Reviews > Shelters > Tarps and Bivys > Hilleberg Rajd > Ralph Ditton > Field Report

I have evolved from being a heavyweight backpacker of approximately 28 kg (62 lb) including all my water and food to a mid- weight backpacker averaging 18 kg (40 lb). I am still trying to get lighter with better equipment. My trips range from overnighters to five days duration.

side view of shelter

Product Information
Manufacturer: Hilleberg the Tentmaker, USA
Manufacturer's Website: http://www.hilleberg.com
Year of Manufacture: 2006
Model: Rajd
Colour: Green
Sleeping Capacity: 2
Number of poles supplied: 2
Pole thickness: 13 mm (0.5 in)
Poles made by: DAC
Fabric of shelter: Kerlon 1200
Door configuration: 2
Guy lines: 2 mm (0.07 in) Spectra-blend cord
Fabric of floor: Kerlon 1200
Number of walls: 1
Tear strength of Kerlon 1200: 12 kg (26.4 lb)
Factory seam sealed: Yes
Zips: YKK
Shelter pegs: 10
Shelter pegs material: Aluminium
MSRP of shelter: US$285
MSRP of poles:US$35
MSRP of Rajd footprint: US$32
Total MSRP: US$352

Listed Measurements
Weight of shelter: 950 g (2 lb 2 oz)
Height of peak: 115 cm (45.3 in)
Area: 2.4 m² (25.8 ft²)
Number of pegs: 10 square pegs
Weight of Kerlon 1200: 50 g/m² (1.47 oz/yd²)
Note
The manufacturer states that the weight of the shelter includes the guy lines and 10 pegs only.

My Measurements
Weights
Weight of shelter: 840 g (1 lb 14 oz)
(including guy lines only)
Weight of a single peg : 10 g (0.35 oz)
Weight of 10 pegs and stuff sack : 106 g (3.74 oz)
Weight of peg stuff sack: 6 g (0.21 oz)
Weight of footprint : 233 g (8.22 oz)
Weight of footprint stuff sack: 15 g (0.53 oz)
Weight of 2 poles: 275 g (9.7 0z)
Weight of pole stuff sack: 9 g (0.32 oz)
Total weight of shelter plus pegs and guy lines: 946 g (2 lb 1.37 oz)

Lengths
Packed size of shelter: 27 cm x 16 cm (10.63 in x 6.3 in)
Circumference of shelter in stuff sack: 48 cm (18.9 in)
Length of pole: 115.5 cm (45.47 in)
Length of pole section: 42.2 cm (1 ft 4½ in)
Number of pole sections per pole: 3

Field Test Information
The first occasion that I used the shelter was at Prickly Bark campsite which is located at S 31° 42.800' E 115° 56.981 on the Coastal Plain Walk Trail and sits at an elevation of 83 m (272 ft) as measured by my Garmin Geko 301 GPS. It was the 15th September, 2006.
When I set the shelter up in the late afternoon, the temperature was 25 C (77 F) and perspiration was running down my legs. I was wearing shorts which meant that I got sand sticking to my wet knees when I knelled on the ground to spread out the footprint and entering the erect shelter. Sand also got inside the shelter from falling off my knees and legs. I was careful to keep my feet outside and removed my boots by  sitting inside the shelter and leaning through the doorway to remove them.
One thing I did notice with interest was that the footprint provided with the shelter did not match the floor of the shelter. It was short in the length by 508 mm (20 in) So I used my blue ground sheet to make up the difference.. The width was correct.
There was a slight breeze of approximately 4 knots blowing from the south. This wind kept pushing the side into my living space, so I propped some articles against the wall to keep it in place. Also I wanted to stop the floor from lifting. In addition I placed my backpack at the foot of my self-inflating mattress to keep that wall away from my feet during the night as I was anticipating a cool night with a low dew point and expected condensation which turned out to be what I got.
In addition the wind had completely dropped-not a puff. The temperature dropped from 17 C (62 F) at 9 pm to 14 C (57 F) at 10 pm. It stayed the same till  5 am. The Dew Point was 14 C (57 F). Relative Humidity was 96%. (Source: Bureau of Meteorology)

As an aside, I noticed that there are four reflector tabs, two on each side above the doors on the eaves. They were very helpful in highlighting where the shelter was in the dark.
When I got inside the shelter to go to sleep I noticed condensation forming on the inside also.

condensation on outside
During the wee hours of the morning I made the mistake of brushing my head against the wall of the shelter when I sat up to get out of my sleeping bag to answer a call of nature. The top of my beanie got wet. When I returned back to my sleeping bag I was greeted with the very loud noise (there was absolutely no outside noise) of dripping condensation and it was falling onto my face, part of the sleeping bag and on the floor near my head. It all came from the area where I had brushed against.

mark left after my head brushed against roof

condensation on the inside
I must remember for future use not to touch the sloping walls if there is condensation as this will be a highway for the moisture to run down and drip from.
Dismantling the shelter in the morning was tricky because I did not want the wet surfaces falling onto the sandy surface where I had pitched it. As it was, some sand did get on it and some of the guy line runners. I did try to mop up some of the moisture with a towel before dismantling, but the cloth became saturated very quickly and was next to useless to wipe the inside of the shelter.
When I got home I hung the shelter over the clothes line to dry and then turned it inside out to dry the inside. The sand fell away easily when the shelter dried.

