Hammock Camping

[Epfd217]

This hammock should work out to about a 7 pound savings by removing the tent and sleeping pad.

I can almost guarentee you'll want the sleeping pad. It will be worth the extra weight. Otherwise you will have no insulation under your body, like sleeping on the ground but worse, becuse the air is circulating under you. The sleeping pad will insulate your underside since your body compresses the insulation of your sleeping bag.

Ive used an ENO double next for my hammock camps and I do it in the summer and the pad is still required to keep warm at night.

 

[knobbytire]

Sweet! That's exactly the setup that I'm thinking about.

 

[CU2151]

Glad I saw this. I bought a hammock and am in the process of making a sweet lightweight tarp for it. I already replaced the line with lightweight stuff and am bringing some thicker ribbon so it doesn't damage the trees I hang from. We chose the location of our camp based on a small flat spot for the tent, but I see this option as much more flexible and lightweight. Going to use my sleeping pad in it because I don't have a quilt, nor will I invest in one until I'm ready to pursue this further.

Me being a slacker, I haven't tested out the setup yet. If I don't have time to play with it a little before the season, it'll stay home. I won't try this for the first time during a hunt. Might have to put it up in the backyard...my neighbors already think I'm weird for walking the streets with my backpack loaded up with weights

 

[knobbytire]

Update: I used the ENO hammock, took the advice of using a sleeping pad, but partially inflated. The sleeping pad, sleeping bag inside a GI bivouac bag. Tarp on a line over the hammock. WOW! What a difference sleeping! Someone said sleep in the 10 and 4 o'clock position... I concur, otherwise you feel your shoulders being squeezed. Beats sleeping on the ground.

It's good for a quick evacuation, too. When a lightening storm rolled in, not wanting to test how static electricity can move from tree to tree over a human media, I quickly was able to grab my bivvy sack, ran out to an open field, tossed it into a depression for safety, covered up and resumed sleeping. I woke up several hours later to the Milky Way and meteors and beads of frozen rain on the Bivvy.

I won't sleep in a tent in the backcountry again. The hammock is a simple, lightweight, quick setup and easy to construct a shelter over.

 

[BigSky!]

I spent the entire second week of the season, 9 days, sleeping in my hammock. It seems I ground sleep more than I hammock sleep; but, I'm doing more and more hammock. It is just flat out more comfortable. I have a compressed disk in my back and sleeping in a hammock relieves me of the pain I get when sleeping on the ground. That second week, every night in the mountains got down around freezing. I had snow a couple of nights and rain several nights. I was dry and comfortable. As someone above said, you absolutely must have some sort of insulation under you. Whether that be sleeping pad or under quilt, you must have it. Hell, if you don't have it when it's 70 degrees out you will get a cold keister. I have used all types of underside insulation. My favorite is the under quilt. The best sleep I ever get is in my hammock.