Hilleberg Nammatj 3 Review

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For years, I've been a big fan of Hilleberg. I own 3 of their tents: Nammajt 3GT, Akto and Altai. I'm a guide in the Drakensberg Mountains of South Africa, which are renown for their high winds. In the past I had 3 tents flattened down so I decided that in the future I would only buy the best tents available. That's how I got to know about Hilleberg. My first Hilleberg tent was the Nammatj 3 GT, july 2011. As it hardly snows in the Drakensberg, this tent seemed to be the best option.

I've been very happy with it until recently, when it failed its first big test.

The story is that on a recent trip, in the morning of the last day of a 5-day trip (fortunately it was the last day), when we were about to break camp, my Nammatj 3 GT was flattened down by gusty winds.

As a result, pole 1 was bent in one section, pole 2 was bent in one section and broken in another section and went through the pole sleeve, pole 3 was bent in one section, a broken in 2 other sections (see pictures attached) and went through the pole sleeve. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had been raving so much about this tent. I had never missed an opportunity to tell everyone, including the clients who had rented it for this trip, that this tent was one of the best ones in the market, that was used by expeditions to Antarctica, and that was basically indestructible on any windy conditions. So, to see the tent collapsing like this was a huge disappointment. To make it worse there were 4 other South African-made tents, which had been brought by my clients, which withstood the conditions without any problems. They weren't even dome tents.

Please note that I always personally set-up all of my tents in the mountains as I know how important this is. In the case of the Nammatj 3 GT, all 20 anchor places were used, including the 8 guy ropes, with pegs put down completely into the ground at 45 degrees against the tent, just exactly the way the instructions recommend. So the incident was definitely not due to bad anchoring. The Winds came in strong gusts and laterally so maybe these tents is not that strong laterally. I always try to set up the tent along the wind line, in this case in line with the valley but winds came from both sides of the valley.

The poles are pre-curved 10mm DAC Featherlite NSL poles, which are supposed to be one of the lightest and strongest in the market. Maybe they are but not in a tunnel tent with lateral gusty winds.

I contacted Hilleberg to let them know. They were as surprised as I was and they had no explanation for the failure.

They have agreed to replace the poles at no cost. They really care about their costumers. That I appreciate but the problem is that I don't trust this tent anymore.

Here are the pictures:



Bottom Line: No, I would not recommend this product to a friend.