Hilleberg Akto versus Tarptent Scarp

[Ent]

Contents deleted by poster

[Nuts]

Good review, do you use an thick inflatable mattress Brett? With a neoair, at around 180cm, I find the akto a bit small in the ends, annoyingly so really... If they added 10cm in the end wall (and overall) height, perhaps give better support to the ceiling fabiric (and put that open door 'keeper' in the right place) i'd agree, the perfect one person tent when lightweight is the goal. I'd say at 170 odd cm or less it wouldnt be a drama but personally prefer the nallo design with max headroom over yer head to either of these (though heavier).

(Just to add that my knees could be better and I could be a bit more 'agile' 10 kilos lighter...)

[corvus]

My Scarp 1 (on its first trip) was the comparison with Brett's Akto and in the conditions we experienced (enclosed river valley at - 4c midnight to around 3+c at 8:30 am) and no breeze ,condensation was to be expected and it performed admirably with no penetration/drips in the inner .
Foot prints are a personal choice and I have always used them ,keep the tent bottom poo clear ,augment the prickle prevention you miss ,help water permeability and increase thermal retention,all this from a bit of Tyvek fabric that weighs for this tent 139 gm
Internal size is a blessing for those of us claustrophobics as the end poles /supports really do the job and give you the feeling of space ,the outer and inner materials also give a luminosity to the inside making it more user friendly, with reservations I like this Tent and will report back on our next walk on which we expect snow.
corvus

[Ent]

Contents deleted by poster

[nickL]

hi corvus

what does the scarp with the two crossing poles weigh

would you need them if it didnt snow and was just raining heavily

cheers, nick

[Franco]

Hi Brett
Thanks for your comments.
Clearly people have different priorities and "wants".
I am only 170 cm tall and I find several tents that 180cm guys tell me are OK far too small for me.

Stuff sacks and groundsheets are not exactly my focus, however for a few dollars and not much weight there are an easy addition.

Tarptents are bought mostly by people that focus on weight reduction . These are the people that strip other tents of all the "unnecessary" bits , replacing pegs and
guylines to get a lighter weight.
There are several that have done that with the Akto too, most eventually get a TN or now a TT. (from British forums comments)
Of course the other way is true also. Some have switched from the Akto to the Soulo (smaller than the Akto,BTW) to get a more solid winter shelter.
In the end , it is good to have a choice.

But...I am a bit confused now. Looking at those pictures I am not sure which one is the Ford Cortina...(panels comment)

Franco
franco at tarptent dot com

[Ent]

Contents deleted by poster

[sthughes]

I checked them both out and I agree an Akto with the height of the Scarp would be a goer. But dollar for dollar it's hard to go past the Scarp. Still neither are perfect and a hybrid of the two would be a lethal combination.
- Scarp height
- Akto Materials
- Scarp dual vestibules
- Akto ground sheet
- Scarp peak vents
- Akto 2 way vestibule zip
- Scarp crossing poles
- Akto quality/finish
- Scarp Price!

Now I'd buy one of them!

[Franco]

A couple of recent threads on stake bags at BPL :
http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin ... d_id=19230
http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin ... d_id=32307

All silnylon tents will "relax" (inc Hilleberg...) once they get cold and or wet. So you need to pull the tie in points again.

BTW, the Scarp looks like in the excellent Corvus set up also without the crossing poles. They are really only needed for "freestanding" or snow loads.

sthughes
"Now I'd buy one of them!"

Me too...
At Outdoor Magic (British forums) there have been endless debates about the Akto vs Terra Nova (Laser/Laser Competition) . Now they have the Scarp and the Vaude Power Lizard as well.


Franco

[Jellybean]

As for the "missing" bits, yes a gear freak is forever tinkering with things but missing such things in my opinion is an oversight. I have a MD Kaon that uses a silicon tent peg bag and I found on a trip a peg had gone through that and luckily through the tent bag when instead it could have gone through the fly. I would expect that the user of a Scarp would eventually be looking for a stronger peg bag and be tracking down a bag to hold the poles especially if using the cross over ones.

