I bought a set of wide 2 inch polyester tree straps for use in popular, high use areas. I figure 1 inch straps are fine most of the time but the trees could probably use that extra inch at sites like state parks or popular trail sites. Cant hurt and its not that much extra weight. Plus its bailed me out once when I could only find huge old oak trees and needed the extra length.
I've wondered about this. Why not wrap the straps around multiple times in order to create a very wide strap? Seems like it would work if you have the extra strap.
Where I camp the trees are so large that I can't do it, but it seems like a good general practice in order to lessen any chance of injury.
I once had a problem with a large pine tree where my strap flaked off some of the bark during set up as it got hung up in the crevices so I don't hang off pine trees anymore for that reason.In the over all scheme of things I am sure hammockers have done far less damage than the Southern Pine Beetle though.............
I think the overall concern is that in designated campgrounds practices that have the potential for damaging the overall limited amount of vegetation should be minimized. It takes hundreds of years for a tree to grow in many environments and only a few minutes for adorable lil' Cletus and Billy Jean to thoughtlessly kill that tree whilst playing Daniel Boone builds a cabin.
Multiple wraps of a strap are fine if you get the height right the first time. But a bit of a pain if, after initial setup, you discover you need to move them up or down a bit - especially over a branch. But then again, we can across the country in covered wagons, ate opossum and squirrel. According to movies, wadded in icy streams without our teeth chattering. So a little unclipping, unwrapping, and redoing of a tree strap is probably within the realm of accomplishment.
In order to see what few have seen, you must go where few have gone. And DO what few have done.
https://irma.nps.gov/STATS/SSRSRepor...lendar%20Year)Originally Posted by jeff-oh
From a single individual's perspective, the problem is insignificant.
Take a look at the numbers, when creating policy, it is a numbers game.
Most folks use 1-inch wide straps because of the weight savings. A non-hammock individual cannot understand why a hanger would choose to use such a thin strap, when wider straps are available.
2015-08-15 18.06.16.jpg
Non-threatening "perception-shapes-reality" mitigation strap strategy. Don't know if this works, Pine tar and all that...
I use the 30-lb Military Surplus Aluminum Antenna mast stand set up to win over skeptics in public venues.
Last edited by joe_guilbeau; 02-04-2021 at 15:47.
Again, How do you know for sure?
"There are alot of people visiting... there for it must be bad." This does not even to begin to address the question other than to support ignorant hammock bans. Again, the intent of the original post was to seek as path to get actual test data to determine what does and what does not actually harm trees to help influence thoughtful and reasonable rule and regulations instead of ignorant outright bans. At this point for all we actually know 4" straps could be harmful. as well as 1/2" straps could be just fine.
Last edited by jeff-oh; 02-04-2021 at 16:20.
I think joe has a really good point there. You specifically ask, how he knows for sure. I would like to turn the question around ask you jeff-oh, how you know for sure that 15,002,227 visits to the Golden Gate NRA would _not_ potentially kill many trees if all of them hammocked. Heck, if 1% of them hammocked, that's still ~150,000 hammocks hung!
Of course they don't all do that. Of course many people would be careful. Of course you can use 1" straps without damaging trees in most cases. What if you had 1% of the hammockers not be careful enough and damage a tree? That's 1500 trees damaged. Now 1500 trees over the whole park is probably not much. But we're talking about concentrated usage here. Not all places in a park are suitable and specifically if we're talking about "organized" camping like that, this would be very concentrated to a small area.
So yes, I think it is very understandable that they just outright ban this. It's like banning putting up your tent outside of the tent pads if you ask me. With a few hundred people over a large area, who care where you put the tents. With millions all in the same small-ish area, it kills a large-ish area of vegetation real fast.
Same. I started with 2" straps and keep them whenever I will be at an "attended" campsite.
The trouble with looking at total numbers is it may not adequately address the question. Taking these numbers, this assertion, of a ban being reasonable, has an unwritten underlying assumption that the 150,000 hammocks are all hung on the same set of two trees. This equals a hammock hung every 3 minutes 24 hours a day 365 days/year. That does not seam reasonable. So, how many hang sites at a given park are there? One assumption would be there are 150,000 sets of trees. Each set is used once per year. If a hammock is hung on a set of trees once per year make an outright ban very understandable? In truth the answer is neither of these extremes. We do not know how often an individual tree is used to hang a hammock.
One set of data is from Great Smokey Mts NP. Their park usage data says that the developed campsites are occupied 225 days per year with an average stay of 3.5 days. Assuming 1/2 of all campers hang a hammock. on the same set of trees. That set of trees would experience only 32 hammocks hangs per year. Is hanging a hammock once every 11 1/2 days make an outright ban on all hammocks understandable? I'll answer for me. I do not know.
But to answer you question directly... I do not know. I am completely ignorant, if 15M visitors to a park would or would not kill any trees through hammock use. Thus, again the need for a study and actual data.
Thank you arutha for you post. Thinking about this more, perhaps, I should write up a NSF grant proposal to study this problem. The proposal will obviously have to include funding for many, many nights of field research. Plus travel expenses across the county to visit many parks and could take years to compose the proper data set.
Last edited by jeff-oh; 02-05-2021 at 09:39.
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