First night done, many to go!

Well, I spend the first night in my new hammock. I purchased a Speer IIIA hammock and a MacCat Deluxe tarp. I also bought the Speer SPE 4 x 4 for insulation. The SPE is a pretty great piece of gear. I bought the 4x4 because I am a side sleeper and it worked out well. By the morning, the pad shifted a bit, but I guess that is par for the course. It did keep me warm with a Ridgerest for a pad that I tapered for the foot area. For a top layer I used a synthetic mummy bag that I used as a quilt and zipped up the footbox.

The sleep was very comfortable. I still turned over a couple of times, but did not turn over because my hip was sore like I have to do when sleeping on the ground. All in all, I’m very much looking forward to more nights hangin’, and want to thank everyone here for sharing their knowledge and expertise. Reading through the posts helped me make some decisions when purchasing gear, and helped to make the first night a success.

I have ordered some cinch buckles and plan on making a strap that has a loop on one end to go around the tree with the cinch buckle on the other end so that the buckle is about a foot or two from the tree. That should be a quick and easy way to set things up and adjust.

Cheers!

Glad you had a great time in your new hammock. One idea may be to put your cinch buckles right on the speer straps. I did this with my new hammock too. The hard part is taking the scissors and cutting the strap. I would leave about a foot and slide it through the cinch buckle. double check that it is correct and sew a 3 inch X-box. You could wait to cut until the cinch buckle is on, then cut and melt the ends of the straps.
Then take a lenghth of strap you want to carry and put a loop in the end of it for the tree, and use the other end to go through the buckle which is now at the end or your hammock.
This way, it doesn't matter how big the tree is or how far, withing reason, the trees are apart, you always have the buckles close to your hammock.
You may have something better in mind, but this is just the way I do it.
Mule

Congrats on you first successful hang. I hope many more follow.

Hey skinner.. it seems pretty clear, what you said... but I'm more of a visual learner. Could you post pics of that setup? I just got my new Speer also and I'm on my way out to try it out... but those long straps are a little scary... ???