Hmmm. I have to agree with Franco's earlier comment (from memory) about those adopting the UL or LW approach being less concerned about peg bags, etc. A little while back - out of anal curiosity - I weighed all the individual items that I might take on various walking trips. (I figured if I was going to cut down on the loads I was carrying, I had to know where the weight was!). I was stunned when I found out how much the various stuff sacks for various items added up to - individually they were a few grams here and there - together, many grams!! Since then, apart from doing the obvious things like investing in a lighter pack, tent, sleeping bag, mat, groundsheet, rain wear, insulation clothing, I've also stopped taking most of the stuff sacks. For example, my Neo just has an elastic band around it, my sleeping bag and down jacket just go in a waterproof Event compression sack....... and my tent pegs just have an elastic band around them and are stored in my cooking pot (where they will never pierce anything!). I'm a gear freak too but I don't feel the need to have bullet proof stuff sacks for everything! I am also greatly enjoying my lighter loads!!

Cheers,

JB

(I do always use two sil nylon dry bags - one for clothing, the other for food -and add a sil nylon liner if heavy rain or a river crossing is anticipated).

P.S. Thanks for the review of the Scarp 1 vs Atko - I am very interested in the Scarp 1. Corvus what were your "reservations" about the Scarp?

[corvus]

hi corvus

what does the scarp with the two crossing poles weigh

would you need them if it didnt snow and was just raining heavily

cheers, nick

G'day nick,
Crossing poles weigh 345gm and you dont need them for anything other than Snow of if you want to have a freestanding tent to use on platforms.
corvus.

(only used the crossing poles to let the others see them in use0

[corvus]

JB wrote ""Corvus what were your "reservations" about the Scarp? ""

G'day JB,
My "reservation" is that we sometimes need to camp in very scrubby places and with the light weight nature of the Sinylon much greater care will be needed when selecting a tent site.
corvus

[Ent]

Contents deleted by poster

[Franco]

Good point about the American vs European background with one notable exception, I'll get to that later.
Bo Hilleberg designed his own tents to work for him in his playground, that is Sweden.
So the priority was to have shelters tha can take a lot of wind and snow over prolonged time.
The Akto is the "lightweight" version of them.

Henry Shires was a through hiker (and still an active hiker) that started to commercially make shelters for fellow long distance hikers. The focus was weight,size and small footprint .
He "simply " combined a net and a tarp, a previously already somewhat popular option.
From the single Virga came the double Squall, then the Cloudburst and eventually the hybrid Double Rainbow (having two mesh walls instead of one entry point like the others)
Eventually, in 2005, I bought the Rainbow and started fiddling with it and corresponding extensively with Henry. . At some point ( I used to do this when I needed a break at work) I started to ask about a possible convertible/ 4 season shelter.
Henry was not interested but we played with the idea.
This went on for a couple of years or so adding and taking features away. What if ????
Sometime at the end of 2006 Henry planned with a mate a trip across Iceland so he had to design a shelter for that. The trip was later cancelled but that is how the Scarp (codenamed "Iceland") came about that (northern ) winter..
(kind of funny now that he is in Scotland and could be stuck there if the volcano in Iceland blows its top again)
So the Scarp features ( double entry, top vents, V corner struts,choice of inner, differential panels*) are all the results of many "what if ? " discussions .
In other words it was designed by Henry for Henry but including features that many wanted in similar shelters.
For example it is about a foot longer than either Henry or myself need...
The struts come from observing how single hoop tents sag under moderate snow loading.
Typically American, cooking inside the tent is not high on the list (bears,cougars and other critters about) , however if having a top opening and those two vents are not enough you can get a zip adaptor that locks in at any
point and can go either way. As it is you can secure the bottom of the door and have a gap going up. If you get side rain you can use the other side.
* BTW , those 3 panels each side of the hoop come from observing that once silnylon gets wet you cannot get a wrinkle free (or close enough) set up out of one panel only.
The only reason that you can get that when dry it is because the fabric is pulled unevenly . That is the same with most of the other hoop designs.

Not American at all, is the integral or fly first pitch. Virtually all of the American shelters pitch inner first (that is what American call a "tent") and the fly goes over that.
This way you end up with "freestanding" shelters that needs up to 13 pegs to stand up correctly . The "tent" is freestanding, not the fly...

Now if you combined the deluxe finish of the Akto and the design features of the Scarp, you would have to add another $200 or so to the price of the Akto (my guess)
By that I mean the two doors, two vents and the three panel design.
Maybe fewer customers at that price ?

