Well... I tried.
I built my first Turtledog stand over the last two weeks, and finally got the chance to test it out last night. Out here in Colorado, it was supposed to drop to around 9 degrees, so I thought I would test out my hammock setup in cold weather for the first time. I have HammockGear's Burrow 20 and Phoenix 20, so I wanted to see how they could handle temps about 10 below their rating. (I also have their Incubator 0, but I wanted to see if I could push these lower) Since I was hanging in my backyard, I could just bail and go inside if things got too cold.
I got home from work around 11:30 and set everything up - it was 19 degrees. Since I hadn't tried camping out in winter before I had no idea how much to wear, so I put on a few layers, some thick socks and headed outside. I should also mention that this was only about my third night hanging at all, so I'm still figuring out and adjusting the underquilts and everything. I laid out there for a while trying to figure out if I could make it through the night, or if it would be too cold. My feet starting getting really cold so I wrapped them in one of my extra top layers. That helped for a while. Around 2, I started feeling cold all over. Just a little, but enough to know I would not be staying warm all night. That's when I decided to call it quits and head inside. It was only 14 degrees then, and with it supposed to drop even lower, I didn't want to risk it. In the morning I went out and checked my thermometer to find that it actually got down to 8 degrees. I really wanted to make it through...
Last night was a great learning experience for me, and I think with a better layering system I could've made it. I'll try again this weekend when temps are supposed to be in the 30s. That should give me more of a margin for error, and hopefully I'll figure it all out some more! Next time I'll beat the cold weather... next time.
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(I added my tarp after this pic)
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