I just completed a week out in the Boundary Waters.
My gear is as follows:
HH Expedition hammmock
Kelty Noahs tarp 12'
From the weather report before heading in, I knew there was a good chance of a day with thunder storms and another day or 2 with winds which could gust up to 30mph. The winds would typically be gusting from the west and/or slight southwest.
My tarp was set up in a traditional mode (not diagonal). The ridge line was put up between 2 trees running south to north at a slight north east angle.
I use a continuous ridge line of Zing It with Prusik slides to attach to the hammock end tie outs.
The ridge line height was initially about 6 1/2 feet off the ground.
The ground was sloped a bit and mostly covered in pine needles (as the majority of the trees are mature pines)
The sides of the tarp were staked out and initially about 2 feet from the ground.
Here are the issues I ran into.
#1: Rain, heavy rain for about 2 hours. It created water runoff from the sloped terrain. I typically put down a cell foam sleeping mat under the hammock/tarp as a ground floor to sit stuff on, lay on (when hammock is rolled up, and to step/stand on. The rain runoff from the terrain, as well as the sides of the hammock made the ground a mess underneath.
#2: When the hard winds came from the west, the constant pressure against the tarp, the Prusiks on the Zing It would not hold tight, forcing them towards the center of the ridge line, and forcing the hammock lower to the ground, and creating more slack in the other tie outs. This was my first time out with the Zing It ridge line setup.
The high winds lasted for 1 1/2 days.
What I ended up doing was to run a second ridge line of Paracord (my old ridge line), and put it under the tarp. (so the tarp now had 2 ridge lines) I also used every end tie out on the tarp (the Noah has 5 per side). This helped a ton with the sagging and lowering issue, but I typically would not have had the extra ridge line with me.
I am looking for any suggestions, ideas for dealing with keeping the area under the tarp dry in hard rains (and sloped ground) and dealing with high winds. (I like to have some type of "floor" under my hammock/tarp.
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