Utah Horseshoe Springs

Well, to start out I must admit that on this outing I wound up having to abandon the hammock :scared:. If this offends please don't read on about my failure.

This weekend (Nov 19,20) we took the scouts out camping here in Utah. Went to near a site called Horseshoe Springs out towards the west desert at the foot of the mountains. Now we had a winter storm blowing in to hit late Saturday and the winds were a little .... intense. The site we eventually settled on had no trees or wind breaks, causing me to use my truck and a 6 foot pole to set with. Unfortunately the winds averaged around 30 mph with gusts a lot higher so things were interesting.

As one can imagine the fire was a little difficult to cook and we settled down for sleep around 9:30. With the wind I was unable to set up the actual hammock until then because when I tried earlier it immediately became a sail and I was worried that it would be damaged blowing around that much. Tarp was out of the question, it almost tore when I just tried to set it up.

So I setup my hammock, clip on my newly made KAQ DIY quilt and climb in, using my not light weight to hold it down. I admit, I was comfortable, warm and cozy but one thing made it a bit difficult to sleep. Have you ever been in a hammock that hums and sings to you? Because of the wind crossing the hammock, strumming the pole tie downs and gently rocking my truck the entire system felt a bit ... energetic. I was unable to sleep, partially with worry about snapping lines and partially because of the constant vibration (bit like being on a jet liner). So I gritted my teeth, packed up the hammock and slept in the truck, which continued to rock to the wind all night long. BTW the other leaders gave up on their tents and slept in their cars before I gave up.:lol:

Lesson learned, even though the canyons may be colder, they at least have wind breaks.

Evaluate, adapt and succeed!
lessons learned= Win!
in this case; no failure observed -only additional data collected.
KM (who considers a day when nothing is learned is a day wasted..)

Like KM said, There is no failure in your report. I like the pole and truck used as a stand in the woods thats good!!!!!! I am liking the idea of a singing and rocking hammock, I would be out like a light..........

I'll have to post picks of my post setup in the DIY section (after the snow count decreases :) ).

There's singing then there's the fear that half of my fillings would have worked their way out overnight:scared:

Every trip for me is an opportunity to learn and grow as an outdoorsman. Looks like you have a similar approach. It's all about having fun and coming home safe.

Live and learn as they say. You weren't hurt and learned some valuable lessons. So I would say it was a good outing.