Whoopie Slings w/short tree huggers?

[affreeman]

My current rig is a Hennessy Explorer Ultralite Asym with the stock Hennessy suspension line and tree huggers. I added descender rings attached by a short cord to a carabiner, such that I attach the 'biner to the tree huggers and the hammock suspension line to the descender rings with a garda hitch. I used this rig every night of a 6 month AT thru-hike in '09 and it worked great. On a few occasions I had to hang from a tre that was too big for my straps to fit completely around, but I could deal with that by undoing the garda hitch and tying the standard Hennessy lashing.

The downside of this set-up is the weight. Carrying around 2 carabiners and 4 descender rings seems a bit excessive. I like the ease of use and adjustability of the webbing solution used by Warbonnet (and I think a WBBB is in my future), but all that webbing also seems a bit on the heavy side.

So I've been looking at using whoopie slings attached to a toggle in the strap. That seems like a simple, low weight solution. But here's my dilemma with it. In the situation where I have to hang from a tree too big for my straps to fit completely around, does the whoopie sling suspension leave me SOL?

[angrysparrow]

That seems like a simple, low weight solution. But here's my dilemma with it. In the situation where I have to hang from a tree too big for my straps to fit completely around, does the whoopie sling suspension leave me SOL?

Not at all.

You can adjust the sling to its max length, then run it through one of the loops on the end of your hugger, and across to the other end of the hugger. There it can attach presumably with a toggle (or stick) that you normally would use as part of your marlinspike hitch.

Or, if you carry around any spare cord (like Dynaglide or Amsteel) you can just extend the hugger with that.

[Tendertoe]

+1 on bringing an extender of some kind - it allows you to hang on larger than expected trees or longer than expected distances and weighs an oz or 2 - well worth the weight penalty.

The method of running the whoopie through the webbing is illustrated in a bit of a different way here at :53, you do need some extra hardware in the form of a biner or a Dutch Biner though.

[zukiguy]

I've got the same rig but I converted it to the JRB whoopie suspension a few months ago. I figured out pretty quickly that I should have picked up longer tree huggers. I originally had the fixed eye of the whoopie attached to the huggers with a dutch clip on the other end. The adjustable end went to a dutch biner attached to the hammock via a continuous loop.

I've come close several times to maxing out the straps. I've also picked up some sap (darned pines) and now I don't like having the straps permanently attached to my suspension lines. So, I grabbed some extra webbing and stitched a loop in one end. I removed my whoopies and flipped them around so now the fixed end goes to the dutch biners (hammock). I'm going to give the marlinspike hitch a try and see how I like that setup.

So, I might have some dutch clips and 42" tree huggers for sale pretty soon....