Visual cues for easier setup

[Snaps]

This ended up being longer than I intended... TL;DR: I do some things to try to make my setup idiot-proof. What do you do?

I’m a fan of making things easy on myself. In fact, if I give myself the opportunity to screw something up, I will, and so I need to try to eliminate those opportunities where I can.

With that in mind, there are a few things I do with my hammock gear to protect me from myself.

For ease in setting up, I color-code everything. Head red, shoe blue. My hammock CLs are color-coded Amsteel. My UQ suspension has red and blue cordage and mini-biners. On double-ended stuff sacks and my catch-all sack, anything for which the head/foot orientation matters, I put red and blue cordage.

I don’t remove my bugnet often, so I don’t color-code that... but yesterday I set up my Double Dutch bugnet and realized I could easily get that wrong if I don’t pay attention, so I put red zipper pulls on one side (seam down) and orange pulls on the other. Red, in addition to being my head end, also ends up indicating my right side. Chameleon bugnets, I realized, can be zipped on four different ways, with 50/50 odds of getting it wrong (which means I would get it wrong 90% of the time). To help me along, I stick to a convention.

For zippers I don’t want to pull—like the one between my Chameleon and Sidecar—I remove the corded zipper pulls altogether. I leave the metal tabs, but when I look at them now, sitting there unadorned, a voice in my head says “NO!”

I keep my tarp tie-outs on my stakes these days. Red tie-outs are standard-length. Orange tie-outs are longer, for porch mode. All of the cordage that goes to the ground is reflective so I don’t lose it or trip over it. That includes my shock cord hammock tie-outs.

I have a little ridgeline light that I would lose if it weren’t attached... so it’s attached. 6” of shock cord will keep it connected to my ridgeline organizer until the battery dies, at which point I’ll cut it off, rinse, and repeat.

My tarp doesn’t care which end of it I put my head under, so it is colorless and boring, as is its skin.

Do you do anything creative with colors or have other hints on your hammock setup that I can shamelessly steal?

[Smckinney0031]

I love this and I am gonna shamelessly steal your ideas

[MikekiM]

Once you know, get or find your sweet spot as far as tree spacing, measure that distance with out stretched arms and trekking poles. For me I add about three to five feet more. Sometimes I can find trees that were the same as the previous hang.

I do this as well^^^

For hammock bishop bag, I removed the cord lock from the foot end and fed the cord thru the hammock CL, cinched down the bishop bag and tied the cord shut with some reef knots and finally an overhand knot for the tail. So the bishop bag is semi-permanently attached to the foot end of the hammock. The foot-end CL sticks out of the bag and the head end of the bishop bag is cinched down (with the cord lock) with the hammock suspension just inside, usually in a ziplock bag.

Great idea.. that's too easy!! But I try to leave the bag on the head end CL as a backup water block or diverter. I'm going to do this ^^ today..

Next time I see you I would love it if you showed me the setup technique that uses body parts to estimate where / how to attach everything. I used to remember how you did it, but it's a use it or lose it deal. Plus I am getting old.

Before painting the heads of my titanium stakes I considered a bright red or orange too, and then it dawned on me that those colours predominant in autumn. Instead I used a lighter shade of blue, not as easily visually associated with nature's ground cover regardless of season.

All of my stakes have reflective micro cord tethers on them, usually bright green. I used to paint the Ti shephard hooks but that didn't last. Thought about powder coating, but that was too much work. now I just put a piece of heat shrink on the head of the hook, usually green... double duty for adding color and to capture the tether cordage.

Guess I’m more tactile than visual. I pack under quilt foot end first. Hook head end and deploy.....

Similar.. Top quilt goes in the pack first, under quilt second with foot end in first.. hook the head, pull from the pack and hook the foot, then clip the primary suspension to the RL to keep things positioned properly. Head end of quilts use black Tato Gear quilt hangers.. white at the foot.

I do the same with head/foot ends, but since I have multiple hammocks and quilts I don't use the color coding. I have locked and sliding whipping knots on all of my CL's to capture diamond knots in my suspension. I just use a contrasting micro cordage for the whipping knot, rather than the color of the CL. Plus, the half wit clone uses dynaglide CL's and the other hammock uses Amsteel.

Bug nets.. One is a DIY half wit that is sewn on.. no issue there. The other is a fully removable net. There is a kam snap under the peak triangle on the head and foot, color matched to the mating snap on the bug net. Can't confuse those if I tried.

I leave my guy lines on the tarp.. all of them. I can field craft a stake surrogate, but I can't replicate replacement lines, so I limit the chance of error, misplacing or forgetting them home by simply leaving all lines on the tarp. Same goes for the ridge lines.. they stay on the tarps.

Until recently, there was indeed a head / foot end on my tarps and my larger silpoly tarps are equipped with longer guy lines for what would be the porch mode side. To help here, I have a piece of colored micro cord woven into the diamond knots that are at the ridge tie outs of every one of my tarps.. orange threaded through the diamond knots weave indicates head end. My new cuben tarps are not directional.. yet.

On my two Hex 12 silpoly tarps, both olive yellow but one with doors one without (impossible to tell apart when in the stuff sack), I added a contrasting color grosgrain cap on the standing french seam at the ridge so I can tell which is which while in the noseeum stuff sacks.

[Swishwebb]

Nice and simple! I have been using red/head and blue/shoe for years now lol. I do it to make setting up faster. I don't have to pull my hammock all the way out of the bishop bag. I just grab the blue end and hang it to the tree where I want my feet etc. My other gear has yet to give me any issue so no "idiot-proofing" on anything else yet.

[MAD777]

Here's an alternate solution for color-blind folks like me.

I keep my quilts, bugnet/sock, inflatable pillow connected all together, then always stuff the set-up in head first. That way it always comes out of the dry sack foot first.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

[reznix]

This isn't so much for easier hammock setup but for organization in general.

1. Stuff sacks/ditty bags in brighter colors. While the earth tones are nice, I lose them faster or take too much time looking for one in a pile of similar colored stuff. I also try to use the same colors for categories of items. An example would be that my stake bags are red so I know if I need a stake, start looking for red in the pile of gear.

2. White Tyvek ground mat and everything gets tossed onto it as I'm setting up/breaking down. The white color gives a nice contrast to the gear laying on it. One pile of stuff, one place to look.

While I very much like green and brown in nature, I have found the advantage of contrasting colors for gear just makes life easier. My tarp, hammock and UQ are earth tone so my overall campsite presence still blends in.

[Carbon]

My dark colored top quilt is hard to distinguish which is in or out if getting back in the hammock in the middle of the night so I tied a short piece of brightly colored cord on the left corner tip of the quilt.

[Snaps]

My dark colored top quilt is hard to distinguish which is in or out if getting back in the hammock in the middle of the night so I tied a short piece of brightly colored cord on the left corner tip of the quilt.

I missed this the first time around. My TQ is dark olive in a dark olive hammock, so I'm stealing this one. Thanks!

[BuckeyeFan]

My head-end CL is black, while the foot is red. The bead on my whoopies (thru the sewn channel), head is green and foot is red. Colors keep things simple.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

[alt.thomas]

A must for me is adding the MSR night glow zipper pulls on the bug net.

For small items I try to buy them in colors that sticks out... orange lighter and phone case, stakes with red coloring, blue charging cable, etc so I can spot them easily on the ground.

For tarp storage, I’ll use the company’s stickers on the bag cover.