Thanks.
I like the sleeping comfort of a hammock, but also the secure feeling I get when using a tent. A few minutes ago I saw images here on the forum that might help me along. They were of the tarps that provide pretty good enclosure.
When I first brought my hammock to a site, it was during a solo car camping trip, and I'd say I just wasn't comfortable yet being outside a tent yet. I'm sure this has much to do with it.
When I'm camping with people, we sit around and talk till we're ready to sleep. So I get in the hammock and close my eyes right away.
When I'm solo camping, I'll cook, eat, and then there's basically nothing else to do but read. (or stargaze a bit, or something like that). But once I'm reading, it's way more comfortable to read while laying in the hammock than it is sitting outside (or while sitting or lying in a tent). I stick a rolled up jacket to prop my head up and I'm good to read for hours, whereas in a tent I'd either be sitting up cross legged, which gets uncomfortable fast, or lying down on the mat and propping my head up, which is the same.
With the bug net up, I do feel enclosed, but I like that feeling for whatever reason. I don't have a problem with it when I'm basically hitting the hay and doing nothing but reading until I go to sleep.
To me, the main reasons to use a tent are: Room to spread your stuff out and access it easier (a definite, concrete plus that hammocks do not have) and the psychological security of having you and your stuff completely enclosed, which is a non-concrete plus that hammocks don't have, but is also just something you can probably get over (although I haven't). The comfort of the hammock is well worth both of those things to me.
Look at stars. I live in the city so I don't get to too much of them.
Contemplate life's mysteries.
Look at what is going on around me.
In short, not much of anything. Never bought into the notion that you actually have to do something. And doing nothing in a hammock is a lot better than doing nothing in a tent.
I know it's only personal attitude but I feel MUCH safer in a hammock than in a tent:
1. Elevation. No animal or person will stumble over my tent and hit or kick me by accident.
2. Overview. While in my tent, I'm blind. I hear the strangest noises, mostly from the bears, alligators and gozillas with glowing eyesIn my hammock I have a great look around. Or it rains, then the noise is so loud, the monsters hide away
3. Protection from rain. It will not soak through my floor, nor drip through my walls because I touched them without notice.
4. Protection from mist wetting the ground in the morning hours.
And I agree to the other things as well: More comfort, more space.
Thomas
[QUOTE=Bear's Pinnata;412987]I know it's only personal attitude but I feel MUCH safer in a hammock than in a tent:
^^This. Nothing creeps me out more than things that crawl. Somehow it was never a cute family of rabbits that found it's way into camp. Always an armadillo, nutria (sewer rats on steroids), opossum, ants...well you get the picture. And then there's snakes!
When weather and insect activity permit, there's nothing I like much better than sleeping in the woods in an open hammock with no tarp.
This was after a couple particularly exhausting days on the trail. Other than getting up to eat something and pull on my sleeping bag, I didn't move from this spot much and slept like the dead. (I think I also raised the foot end a couple inches before turning in).
The idea that a tent is somehow better for downtime than a hammock does not especially compute for me. Maybe if it were large enough for a couple camp chairs, you could have company in rain or heavy insect activity but that's about it.
Before bed time it could be anything from camp chores to just listening to the rain on the tarp. When I'm alone I don't have a camp fire often unless its in my little nimblewill wood stove.
I'm just the oposite, I feel more confined in a tent than I ever could in a hammock, and even less confining when my tarp is in porch mode. I'm still waiting for the rainless night to put up my hammock with no tarp.
I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority. - E. B. White (1899 - 1985)
[QUOTE=Festus Hagen;413011]
QUOTE]
Very cool, right on top of an ant hill.
I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority. - E. B. White (1899 - 1985)
i turn on the tv (build a fire and stare at it)
Sorry, I don't care what you guys do after dark in those tents
I've been socked inside of a nylon dome or a 2 man mountain tent, due to severe weather a few times, and no matter how well you pick the site you're lucky to have one place in there to comfortably lay on a pad. The advantage of being able to move around more than in the confines of a hammock are vastly overrated IMHO.
With proper tarp coverage and site selection, the confinement talked of in a hammock should disappear pretty quickly for you, once you swing your legs out and sit up into the open air underneath a dry set up. When you get out of a tent in bad weather, you have to be completely suited up, then there is no where dry or sans snow to sit. You are fully out and exposed to the elements.
You can also adjust the tension of a tarp over a hammock much easier, especially if you make the tension adjustments close to the tarp instead of down by the stake or anchor point. In a tent, it's suit up again and crawl out into the weather on your hands and knees to get even the simplest of jobs done.
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