Hello Everyone! Coming at ya from Maryville, TN, just outside the Great Smoky Mountains. I grew up camping with Royal Rangers and then mostly car camped through my late teens to 40Â’s as I was usually camping to be at a new mountain biking area. I learned to mountain bike on the coast of North Carolina where I grew up and my high school sweetheart who IÂ’ve now been married to for 24 years wanted some education so we most to Asheville, NC where I really learned to mountain bike in the Pisgah National Forest.
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A new job for me took us to Colorado after she graduated and there I discovered the big old Rocky Mountains and the mountain biking there. I hiked a few 14Â’rs and then family drew us back to East Tennessee in 2016. I picked up riding a 1970 Honda CL350 that I rebuilt from the frame up and discovered flyfishing with my father in law.
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me on the left with my buddy Slow on the right. He wasn’t slow on the bike. We had to tell him to slow down so we could catch our breath.
In 2017 I flew back to Colorado for my 40th birthday and a group of friends took me to Moab, Utah for a birthday week long mountain bike trip where we camped in the desert. One of my buddies rigged up an Eno between the truck and some desert brush and I slept there each night and fell in love with hammock camping. Still not knowing any better and being on a budget and still just mainly car camping I bought a Wise Owl complete set up, even got an underquilt from them which was fine as most of my camping was in the summer.
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Fast forward to October of 23 and I was going on my 1st backpacking trip since I was a teenager. I had been doing 6-12 mile day hikes looking for streams deeper in backcountry of the Great Smoky Mountains and surrounding National Forest. The stream I wanted to reach and fish was deep a remote part of the National Park so I got a permit and backpacked in. I took my lighter weight singleman tent that weighs 2 lbs but I struggled with sleep as I can fall asleep on my back but wake up on my side where the hip of my now 235 lb body would be digging into the ground pushing the pad in. Never again I thought and starting planning to get a backpacking hammock and gear.
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I hemmed and hawed, still on a budget , especially now since my wife had been laid off in October of 23. She started her new job this past Monday, Whoot, but I saved some pennys during that time and just placed a few orders.
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I started researching hammock camping and found 11 and 12 ft hammocks to be more the standard today among hammock campers as you can lay at an angle and get a flatter lay. I looked at Hennessy Hammocks for a while but fell into the more cottage vendors and just ordered a bunch of stuff.
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For Christmas I got a Sierra Designs 20 F top quilt -680 grams/ 24 ounce Underquilt-30F 737 grams/ 26 ounces from Hang Tight Hammock Quilts on Etsy…will eventually make my own I think or get one from Hammock Gear510 grams/ 18 ounces Tarp from Hammock Gear 12x9 silpoly . Could of gone quite a bit smaller but wanted doors for rain and wind. Can do that with this tarp. May eventually get a smaller one for nicer summer nights.680 grams/ 24 ounces with suspension- Hammock from Hemlock Mountain Outdoors- made in Pennsylvania 11 ft x58” Redtail with some custom mods I requested for more pull outs, underquilt support and some D rings on the inside for a peak loft from Dutchwear. I May eventually get a Dutchwear Chameleon that has a ton of accessories including different tops from bugnets to winter covers .
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looking forward to hanging and maybe seeing some of you out there!
Cheers!
J Bear
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