Sleeping topless

[OutandBack]

OutandBack,

What tarps are used in those pics?

My tarp the Black one is a Tree to Tree Trail Gear 12x10, the Second one is a Warbonnet Superfly and the 3rd is a DIY.

[megatate]

I'm of two minds with this one. As much as I'd love to spend the night watching the stars move around the sky, I also want to sleep. I find my tarp blocks out a lot of light from natural sources or otherwise that could/would wake me up. A full moon is as bright for me as leaving my curtains open at home to let in the street lamp light. Can be a disturbance...

Sometimes I wonder how many of us actually manage to sleep through the night in our hammocks

[jadekayak]

I did wake up covered in dew. Small price to pay though.

I have an extra wide hammock I made so I just pull the sides over each other when I'm ready to sleep and that solves the dew problem.I only use my tarp when I really have to.

[altro]

In California's Sierras I usually leave the tarp in my pack. I'm a fair weather camper.
You have to live here to understand I guess. My wife's family, from the east, thought we were nuts for planning an outdoor wedding in August...

[Mikey von]

In California's Sierras I usually leave the tarp in my pack. I'm a fair weather camper.
You have to live here to understand I guess. My wife's family, from the east, thought we were nuts for planning an outdoor wedding in August...

I am in Northern CA as well. I am new to hammock camping, but have been playing in the back country for 35 or so years. I would say at least 75% of the time I do not take a tent or tarp. The few times it has stormed up, we would hunker down under a fir tree, build a quick leanto, or normally just get wet. I absolutely love sleeping under the stars and it is easy in the Sierras and Southern Cascades.

[Slugger]

Went topless once......then they begged me to put a shirt back on.

[OneClick]

Well I finally got a wakeup call after sleeping tarpless for so many nights. It was one of those "no chance of rain" nights...but a drop of rain hit me in the face a 2:30am. I stayed there for a few seconds thinking it would pass, then it came on pretty quick. I threw on the headlamp, no contacts, cool rain, not fun! Having the tarp in a 1-piece snakeskin saved me...I had that thing up (sloppy, but functional) in probably 90 seconds. After it let up I went around and re-staked it nice and taut. Then another solid 30-minute shower came toward daybreak.

Lesson (finally) learned!

[rick417]

Well I finally got a wakeup call after sleeping tarpless for so many nights. It was one of those "no chance of rain" nights...but a drop of rain hit me in the face a 2:30am. I stayed there for a few seconds thinking it would pass, then it came on pretty quick. I threw on the headlamp, no contacts, cool rain, not fun! Having the tarp in a 1-piece snakeskin saved me...I had that thing up (sloppy, but functional) in probably 90 seconds. After it let up I went around and re-staked it nice and taut. Then another solid 30-minute shower came toward daybreak.

Lesson (finally) learned!

My first thought was: are you sure that's rain? But I guess the follow-on pretty much cinched it! I tarp for reasons of things dropping from trees and birds and morning dew.

[Realstone]

Where are you guys (and gals) setting up where you can see the stars while under the canopy of the trees? In the provincial parks I camp in, you are hard pressed to see enough sky to appreciate the view.

[cougarmeat]

sometimes you can look out horizontally - not just straight up - and see the stars. Much thicker canopy in the NW.