Yesterday I got to meet up with one of my favorite camping buddies. She was so excited over her new Tensa 4 that had just arrived in the mail the day before. Those elegant telescoping legs gleamed in the Autumn sun as she unzipped the bag. We are planning a camping trip in the Mark Twain National Forest later this month, but it's always good practice (and just plain fun) to test out all your equipment ahead of time. So, we practiced setting up and tearing down her Tensa 4 hammock stand. I am impressed with how portable and user-friendly these stands are. I ran my own through the paces all summer long and love it more and more the longer I have it. Originally I bought it as a “fall back”, to bring along on those car camping trips to unfamiliar destinations--insurance against the worry of “what if there aren’t a pair of suitable trees?”. Little did I know then that this hammock stand would become the first string in my gear rather than the back-up. As the summer wore on, I found that again and again I used my Tensa 4 stand even when there were plenty of suitable trees. I just love the ability to place my hammock EXACTLY where I want it rather than settling for where ever the best set of trees are rooted.
Although it wouldn’t be reasonable to back pack with the Tensa 4 Stand, for car camping it is amazingly compact and light. Assembling it the first time “out of the box” was a bit fidgety (took maybe an extra five minutes) as I had to learn how far apart to set the base and how long to set the ridgeline, but once the base cord and ridgeline were set at the proper lengths for my particular hammock, from that day forward it has always been a fidget-free set-up. The optimal base width and ridgeline length depends on which hammock I am using. I started out using my then current favorite hammock (my Trail Lair) but being a very stretchy hammock, it did not lend itself as well to the Tensa as my old favorite (not as stretchy) hammock, my Blackbird XLC. So, now I have a dedicated “hang from the trees” hammock (the Trail Lair) and a dedicated “only for my Tensa” hammock (the XLC). My "old" favorite, the XLC, is the only one I’ve slept in all summer, because the Tensa has always won out over the trees!
My friend and I plan to get together again soon so I can show her how to use the tarp extender with her Tensa. For now, though, we just had fun hanging our hammocks in that huge, beautiful city park. As I relaxed there, I found myself reflecting back on how just a few years ago on such a lovely day, there would have been dozens and dozens of brightly colored hammocks gently swaying among those trees...but yesterday, there were only the two muted XLCs. I daresay, they are probably the first hammocks to be seen in that park in the years since the city passed an ordinance against hanging hammocks from trees in public spaces. No ordinances against hanging hammocks from Tensa 4 stands, though!
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