Franco

[north-north-west]

I checked them both out and I agree an Akto with the height of the Scarp would be a goer. But dollar for dollar it's hard to go past the Scarp. Still neither are perfect and a hybrid of the two would be a lethal combination.
- Scarp height
- Akto Materials
- Scarp dual vestibules
- Akto ground sheet
- Scarp peak vents
- Akto 2 way vestibule zip
- Scarp crossing poles
- Akto quality/finish
- Scarp Price!

Now I'd buy one of them!

So would most of us.

I currently use a Nallo 2, or my old Salewa (around the same weight but more comfy), and I want a lightweight one-man tent with a bit of room for my next Tassie trip. It's been between the Akto and the Scarp for some time now. And you aren't making my choice any easier, you know.

[corvus]

I checked them both out and I agree an Akto with the height of the Scarp would be a goer. But dollar for dollar it's hard to go past the Scarp. Still neither are perfect and a hybrid of the two would be a lethal combination.
- Scarp height
- Akto Materials
- Scarp dual vestibules
- Akto ground sheet
- Scarp peak vents
- Akto 2 way vestibule zip
- Scarp crossing poles
- Akto quality/finish
- Scarp Price!

Now I'd buy one of them!

So would most of us.



I currently use a Nallo 2, or my old Salewa (around the same weight but more comfy), and I want a lightweight one-man tent with a bit of room for my next Tassie trip. It's been between the Akto and the Scarp for some time now. And you aren't making my choice any easier, you know.

G'day n-n-w,
If you do much snow camping the Scarp 1 with cross over poles will be the one for you as the Akto has that big length of unsupported fabric which requires a constant vigilance to knock the snow off throughout the night as Brett found out .(IMHO a big dump would cause problems if un supervised)
The Scarp is also very bright and airy inside and in heavy condensation I did not get drips through the inner.
Suits me and I suspect it will be my "solo shelter" now.
corvus

[sthughes]

Now if you combined the deluxe finish of the Akto and the design features of the Scarp, you would have to add another $200 or so to the price of the Akto (my guess)
By that I mean the two doors, two vents and the three panel design.
Maybe fewer customers at that price ?

Franco

Yeah I suspected as much, which is sort of why the exclamation mark next to "Scarp price". If only we could have it all for nothing
The more I think about it the more I think:
For almost 25% less you can have a Scarp WITH crossing poles. So to me it really is a no-brainer, I'd buy a Scarp. Although the "fit and finish" of the Akto is better, you would have to be a real quality die hard for it to outweigh all the benifits of a cross poled Scarp, which is not badly put together itself. The Scarp is more stable, able to take more snow, cheaper, roomier, lighter and well doesn't it look better??
Still, Henry & Franco if you are listening; perhaps a double ended fly zip would be a few cents well spent. I like the idea of this for lots of things, not just cooking. Perhaps even make the peg bag from floor material instead of fly (I too have had these fail on other tents). Hell you could make it $4 dearer and call it $299 to cover the costs and make a couple of extra bucks while your at it

[Ent]

Contents deleted by poster

[Franco]

sthughes
oddly after literally hundreds of E Mails I do not recall ever discussing zips with Henry, but I will do that when he finishes his frollicking around Scotland
Officially he is product testing, yeah right.... (Homer : beer is food, right ?)

Perception and reality..
The floor of the TT is exactly the same material as the fly

Again putting pegs into a "stronger" (heavier) bag would just rub 99% of Henry's customers the wrong way.
When GoLite shifted from basic Ray Jardine designs to more mainstream appeal consumer items (IE more emphasis in covering klutz factor than lightweight focused) it got immediately re branded as GoHeavy.
On my TT shelters I add all of the possible guylines, zip pulls, coat all of the stitching's and dot the floors. Therefore they end up heavier .
Others cut off everything they can to save one ounce or so...
(one guy I know even cut off a bit of mesh, probably 15 g, ending up with a too taut door when the nylon shrinks in the heat)

Silnylon does indeed burn very well, it does not drip , just burns away. That has not been a concern to thousands of TT customers but if one is he should look at another product.