The next occasion was at Ball Creek (S31° 57.015 E 116° 11.907) on the Bibbulmun Track.
The  temperature dropped from an afternoon temperature of 23 C (73 F)  to a minimum of around 12 C (54 F) at 3 am. The Dew Point was 10 C (50 F) at 3 am. Relative Humidity was 91%. Wind during the night averaged 9 knots and it came from the WNW. (Source Bureau of Meteorology).

I ran into a problem setting the shelter up that I did not experience before at the other campsite. I followed the instructions of pegging out the four corners first and when I went to insert the first pole I found that I could not get it into the vertical position because when I pegged the shelter out, there was not enough slack for the pole to be set upright. It was too taunt. To get around the problem, I undid one end, inserted one pole, pegged the guy line for the eave, then pegged the corner. I repeated this on the other side. This way I had two vertical poles.
What happened at Prickly Bark on the previous occasion, I just pushed the bottom of the pole into the vertical as the soil was loose sand. At this campsite the soil was very hard and I would have had to dig a narrow trench about 50 mm (2 in) deep.
When I went to bed around 9 pm, I got changed inside the Rajd. I did this by sitting down and took everything off with relative ease without bumping the walls of the shelter as there was a very light film of condensation on the interior. Putting my thermals on was very easy. There was plenty of room for one person to get changed inside the shelter. I had my backpack inside also and it is the 90 L (5492 cu in) size.
I did not experience the drama of dripping condensation during the early morning as I was very careful not to brush the sloping roof walls. However, my foot end of my sleeping bag did touch the walls and a mark was left that was visible from the outside. My sleeping bag was only very slightly damp and dried reasonably quickly within an hour before packing up.

Mark where the sleeping bag touched the wall
The condensation drops were very small in comparison to the previous outing, just a fine mist on the inside.

Entering and exiting the shelter is not the easiest. To enter, I have to crouch down, making sure that my knees are off the ground and walk hands and toes into the shelter. I find that my back scrapes the top edge of the doorway and the waist of my trousers can catch on the edge and cause it to ping as I move forward.
To exit, I put my feet out first, in the air, then put on my slip on shoes. I then turn over onto my toes and hands and back out with my back usually hitting one side of the guyed out eave.
I would not like to be any bigger in circumference as I feel that I would be having real problems entering and exiting.
Why don't I put my knees on the ground to enter? I do not like to have to brush the dirt off my knees inside the shelter with it falling onto my sleeping bag or floor and there is no way I am getting into my sleeping bag with dirt/sand on my knees.

height of Rajd relative to me

I found an easier way to pack up the shelter. I undo a door zip about 100 mm (4 in) and make sure that it is at the end where it is the last to be folded up. When I fold and roll up the shelter, the trapped air inside escapes through the open portion of the zip.
What I found was if I didn't do that, I had to put pressure on the material and force the air out through the fabric. It will do it, but it is slow and I ended up with little balloon pockets of air trapped inside which I had to make into a bigger balloon to squeeze the air out of. By undoing the zip it made packing away very easy.

My next trip was cut very short.
I again went to Prickly Bark and arrived around 4 pm. The temperature was 22 C (72 F). Setting up the shelter proved a bit tricky as it was windy. The wind speed was 14 knots gusting up to 21 knots. After standing on the footprints to stop them blowing away, (I am still using two as the Rajd footprint is too short) I managed to erect the shelter. Out of interest I measured the temperature inside the shelter and it was 28 C (82 F).
One problem became apparent immediately. The side where the door is was blowing into the interior and the floor was lifting. See photo below.

wind lifting floor
I would suggest that two anchor points, one on either side of the shelter, be added similar to the rings on the corners. This will require two additional tent pegs. By pegging the floor to the ground at a point about halfway along the floor edge, this should prevent the floor from lifting up.
I tried to weight the floor down by placing extra clothing, my boots, water bottle (big mistake it fell over and leaked) headlamp and book but it did not work. All that happened was that the items ended up next to me on my sleeping mat apart from the water wetting my self inflating mat and the floor. Fortunately I discovered that very quickly and was able to mop it up off the floor.

