Night Hike & Hammock Gear Review

[Redwood Guy]

Hey All,

I did my first "me video" over the weekend. It is really crappy - I was really tired (and it shows) and I get just about every product name wrong (just about every time) and it's a three-part series on top of all that


Part One



Part Two



Part Three




Anyway, I have attempted to add in some written humor to make up for my total lack of enthusiasm (aka: utter lack of sleep) while on-video.

It rained 42 straight hours. It finally stopped about 1-am and I decided "I'm going for a hike!" and spent a few hours hiking a trail in the dark (love night hiking) and finally got to a spot and spent about 40 minutes setting up in the dark (yeah, a long time to setup a tarp and hammock, but I was playing around with different guyline setups + it was dark lol).

For anybody wondering what a trail looks like after 42 straight hours of rain, check out this photo I snapped earlier in the year. That was after about 30 straight hours of rain. But, at the end of it all, I am treated to views such as this video and this video!


(ps: the first of the three videos above are in HD, the other two are not... it took youtube five hours to upload and process the HD video, and about 45 minutes the other two. not to mention it took my poor little mac mini - using iMovie - about an hour to export/process that HD video lol... thought it was gonna catch on fire - giggle)

Anyway, hope somebody out there picks up a point or two from something I might say, and even more hopefully, gets a chance to laugh at/with me as I ramble on and on about who-knows-what because I should be sleeping and not shooting a video

[leepingreenlizards]

You didn't do as bad as you think…very good first effort. However, I could have done without the constant subtitles\text popping up on the video so that you could explain your mistakes and apologize. Forget about it, you made mistakes, big deal. All in all…a decidedly good first effort.

Don't be so down on yourself, or feel like you constantly have to apologize to everyone. Were all pretty easy going here. Just enjoy yourself and have fun with it!

Shoot, look at the shug-mister, if ever there was an apology waiting to happen…….. Ha! Just giving you a hard time shug! XOXO

[GrizzlyAdams]

I tried watching these from my iPhone while working out on an elliptical machine this morning. It worked! 3G bandwidth was enough. I couldn't see all the little print but I got the big picture.

I like the style of labels swooshing in from the side, I don't use iMovie, hadn't seen that before.

If you watch the vids I do closely you will find that any given shot lasts well under a minute. Usually I can't say it right, get it right with one shot. Editing covers a lot of flaws...things you never see on the cutting floor....You were gutsy doing a full up "24 Hours" style real-time run. I like what I learned about the tarp. I have a big spinntex MacCat Ultra; I pitched it once, I've carried it a couple of times, but no real in the field experience yet. A bridge hammock needs a big tarp, so doing that in spin or cuben if you can makes a huge amount of sense.

we don't get many views of the redwoods, keep 'em coming.

[Hawk-eye]

Enjoyed watching your videos this morning ... love the area you're in ... beautiful area. Wish you'd got more trail shots ... but I'm greedy!

Thanks for posting!

[GrizzlyAdams]

Last post I was just back from the gym, suffering the effects of oxygen deprivation Other things to add

Wanted to add that everything you said about bridge hammocks is true. Different lay---flat lay---whether on your back, side with legs extended, side with legs curled a bit. More laterial rotation than experience gathered end hammock users expect. I've slept on my side with the hammock rotated 30 to 40 degrees. Wake up, re-center my weight, the rotation recenters. The only real downside to that characteristic is that the spreader bar end rotates up and if your tarp is close, will hit it. Soooo....big tarp, pitched high and wide. Blunted ends of the spreader bar to avoid damaging the tarp.

very comfortable hammock.

thanks for the posting and the various gear shout-outs.

[flair4040]

Redwood, I enjoyed the vids. You are lucky to live in such a pretty area. Keep the vids acoming.

[Redwood Guy]

Hey Guys, thanks for the comments!!

I am on the trail just about every day so I am going to try working on my video quality. And I promise I won't be dead-tired next time ;0

You didn't do as bad as you think…very good first effort. However, I could have done without the constant subtitles\text popping up on the video so that you could explain your mistakes and apologize. Forget about it, you made mistakes, big deal. All in all…a decidedly good first effort.

Don't be so down on yourself, or feel like you constantly have to apologize to everyone. Were all pretty easy going here. Just enjoy yourself and have fun with it!

Shoot, look at the shug-mister, if ever there was an apology waiting to happen…….. Ha! Just giving you a hard time shug! XOXO

Thanks. I do agree that I put in too many little splash thingies on the videos. This was both my first time doing video of myself and my first time using iMovie, so, I guess I just got carried away a bit lolol

Yeah, shug and his "tie my camera on a string and let it go" trick always gets me trying to grab the camera so it doesn't go flying lol

I tried watching these from my iPhone while working out on an elliptical machine this morning. It worked! 3G bandwidth was enough. I couldn't see all the little print but I got the big picture.

I like the style of labels swooshing in from the side, I don't use iMovie, hadn't seen that before.

If you watch the vids I do closely you will find that any given shot lasts well under a minute. Usually I can't say it right, get it right with one shot. Editing covers a lot of flaws...things you never see on the cutting floor....You were gutsy doing a full up "24 Hours" style real-time run. I like what I learned about the tarp. I have a big spinntex MacCat Ultra; I pitched it once, I've carried it a couple of times, but no real in the field experience yet. A bridge hammock needs a big tarp, so doing that in spin or cuben if you can makes a huge amount of sense.

we don't get many views of the redwoods, keep 'em coming.

Yeah, doing "takes" is something I need to work on. I only did it once the entire 45 minutes. Had I not been so tired I probably would have done it some more. I'll be sure to work on that one!!

Believe me when I say I was very very worried about how the SpinnUL would handle the bars of my bridge hammock. I was actually more worried about that than the stupid bears. I have no clue how much stronger material it is over the regular stuff, but it just seems to be thinner, and thus maybe more prone to getting stabbed by crossbars. Anybody know anything about this?

Enjoyed watching your videos this morning ... love the area you're in ... beautiful area. Wish you'd got more trail shots ... but I'm greedy! Thanks for posting!

Thanks Hawk-eye! Yeah, I tried doing some trail shots but it was 3am and I was walking without headlamps. I don't have a night-vision camera (I was using my cheesy iphone camera) so none of the ones I did try worked out. And on the way out, I was just focused on getting home and to bed.

I am heading out in about 2 hours to hit another trail for the day. I am going to see if I can get some nice trail shots. Stability is proving to be a problem with my iphone camera while walking.

Here are some photos of a trail I did about a month ago. (the last two are actually videos) This was one of the most beautiful hikes I have ever taken up here. Just about killed me but it was magnificently beautiful.

And here is another trail I did a couple weeks ago. Nothing too spectacular.


Again, thanks for the comments guys!

[Hawk-eye]

Nice collection on Flickr ... going to have to cruise through them later when I have some more time! Thanks for including them.

[Lepmeister]

Thanks for the Vids, just finished watching now. Satisfactorily field 30 mins of my life. When I should be sleeping 1:02am in Sydney with a 7am meeting .
Keep’em coming..

[Redwood Guy]

Thanks for the Vids, just finished watching now. Satisfactorily field 30 mins of my life. When I should be sleeping 1:02am in Sydney with a 7am meeting .
Keep’em coming..

hahahaha, thanks Lepmeister!!