Originally Posted by
Owly*
65 in 6 months, I've been an outdoorsman all my life. I have back issues that make sleeping on the ground miserable, and in fact have driven me to sleeping in a recliner for many years, the result being that I cannot sleep well in a flat bed, tossing and turning and aching all over. As a result I mostly day hike these days, but for me a day hike tends to be between 10 and 20 miles in the mountains. In my teens, (late 60's early 70's), I often took trips on the PC trail that were as long as 120 miles, with the usual minimum being 50, and I miss the long stretches in to the wilds. In those days the PC had virtually no traffic. We would often go days without seeing a single other person, except in popular areas, which we tended to avoid. Summer of '70, I was involved in an NSF project in the Mount Hood NF, and slept in a net hammock (pocket size) all summer (several months), with a ridge line supporting a cheap "tube tent", which I pulled over myself if it decided to rain....Not the best system, but it worked. i quickly figured out drip knots on suspension lines. I found no difficulty sleeping in a mummy bag in a net hammock back then.
That was then, this is now.... 50 years later. Last summer, I took a lady friend on one of my favorite hikes, 16 mile round trip, 8 "shoe removal crossings" each way, 3000 feet of gain. Knowing that she probably had about 1/4 of my range, we planned for two nights. It was a good trip for me....... a hard one for her, making only about 5 miles the first day. Found a good camp site, and I completed the trip the next day easily, leaving her about a mile from the summit.......... I suspect that she will think twice before going with me again ;-)............ I did not sleep well at all due to being flat, and concluded that hammock camping is for me, but what kind of hammock? What kind of hammock will allow the upper body to slope upward slightly, and the legs buckle at the knees a bit and slope down?
H.W.
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