I went to bed around 7.30 pm and the wind speed had picked up to 18 knots gusting to 24 knots. The side walls were blowing in and out and the area at my head would hit my head by giving it a whip from time to time. I even got up and moved my sleeping gear a bit closer to the foot end by about 200 mm (7 in) but that did not work. I still was hit about the top of the head.
Needless to say, I did not get to sleep with the  whole shelter rattling and rolling.
About 9.30 pm I got out of the shelter to re-examine the state of the pegs and guy lines.
I found that three pegs had come out from the corners of the shelter, so I dropped firewood logs onto the pegs after reinserting them. The solution worked for about a half hour. It was at this stage with me wide awake that I decided to get out of the shelter for a nature call. No sooner than I had walked approximately six paces, the shelter collapsed. Two out of the three of the pegs that had pulled out before did so again. They were the pegs at the either end of the shelter corners, on the same side. The other one was the guy line for the pole. With the pegs out, the centre pole collapsed inwards.
Wind speed was 18 knots gusting to 28 knots. (Source Bureau of Meteorology). In lay language this means a wind speed of 33 km (21 mph) gusting to 52 km (32 mph) and it was gusting far more than being relative at one constant speed.

The decision was made to pack up and go home because I could not see any let up in the windy conditions and I would not get any sleep if I stuck it out re-pegging the shelter all night and being whacked in the head by the wall.
As an aside, I made the wise choice as from 3 am to 7 am, the wind increased to 27 knots gusting up to 39 knots over those four hours. That means speeds of 50 km (31 mph) to 72 km (45 mph).

There were two positives to come out of the experience. The shelter suffered no damage at all and there was absolutely no hint of condensation. The other thing I noticed was that the single layer walls were very effective in preventing the wind from passing through, even the mesh panels with the eaves pegged out. It certainly was not blowy inside the shelter from the wind, just the walls and sides acted like bellows.

Test Plan to Date
The pole-end cups that are reinforced with a tough material are large enough to be used with small branches in lieu of poles. Unfortunately, I have not been able to use any dead branches that I find on the ground as they are too brittle or rotten. The Coastal Plain Trail is a Banksia tree region and they usually fall off the tree when they are well and truly dead and dried out. The white ants love them.
The other area on the Bibbulmun Track where I camped had been picked clean by campers for firewood and they have scoured the bush for many hundreds of metres (yards).
I am not going to break living branches off trees to act as poles as this is frowned upon by responsible bushwalkers. I still look in hope.

To date I have not had any problem with the poles not staying in place due to my pegging out. When they did collapse was when the pegs were pulled out of the ground by the wind buffeting the shelter. There was no longer any support for the poles so they fell over. This is not a failing of the poles but a failing of me using the wrong pegs in sandy soil.

Erecting the shelter takes me around twelve minutes due to the sorting out of which way is up and untangling the guy ropes. Once I get two corners of the shelter pegged, then I place one pole into position then finish pegging and guying out that side. Then I move to the other side. Admittedly, I am not in a big rush to get the shelter erected as quickly as possible. I just do it in a systematic and orderly fashion to ensure that the best pitch has been achieved for the occasion.

One thing I noticed early in the test was that the guy lines do not have a reflective thread woven into them. If possible, this would be an added bonus as it makes the guy lines so easy to see in the dark. The guy lines at the rear of the shelter which lay on the ground do take up a large area when guyed out at a 45 ° angle, so I tend to give the back ends a wide berth at night if possible. It all depends on how close the bushes are to the shelter.

During the high winds, the non-slip line runners worked beautifully. I did not have to re-tension them.

I found that the shelter dried out relatively quickly when wet through light condensation. On the first occasion, the condensation was very large in size and there was plenty of it. I had to hang the shelter on the line at home to dry in the sun, even turning it inside out to ensure that the insides were exposed to the sun to dry. This took approximately four hours. I wanted to make sure that no moisture was left when I folded the shelter up and put back in its stuff sack.

To date, I have not experienced any rain on the shelter.

The dark colour of the fabric does not appear to reduce the amount of sunlight coming into the shelter the first thing in the morning. The sun lighting up the interior still wakes me up before I am ready to be woken.

The zippers have performed very well without any hint of catching or jamming on the surrounding fabric when being opened or closed.

When I lay down inside the shelter, my head and feet do not touch the ends of the shelter, but my head is very close to the sloping roof and I must be mindful of this especially when there is condensation on the inside. One bump of my head on the wet roof means a constant dripping of condensation thereafter from the location of the point of contact.

Sitting up inside the shelter and avoiding the wet sloping roof, I can sit perfectly upright in the centre of the shelter without my head touching the roof and dress and undress myself with ease.

I have not had to strap the shelter to the outside of my backpack, but should I do so, I would have to reconfigure the shelter into a thinner and longer package wrapped up in the footprint for protection due to the spacing of the straps on my backpack that I would use. The supplied stuff sack when used as intended presents as a short and rotund package.


Thank you Hilleberg and BGT for the opportunity to test this product.

Reviews > Shelters > Tarps and Bivys > Hilleberg Rajd > Ralph Ditton > Field Report