Finally joined after months of browsing the forums to help upgrade my entire hammock setup. Found some of the posters on YouTube as well (Shug, Schill Bros, Frozen). Now, I'm looking at the trips that yall have done. Florida is just too hot in the summer, so we mostly go from October thru April.
First time hammock camping was back in 2016 on an island campout (FL spoil islands) with some buddies. Most of them were rocking hammocks, so I swung by Walmart and picked up an Equip netted hammock. The suspension were the old school ropes (and too short) so I used a set of 800lb ratchet straps I had in my truck. Paired them with some paracord and a 10x12 camo tarp and I was good to go. Rained all night and stayed dry. Used a Coleman sleeping bag from the car camping days. I quickly found out why people were moving to top quilts after struggling to get into it.
Also, that first night confirmed that hammocks > tents. One of the guys was tent camping and got up for a bathroom break in the middle of the night. When he got back in, he had zipped the door down. Some time later he wakes us all up, hootin' and hollerin'. Apparently, a rat managed to wriggle in between the zipper pulls and snuggled up with him. Next island trip he had an ENO hammock.
Since that first time, I've been dialing my gear down for lighter weight/better quality. Started with upgrading to daisy chain straps, then a more packable tarp and a synthetic top quilt. Now I've moved on to using down top/under quilts (HG), silpoly tarp (WB Thunderfly) and a DW Half Zipped with all the Dutch bling for the hammock (beetle buckle) and tarp suspensions (crl). I think the biggest improvement was moving to an 11' hammock with a ridgeline. That Walmart hammock was around 10' but was narrow (48") and had no ridgeline. Every now and then I would run into shoulder squeeze. I can nearly lay flat in it, but with the longer/wider hammock it's much much easier.
So far, most of my camping has been here in Florida, mostly around the Orlando. But, we did a 10 night hike/bushwack this past summer up in Alaska east of Denali between the Denali Hwy and Yanert River. Hanging trees are sparse out there, so we ended up using tents. Next month, looking at going up to Bayard on the St. John's river. Sometime in the spring next year, we're looking at the Linville Gorge and a section hike of the AT in Georgia. Also, we've looked into camping at the Dry Tortugas but they don't allow hammocks. However for kayaks, fishing and snorkeling I might be ok for a few days on the ground.
Looking forward to learning new tips and tricks and finding some new adventures!
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks