I went to Prince William Forest Park (a National Park), near Quantico, VA on Saturday, 2 March 2019. We did some orienteering during the morning and afternoon and got to our campsite at Oak Ridge Campground later in the afternoon.
I set up my new DH Sparrow for the first time, using MarlinSpike Hitches on my 2" wide Spider Webs from Dutch, and whoopie slings with Whoopie Hooks from the huggers to my continuous loops. It went great--except for the fact that it was my first time using whoopie slings and I couldn't quite figure out how to adjust them without having my friend hold my hammock so that it didn't put a load on the whoopies.
(I have since re-watched one of Shug's videos about whoopie slings--pausing and rewinding several times to look more closely at what it is that he's doing--so I think I have it figured out. Feel a bit daft for not being able to completely get it right on my own, though.)
It was getting close to sundown and we got busy with campfire/dinner prep, so I didn't get any pictures of the hammock until the morning.
I slept great--the Sparrow is super-comfortable! I used an inexpensive CCF pad between the layers and my Marmot Arroyo 30* down sleeping bag, zipped down to about the knees, simulating a quilt. I was toasty all night, with very minimal condensation between me and the pad--I didn't even notice it until I went to take the pad out as I was packing everything up.
I tend to move around a lot in my sleep and at one point woke up lying along the main axis of the hammock--i.e. not asymmetrically--and was still comfortable! Great hammock, well worth spending the money and time, both in researching/planning and waiting for the Smurfs to do their magic!
Got up early, as usual, but it was really cloudy, so no good view of the sunrise. After we had breakfast, it started raining. It was a very light rain, but I still didn't want to take my Superfly off to get better pictures of my Sparrow, so I'll have to get some more pics later--I'm headed out for the next two weekends, though, so it shouldn't be a problem.
Anyway, here are a few photos from Sunday morning, in the light rain:
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