There are a few minor niggles, which we don’t want to dwell on too much as they mostly arise as a result of otherwise excellent features and we think they’re a small price to pay, but for the record in case any of these are important to you:

Features we like	Niggles
The tent can be pitched outer-first or all in one, including the footprint – this is great for speedy pitching and de-pitching.	Despite a vigorous shaking, if you’re packing the fly and inner away all as one, any insects trapped between get squished into the fabric. After just a couple of uses the ceiling of our inner had a number of blotches on it and we feared it would soon resemble a Rorschach test. Thankfully the fabric seems to be quite dirt resistant and the blots don’t seem to have got much worse after those first few days.Due to the inner being hung on elastic from the fly, the inner-tent zips need to be used with care and two hands are often required to ease them round corners against the stretch and tug of the fabric.We can’t shake out the inner as easily we could with our ‘inner first’ free-standing tent, where a quick shake-out was part of our tent-dismantling routine. To keep the Kaitum inner free of the inevitable debris that gathers in it we have to either unhook it all and turn it inside out, or wipe it out regularly with a cloth.
A wide rubber flap stops rain and dirt being blown into the zip.	It can be fiddly to get your fingers in to open the zip.

Has anything really disappointed us?

The one thing that’s really been a let-down has been the amount of condensation. We had hoped that the large vents, placed high on the wall and covered with a large hood so that they can remain fully open even in torrential rain, plus our use of the footprint to reduce moisture coming up from the ground, would mitigate against this; but on cold, wet nights it can be absolutely dreadful.

The first few nights we used the tent it rained heavily and each morning, as we awoke to continuing rain, we found that everything in the vestibule was decidedly damp. The footprint was covered in small pools of water and if you held out your hand you could feel a fine mist in the air inside the vestibule.

For a couple of days we thought we’d been sold a duff tent and that the flysheet wasn’t even waterproof, but then early one evening a few days later, as we sheltered from a sudden downpour, we realised to our relief, that the fly is in fact extremely waterproof. We could even press our hand against the fly and still nothing would come through: really impressive. We realised then that our problem was one of condensation: the overnight rain forms cold spots that attract condensation on the inside of the fly and the ongoing rain bounces the condensation off the inside of the fly and onto our gear. On cold, wet nights we now unzip the doors a little at the top to add further venting (obviously not much or rain would get in), and even on the coldest of nights we leave the zip-up vent panels completely open (even though this means that Tamar sleeps in her clothes and with her down jacket wrapped around her feet in the bottom of the sleeping bag to keep warm). I guess we’ll just have to keep experimenting to see if we can improve matters.

We should point out that the Hilleberg user manual does state that the fly is not breathable, so perhaps this state of affairs shouldn’t have been so much of a surprise to us.

One positive thing we noted during our investigation of the dampness, was that at least the gap between the inner tent and fly is easily wide enough to keep the two apart and we never had any problem with a damp fly sticking to the inner, something we experienced with our old Hubba Hubba, especially after a few months of use.

One minor disappointment is the impracticality in reality of a feature that initially was a big attraction for us: the roll-away vestibules. The small one rolls aside completely and the large one rolls aside at the end to leave an awning that we’d envisaged sitting under on rainy evenings with the stove outside. We’ve done doing this on two or three occasions, but the reality is that if it’s raining you don’t want to go out, un-peg the two corners and the vent-hood guy, relocate your kit inside the vestibule to enable you to detach and roll back the footprint, unhook the tensioning strap, and, finally, roll aside the flysheet…and then reverse the process to secure it all again before retiring to bed. Even in better weather and at a campsite for an extended period, it still doesn’t seem worth the bother because it leaves all our kit on display and we then feel loathe to leave the tent even on short trips to the kitchen or toilets. Maybe we’ll find circumstances to use this feature in the future, but for the moment it seems like a nice idea in theory which we haven’t found useful in the real world.

Another minor disappointment is the appearance of a few small holes. There are two in the inner tent, one in the roof and one on the side a few centimetres above the seam with the groundsheet. To our knowledge we have not poked anything sharp into the tent and have no idea what caused the holes. There is also a small hole in the groundsheet that looks more like it’s been burnt than pierced. We check the ground for thorns, sticks, stones and other sharp items, and have never had anything inside the tent that could have burnt it so we’ve got absolutely no idea what caused it. All tents suffer from wear and tear, and lightweight tents are not as durable as their heavier counterparts; we understand and accept that….but when you take good care of something it’s vexing to find damage that you can’t explain. This tent is very expensive so we really want it to last a long time.

The verdict after six weeks?

On the whole this is a really nice, spacious, and for its size, an impressively lightweight tent. It has a host of well-executed features that make it a pleasure to live in under most conditions we’ve experienced to date – unless it’s cold and wet at which point the condensation is a major pain in the ass. We’re also slightly uneasy about the durability given the few holes we’ve acquired. Only time will tell on that though.

Of course we’d be complaining even more bitterly if the tent wasn’t waterproof – but surely there must be a tent out there that’s waterproof AND breathable? Or are we just futilely seeking the holy grail of tents?

Wear and tear update after 56 nights

We noticed a worn patch caused by the clip that holds the larger vestibule door open…