The poles under the fly was just me playing with some ideas. Not the TT way of shelter design. Doable but slower and a bit too complex for most.
There is no Scarp 4. The somewhat similar Hogback is a 3 season "family" tent not a convertible/all season shelter.
As for longevity, many have done hundreds of night under one , so that is less than a dollar per night.
There is no right or wrong here, just personal preference .
Have a look at the video on this link :


http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin ... 37.121.187
compare that with the tipical "boy scout-school outing " group here , see if you can spot the difference...
Franco

[sthughes]

Hi Gerry
Also Franco some have claimed that the Scarp fly has the fire rating of the Hindenburg while the Hilleberg fly does have a fire rating but of course would melt if in contact with a wayward cooking set. What is the story re the material given that the USA do not rate tent cooking a great need?

Cheers Brett

Ah yes but the Scarp has an emergency exit!

I would love to see a Scarp in deep wet snow as a matter of interest as well. I were a tad dubious of the cross pole attachment as well, but nylon is good stuff in tension (if not fire ). Destructive testing is always soo much fun though! Anyways in comparing to the Akto you could always leave the crossing poles out and bang off the snow like in the Akto

Here it is in a bit of snow
http://www.hikinginfinland.com/2009/12/video-tarptent-scarp-1-in-snow.html

And in a lot of slow:
http://cache.backpackinglight.com/backpackinglight/user_uploads/1235775939_10609.jpg

[Ent]

Contents deleted by poster

[Franco]

Cooking for me is not a problem because I only boil water and use the self contained Caldera Cone or if I had I could use the Jetboil.
For you , there is the option of partially or fully unclipping the inner. This picture shows you the room inside without it.
You could still leave the corners pegged up and use the floor pushed back to sit on it.
As you can see there is considerable room, it only takes a minute to clip/unclip...
The peg stuff sack is a non event. Really you could keep the one from the Akto and donate the rest to a worthy cause...
The near edge of the pink mat is where the inner would end.



BTW, reading about your predicament with the sweadish tent reminded me of when I worked in one of those Grand Hotels on the Italian Lakes.
The well built swimming instructor there had an even taller (and larger) brother. He had a Fiat 500, light blue. The only way he could see throgh the front window was to
sit all hunched up. So he was usually seen around town with his helmeted head sticking outside the open roof . I wish that I had a video camera then.
Franco
Send me a self adressed envelope and I will send you back a pice of the TT silnylon. See if you can tear that apart.

[corvus]

Hi Franco

Thanks for your usual detailed reply. I be stuffed on the floor being the same as the fly Just goes to show assumption trumps observation As for fire rating that is something that individuals need to consider and evaluate when planning to cook in a tent or else a very cold night even if you exit stage right through the emergency exit Still a downward zip and crossways at the top like the Akto with a storm flap would give that ability. Cooking in the Akto using such a system I found much better than under a tarp in snow at Meston. I noticed at least one other person cooking in the vestibule of their tent that morning. I suppose what I am after is a shelter that can be home on the days that bagging the peak just to look at the inside of clouds is not on. The only other major issue is having a ground sheet cut to cover the vestibules. Sure with a sewing machine and bit of skill you can knock on up but for me this is not possible. In the Akto especially, such a ground sheet means your pack stays so much cleaner if the ground is mud also helps you keep clean when extracting yourself, remember I am over 6'3" so look like a cross between a baby calf getting up and month extracting itself from the cocoon. On a nice grassy meadow like we had on the weekend not such an issue but around more than a few huts the ground is just dirt that turns to mud in rain.

A tarp two with such features would be a killer of a design for multi day walks in hostile weather with the only thing going close being the Hilleberg two man self supporting tent (Allak) but that tips the scales at almost 3 kilograms which is ok for its intented use as kaying tent around the Swedish Islands but not something to lug for a single person. The Scarp two in such a configuration would still be under the magical 2 kilogram mark and provide an excellent level of comfort.

As for the UL adherent's desire not to compromise the principle of saving weight first I would think the Scarp is already a "sell out" and they would use one of the tarp with bug shelters with the Tarptent range and put the weight saved into down for warmth. It is a shame such thought prcess stops a useful aspect given that a fly can be damaged by a wayward peg with at least two people on this thread finding that out already. Actually the Hilleberg fly material is woven in such a way it is designed that if holed not to tear from the hole. How does the material in the Scarp perform with a hole or say triangular cut? I.e. does it tear along the line of weakness in the weave or is the weave pattern similar to the cross hatch of the Hilleberg material so stops the tear in its track?

