One thing you wish you would have known when you first started hammock camping?

[Derch]

Set up isn't a race. For some reason when I did my first hammock set up I would brag to my friends how fast I set up, but now I take my time and really dial it in for the perfect hang.

Also how much difference a ground tarp makes, such a simple thing but not tracking in all that dirt was a game changer.

[jb_outdoors]

I wish I had known getting hooked on hammocks and not having anywhere to hang at my house would be immensely frustrating, but I guess it's more motivation for me to get out in the woods.

One thing I'm glad I did know is that it's perfectly acceptable to start out with a $25 amazon special and a $10 blue poly tarp. Was it ideal? No, but even so it was such an improvement over crawling in and out of my tent that I was an immediate convert.

[AmberG]

I wish I had known getting hooked on hammocks and not having anywhere to hang at my house would be immensely frustrating, but I guess it's more motivation for me to get out in the woods.

One thing I'm glad I did know is that it's perfectly acceptable to start out with a $25 amazon special and a $10 blue poly tarp. Was it ideal? No, but even so it was such an improvement over crawling in and out of my tent that I was an immediate convert.

Had I not made a $30 impulse buy on Amazon for a cheap hammock and tarp combo, I might have never discovered the joys of hammocks. I might even still be sleeping on the (gasp) ground!

[KingMob]

I wish Someone would have pulled me aside and explained that learning a small number of knots (really just a prussic*, an Ashley stopper knot, how to steal a loop from a line (the beginning step of a truckers hitch), and almost no others, can save me hundreds of dollars in testing to find my eventual no fiddle, no hardware, tarp rigging system.

That said, I probably had different needs than the average person. I needed to find a system that I could replicate for each one in my family, that would be easy and quick for them to grasp, so each kid (and my partner) could set up their own hammock and tarp, and I wouldn’t have to spend hours doing the set up for all of us.

But wow, a few knots, an order of a few feet of amsteel, and a weekend of trying knots could have saved me SO MUCH money.

*there may be a better knot for this job, I’m newly learning, but the prussic is easy to learn and I’m done outfitting my 5x tarps, so I’m not going to change the system now.

[dkurfiss]

I wish someone had told me how addictive the hobby is. I stopped counting years ago on how many set ups I have and how much $ I have sunk into it.

[jb_outdoors]

my eventual no fiddle, no hardware, tarp rigging system.

I'd be interested to hear more about your setup. I'm trying to avoid using hardware in my setup too for the added challenge, weight savings, and absence of little things to lose in the woods.

[oxtopheryames]

I still don't like an underquilt. Just a blanket inside the hammock with me.

[oxtopheryames]

Don’t be so nervous about smaller tarps, no bug net, and no floor.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Defiantly saves weight.

[Sean McC]

How to properly tie a becket hitch.

I have read a lot about knots since joining the hammock crowd and really, when it comes to getting the tarp up, I pull it tight and give a few wraps around the anchor point and put in a hitch with a loop. I learned the more complicated knots to make this adjustable (klemheist and friends). But I have yet to use it as it is just faster to keep it simple. So I would not say I am a knot enthusiast.

But yeah. Learn the becket hitch. Really easy but also easy to mess up and make into a slippery hitch. Like the difference is obvious when you understand it but it is easy to get wrong. At least for me. I gave up on my becket straps and got an ENO daisy chain until I decided that the weight was not worth me not learning to tie a proper knot. And now I love my becket straps and do not understand why I had a problem in the first place.

An exceptionally easy knot.

[Fiddler]

My first hammock was a WWII-era jungle hammock bought from an army surplus store. It was made of canvas with a tiny nylon "roof". Whatta joke! Did soldiers actually sleep in these things? Mosquitoes have no problem biting through the weave on the bottom of the canvas.
Anyway, fast forward a few decades and I found this site. I do a lot of canoe camping and figured a hammock would be the way to go. I studied a lot of threads here and settled on a Warbonnet Ridge Runner, based upon a lot of opinions here. Being in South Florida, I have no need of an underquilt.
However, I did discover a need for a tarp, whether or not it rains on our beautiful wintertime Florida nights. Without a tarp, the nighttime dew settles on me and I wake up soaked in the morning.
Now, I never sleep outside without a tarp overhead, no matter how tempting it is to look up at the stars and moon.