Hi everyone, here's a quick report on my 1st night moving up from bivis on the ground up into the trees. We wildcamped in some woodland here in London that we go to regularly and have bivied in before. The pics and vid was taken with my phone so quality it not that great but good enough for us to record our night and build on our approach to the next camp.
We had the DD Travel hammock and the Nomad's Land XXL silk hammock. Tarps were the DD extral large (3x4.5m) and a regular 3x2.5m (can't remember where I got that one from).
Suspension systems were the original cords that the DD came with but doubled up with simple knots tied in to hook a carabiner through. I got the idea from YouTube somewhere. I never had the time to get hold of any proper climbing webbing for the Nomad hammock (it doesn't come with any, just the 's' hooks) so I went to B&Q (a major DIY store here in the UK) and bought 15m of polypro webbing for £6.50 I think. I doubled this over and over again into 2 x 3.5m strips and then knotted then the same as I did with the DD. They both held up fine and were very quick to set up and tension.
The XL DD tarp is huge. It wouldn't fit between my trees so I had to roll up a part of it. The options are endless for playing about with a tarp/basha this big.
Since it was my 1st time I wasn't sure what gear I'd need so I took along a selection of things that I thought would be useful. We had Thermarests to sleep on, mine below me and in between the 2 layers in the DD. I also had a woolen blanket doubled up around my shoulders and hips to lie on. I found this not wide enough and should have used it in its regular lengthways format which would have kept my shoulders more snug. We used our down bags (Mountain Equipment and Alpkit) as quilts, which I liked a lot. I think the underquilt is the way to got for comfort and ease of use.
Comfort was beyond what I was expecting but getting into position for sleeping was more awkward. I usually sleep on my side and found this trickier to get into. I know this will just take more experimentation and trying to get more diagonal and also playing about sag. I dozed on and off for part of the night. If I was more used to sleeping on my back I would've slept like a baby. I found the hammock too warm and deliberately sort out colder spots to cool off, this was even with the bag/quilt pushed down around my hips. When I had to get up in the middle of the night to relieve myself, I was surprised how cool the night was once I was out of my silk cocoon.
Overall I was pleasantly surprised. For lounging around in they're great, and better that a bivi bag/tarp for spending time in. You don't seem to get as dirty since you're not crawling around on the floor. They are not as stealthy as just a bivi bag, which when stealth camping here in England is all you can get away with without attacting attention to yourself. The amount of room available imrpessed me. You can wake up, lean out and cook some breakfast, have a coffee, chat with your mate across from you. Next time we're taking the laptop with us and going to lay all cozy and watch some films.
Here's the setup on YouTube and my impressions in the morning.
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Par Si Vis Pace Para Bellum
Originally Posted by tiredhiker
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