Matthew Cattin traded in his lightweight three-season tent for a fortress weighing as much as a sturdy house cat.
The wild winds of Patagonia are infamous. Like Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam, the South American continent reaches a daring finger through the Roaring Forties and Furious Fifties to breathe life into the Antarctic Peninsula beyond.
My wife and I visited the great southern land one January to hike several routes in Argentina and Chile. To lower costs we packed our own tent, a three-person Nemo Dagger. Spacious, lightweight and well-designed, we loved it to pieces – literally.
Our little green tent endured too much on that trip. Camping at the base of Fitz Roy, we told ourselves the violent westerlies would dwindle overnight, but if anything, they got angrier. We woke frequently to the tent ceiling tickling our noses. Worse was the dust, which blew under the fly and rained through the mesh inner like flour through a sieve, into eyes and snoring mouths, coating our sleeping bags in grit.
At Torres Del Paine’s Paine Grande campsite, our beloved Nemo gave up. We hadn’t paid enough to pitch it behind windbreaks, and arrived too late to secure a sheltered position. The wind was fierce. We pitched up as best we could, but after dinner we returned to a flat mess of flapping fabric. Ripped in several places, our tent had proved no match for nature. We survived the night by fastening our guys to a picnic table.
I would still recommend Nemo as an excellent tent brand – though not their Dagger for a trip to Patagonia, where gusts frequently reach triple digits.
This year we are embarking on an extended honeymoon to Europe. Again – and perhaps a theme is emerging here – we will pack a tent to keep costs down. Many locations on our bucket list (the Scottish Highlands, Snowdonia, Iceland and Norway’s Lofoten Islands) are predictable only in their unpredictability when it comes to weather. When it rains, it pours … sideways.
I wanted reliability. I wanted a fortress. And so, after many weeks of scouring blogs, reviews and YouTube, I decided to sell a kidney, take out a second mortgage and buy a Hilleberg. The model I settled on is the Kaitum 3 – a three-person, three-to-four-season beast. Weighing 3.4kg – about the same as a plump house cat – it won’t spark joy to carry it on my back, but I’m convinced its weight is its only major flaw. Well, aside from the price. At $2.5k it’s double the price of my old Nemo, and 50 per cent more expensive than other four-season tents from MSR and Nemo. Will I get twice the wear out of it? I’m banking on it, because the reputation and quality are outstanding.
For the uninitiated, Sweden-based Hilleberg has earned a sound reputation for strength and reliability. The craftsmanship is superb, to the point that each tent bears the name of the tailor who made it. What sold me, however, was a video of its marketing team pitching various models in front of a wind machine that belted out a consistent 100kph blast.
The Kaitum is a work of art. A three-poled tunnel tent with two sizable vestibules, it boasts impressive comfort and liveability. Its floor space is actually smaller than our Nemo, but due to its near-vertical walls (and head and foot walls that lean slightly outwards, like a V), the living space is a relative cathedral. The fly and inner are attached with loops, making for a fast and easy pitch – though a slower dry. With all of its guys extended, the tent seems to grow roots, and apart from a shimmer like fish scales, it’s immovable in the wind. On each door, front and back, yawns a gaping maw of a wind vent that circulates air beneath the fly and into the tent. The fabric, Kerlon 1200, is sleek, strong and suitably reinforced at high-tension points. It is, in short, a bomb shelter.
The purchase feels like the antithesis of who I was as a tramper five years ago, desperate to cut weight wherever possible. But there is a massive sense of comfort and trust that comes with buying hard-wearing, heavy-duty gear, especially those items relied upon to keep me dry, warm and safe when the proverbial hits the fan. I’m confident the Kaitum will keep us safe in Europe’s rugged parts, and if it doesn’t, I’d like to see what could.
Chris Williams considered price, durability and load capacity when he chose a fully framed 3kg pack.
Ultralight tramping equipment and apparel is a tidal wave that has swept the hiking world, but some outdoor gear brands have withstood the trend. Swedish brand Fjällräven, for instance, has stuck to its guns, producing sturdy, durable kit for long tramps.
The essence of Fjällräven’s design ethos is apparent in its range of Kajka tramping packs. Launched in 2008, relaunched in 2013 and updated in 2024, the Kajka uses a tough synthetic fabric called Vinylon F, along with recycled 500D and 210D nylon. In a move to reduce the carbon footprint of the range, its aluminium frame was replaced with a wooden one (birch) in 2013.
