Thoughts and questions from a night in the rain

[Gqgeek81]

Friday night I set up in Red River Gorge KY at an established camp.
The previous person had kicked away the leaf litter down to the loam which seemed nice at first.
That night the area got something like .75" of rain and I quickly discovered I would have been better with the oak leaves and pine straw in place as the rain spattered bits of forest duff all over the gear I had under my tarp.

I've never had the rain spatter up like that before. It seemed to be caused by my tarp configuration which resulted in the water streaming down super heavy in a few places.

I could look at the side of the hammock fabric and see little wet spots forming any time the rain really picked up and some of the spatter even flew up high enough to land on me inside the hammock.

So if I had hung the tarp with a sharper angle the edges would be closer to the ground and the water drops would fall a shorter distance. This might have resulted in less spatter, but would have given me less room to put my gear and the gear might have been closer to the perimeter of the tarp.

Or I could have spread the tarp out as wide as possible to give me the most coverage but the edges would invariably be higher off the ground.

What do you guys find works better?

I also wonder what might happen if I had a few drip lines on the edge of the tarp itself. Think of a much pared down version of the fringe you see on some leather jackets. It might focus the runoff and even carry it to the ground without an actual drop forming.

I attempted to mitigate the mess by placing water bottles between me and the spots on the ground receiving the heavy drippage. It occurred to me that if I had planned things better I could have potentially placed small logs around the edges to do this. Here is a crude cartoon to demonstrate. The log blocks the splashes on one side but I have no idea if this is practical.
Rainlog.jpg

My ground sheet is a cut open compactor bag but this backfired as the water spattered on top and formed little puddles around my gear. I would have been better off putting things directly on the ground.

[La Picker]

A third option would be trying to hang your whole tarp a little lower.

[Gqgeek81]

Yea I had the tarp pulled down till it was starting to just barely touch the hammock suspension. I try and avoid that as I don't want to abraid the cuben. I could lower the hammock hangle but that will put more stress on the hammock suspension if I go too far with it and it would have been a bad night to spend on the ground.

I did try tightening the hammock suspension a little to pull me up away from the ground but after realizing some of that spatter was pole vaulting all the way into my hammock I realized I couldn't run away that easy.

[jamaulwall]

This is why I hang all of my gear up at night. Either on the Ridgeline or in my pack hanging from the foot end of my hammock under the tarp. Then you can pitch your tarp with steep sides in storm mode and not worry about what's underneath you. Yes, in certain situations you are going to get some splash/wind blown rain but if your tarp is big enough and pitched right it should be minimal. Another option would be to use an underquilt protector and/or gear hammock.

[Red Wing]

I second hanging my gear off my hammock.

Another reason i dig pads.

[12trysomething]

If heavy rain and no wind I spread my tarp wide. If wind is in the equation I go low.

[willic]

I hang my fly rather low, but when I expect rain, I hang it even lower to protect everything on the underside a little better.

[Derizen]

Though it's been heavier for me, I like using a larger tarp for this very reason. I keep it pretty low if I'm expecting rain.

[dkurfiss]

I also use the "hang my gear" method. Light items go under my tarp hanging on the suspension including my camp shoes. My pack goes on a tree with a cover over it. Clothing I am going to put on the next day goes into the hammock with me stuffed into my peak bag.

Rain splatter can make a real mess

[cougarmeat]

This why I favor large tarps too. And I put rings at the ends of all my gathered end hammocks and attach my suspension de jour (line, webbing, whoopie slings, python straps) to the rings. But if water runs down your hammock suspension line it would drip on a pack attached to the ring. So the pack would have to hang between the ring and hammock body. I finally got some coated nylon and make a gear hammock. No more gear on the ground; it lives in its own waterproof cocoon.

I also either use a sock or at least and Under Quilt Protector.