Cheers Brett

Go on Brett I know you want one and I could most certainly boil water in the vestibule to ensure a meal of sorts.
corvus
p.s. the footprint tyvec I used was big enough to extend to cover one vestibule I elected to fold it under .

[Franco]

Going back to this :
I did not get a chance to see if the Scarp liner stops condensation dripping through


This is the DR liner, same fabric as the Scarp inner. There is 1 liter of water in there, it has been up for two hours, not a drip.
Good enough ?
Update. I left it there like that for 12 hours. Still no drips .
Franco

[sthughes]

Awesome. So the inner material is waterproof as well?

Actually I'm confused, so is the inner breathable/waterproof and the outer just waterproof(er) with a higher static head for example?

That's a fairly impressive achievement in that pic. If you touch it does it come through on your finger?

[Franco]

That's a fairly impressive achievement in that pic. If you touch it does it come through on your finger?

well I did that finger test about two hors ago. Still no drips now.
Reminds me how we all knew that touching a canvass fly will make it drip but we just had to do it anyway...

The fabric is not as waterproof as the silnylon, it would have less waterhead but exactly what I do not know.
The silnylon is rated around 1.3/1.5 meters , so it will hold that much water on top of it. The reason that at times part of individual drops can penetrate and cause misting is speed/pressure (kinetic energy).
The bigger the rain drops the faster they fall.

Here is a funny story (from my point of view....)
One guy plastered all of the US forums with his dissatisfaction about the waterproofness of his Tarptent. He seam sealed that himself and after doing a hose test it left two paddles on the floor.
And he made sure that everyone knew about it...
About three months later he described those lethal paddles as "dime " sized...
Now as a skeptic I look at things from a different point of view than some, so here we go...
1) a dime is smaller than a 5c coin , I am pretty sure that that much water will not kill you
2) get a hose and a bucket . Put some pressure but not much. How long does it take to fill the bucket ?
When was the last time you had 23 cm of rain in 1-3 minutes ?
Of course no one else thought of that and I did not bother since the guy also took the time to say that he had problems folding the doors...
But many decided that it was not good enough for them.
Funny thing is that his other tent (heavier but "waterproof" for him but not as much for others) sets up inner (mesh) first. I would like to know what happens when he sets that up in the rain...

Franco

[sthughes]

Cool. Just thinking out loud here.. Seem the inner is that waterproof why not make the outer the same? That way they'd both breath, you'd get little or no condensation and the outer would take the 'sting' out of the water droplets so that the inners water proofness was good enough.
Or is it that the inner doesn't breathe much - hence the mesh on the sides rather than full solid inner ??

"well I did that finger test about two hors ago. Still no drips now."
I mean like capillary action (sort of), so does you finger get wet? (as opposed to 'does it drip' if you catch my confusing drift!)

[Franco]

There are enough "problems" with silnylon to consider going to that fabric.
I suspect that when dirty it will be less water resistant (like Epic)
I only discovered the water resistance by accident when I was working out how to get the inner up using the crossing poles.
It was raining but since I had that in mind for months I just kept going.
(Henry was testing the tent for about a year before he let me have one...)
This was the result :


You can hold the finger there and it feels like it is getting wet but it is just cold. I had it against it for a minute or so (I just repeated the test, so now it has been like that for about 5 hours)

[Jellybean]

JB wrote ""Corvus what were your "reservations" about the Scarp? ""

G'day JB,
My "reservation" is that we sometimes need to camp in very scrubby places and with the light weight nature of the Sinylon much greater care will be needed when selecting a tent site.
corvus

Thanks Corvus, good to know that's the only one!

[Jellybean]

...Agree with you on bags as I use individual ones and a kilogram adds up very quickly. I am happy about that but a single waterproof bag would save me at least a kilogram but the downside is stuff us harder to find and easier to lose, for at least me.

Yes, a dose of rummage rage should be avoided!

putting them in a cooking pot (must be a big one or small pegs) makes sense.....

I've got a solo pot and a two person pot and a few different sizes/types of pegs, like most people I guess. None of my pegs fit in my solo pot, but my MSR Needle pegs and my titanium pegs - both about 16cm long - easily fit into my two person pot (Snowpeak titanium 1400).

... Trouble is I tend to mix and match gear so like everything relating to a tent in the one bag as not uncommon for people to head bush minus tent pegs, poles, etc. .....

A checklist helps avoid this every time. Anal, but effective!!

Cheers,

JB