Padding is generous, zips are chunky and pockets are plentiful. The result is a pack which, in 55, 65, 75 or 85-litre models, weighs roughly 3–3.4kg. By contrast, ultralight packs of comparable volumes can dip below 1.5kg.
I’m not an ultralight sceptic. Having reviewed plenty of ultralight tramping products over the years, I understand the appeal. Yet here I am, committing to a 3kg tramping pack. Why?
While I enjoy fast’n’light day hikes, when I go on multi-day tramps I prefer to be well-equipped and take my time, which requires a pack that supports heavier loads.
I also like the Kajka’s styling: classic looks paired with modern design techniques. But in considering whether a heavy-duty pack was preferable over ultralight options, I had a handful of points to mull over.
The first, inevitably, concerns money. The 55-litre Kajka costs $879.90. Unquestionably, this premium, if not eye-watering, price tag partly reflects the pack’s quality, but also Fjällräven’s international standing as a desirable brand.
For a fair comparison, the high-end Kajka ought to be compared against high-end lightweight packs. Class-leading examples include offerings from US-based Hyperlite Mountain Gear, and cottage industry producers like Atom Packs from the UK and New Zealand’s own Southern Lite Packs. In terms of upfront costs, these charge a premium too – upwards of circa $600. Their lower-volume production runs, innovative designs and cutting-edge materials are the reasons for this, and we will come back to them in a moment.
The second part of cost is repairs and lifespan. My logic is that ultimately, two $300 packs with lifespans of, say, seven or eight years cost about the same as a $600 pack that lasts 15 years. And that is before taking price inflation and any repair costs into account (the less durable the materials used, the more frequently repairs are required).
From this perspective, the rugged Kajka makes economic sense because my ambition is for it to be a lifelong tramping pack.
This is a neat segue into the question of durability. A more durable pack likely means fewer repairs and a longer lifespan. Having now used the Kajka for 18 months, it so far feels up to the task of putting in a two- or three-decade shift. When you have used a lot of outdoor gear, you quickly get a good idea of what’s durable and what isn’t. Everything about the Kajka feels reassuringly tough.
After numerous tramps both here and in the UK, every component feels the same as it did when it was new.
Whether the ultralight rivals can go the distance depends on individual packs. Those that simply use lighter zips and thinner polyester or nylon will not. But those that employ fabrics such as Dyneema (a type of lightweight polyethylene that claims to be the strongest synthetic fibre on the market), certainly can, which feels counterintuitive. Delicate lightweight zips are not generally found on high-end ultralight packs either; instead, you find toggles and clips.
Of these ultralight packs, the one I’ve had the most to do with is Atom Packs’ (now succeeded) Atom EP50. My colleagues in the UK at Trail magazine loved it for its ability to be ultralight and tough, and it racked up product awards as a result. However, as mentioned, packs like these cost a premium, just like the heavy-duty Kajka.
So, with regard to price and durability, top-end heavy-duty and ultralight packs are in fact broadly similar. Where they differ is in load capacity. The Kajka and other comparable packs have a sophisticated back system that is designed for heavy loads. They feature a frame and supportive harness and padding to distribute the load comfortably from the shoulders to the hip belt.
To keep weight to a minimum, ultralight packs have little padding, basic back panels and simplistic removable frames – or in some cases no frame at all. What this means is that the 15–20kg gear load put into the Kajka cannot be carried with the same degree of support and comfort in an ultralight alternative. In my experience, ultralightweight packs tend to be comfortable carrying half the load capacity of their fully framed gear-hauling counterparts of an equivalent volume. Case in point: Kajka: 55l, weighs 3kg, comfortable with 12–20kgs; Atom Pack: 50l, weighs under 1kg, comfortable with 6–10kgs
Ultralight packs require trampers to commit fully to the ultralight ethos by shedding weight in all aspects of their gear, not just the pack. Everything that goes into an ultralight pack must be as light and trim as the pack itself. Farewell 2kg synthetic sleeping bag, hello 500g down quilt; farewell extra drink bottles, hello LifeStraw; farewell stove and gas, hello cold soaking and so on.
The reason I went with the Kajka is because it’s a comfortable, aesthetically pleasing master of carrying heavy loads, which (I hope) will last a lifetime. It’s worth pointing out that there are of course many middle grounds – packs that offer supportive back systems and a lower weight. Osprey’s Kestrel/Kyte and Rab’s Exion are examples of this. For me, those packs make sense and they’re very good, but I like the Kajka.
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My gear through the decades