Hello, my name is Chris. I have been lurking for a bit, thought I would finally introduce myself now that I may have something to say. My post here will likely be more verbose than necessary, but it felt good to share.
As the ski season was winding down, I was looking for the what's next to occupy my adventure quota. Spring is an odd duck for me here in New England as skiing wanes and the snow pack recedes. It is a time to reorient myself. In winter, my daughter, Abby, who is legally blind, and I ski...a lot, we packed in 50 days on the slopes this year including a trip to Utah and a backcountry hike to Tuckerman's Ravine. We are thick as theives in the winter but spring starts the season we do a lot separately and compare notes. In years past, this bumper year was when I got lazy, put on a few pounds, and waited for motivation to arrive in the form of warm sunny days.
I determined, in my near half century age, getting back in shape after a spring slumber was just getting to be a pain, so staying in relative shape was going to be the goal.
In summer, I love stealth camping on mountain tops...hiking up in late afternoon, spending the night, and hiking down in the morning. It is a great way to take full advantage of the effort. Beautiful sunsets, sunrises and all sorts of night sky shows. Traditionally, I bivvy camped, just a pad, sleeping bag, and Gore-Tex bivvy. Ultra simple, if not super light. It was not comfortable, but that seemed to be a small price to pay for the value of being at the top of a mountain, solo, and quiet.
Until this spring...
As I was poking around Amazon buying some ski wax and other odds and ends to finish out the ski season, and on a whim, I purchased a cheap single hammock--thinking, it might be comfy to laze around in the backyard this summer a bit. I was warry of hammocks after the time I tried to lay on one at a summer house when I was visiting my parents. It was one of those hammocks that I always see in people's yards, large flat netting with bars at either end. I remember sitting carefully on it and next thing I knew I was on the ground with a strange clicking sound in my neck. I had misjudged the center point and flipped over on my head. No more hammocks for me.
And yet, again, on a whim, I had purchased a gathered end hammock...
The hammock gathered dust in the shed for a month. The weather cleared and I was puttering around in the shed and found the hammock and decided, what the hell? I set it up in 2 minutes and was dozing in another 2. It was comfortable, I got up, no aches and pains--I was hooked.
It didn't take me long to put 2 and 2 together and know I could use a hammock for my stealth camping adventures. But I didn't even know where to start, so to YouTube I went--and somehow tripped onto Shug's channel. I must have watched a dozen videos before deciding what to do next. As most will know, Shug is a wealth of information and pretty entertaining, too.
With knowledge, a little knowledge, as it would turn out, in mid-April I purchased a double wide gathered end hammock, a nice rain fly, and a bug net. I felt like a kid in a candy store when it all came in, as I read threads here in Hammock Forums, I am not the only one that feels this way, as it turns out. Setting up the hammock was easy but fiddling with it continuously! I have stayed out in the cold, the hot, the bugs, the rain...everything, I have woken up with a pool of water in my underquilt from water running down my ridgeline, I have fallen backwards when I forgot to make sure to spread the hammock, I have crashed the hammock when I tied it wrong--so I feel I have paid some dues now.
Since setting up that first hammock in April, I have spent 35 nights in my hammock setup so far, 30, of which, have been in a row! I feel I am getting the hang of it (pun intended).
Next plans are:
- to get good at breaking down and setting up camp, in addition to sleeping in the hammock in the backyard, I am going to breakdown the setup, pack it all in my backpack and then each night, setup my backyard camp again. My thought this will help me work out the kinks and make sure I get good at setup, breakdown, and packing it all.
- get out in the wild, over nights, section hikes. I have had just one night in the woods out of the 35 days so far, so time to take off the training wheels and get out in the wild.
- attend a group hang, find some others that hammock camp, seems to be a good community of people!
Thanks for reading!
P.S. You can see my daughter's and my adventure blog at heyduff.com, thanks!
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