1 Day Till My First Multi-Day Trip With My Clark

[photomankc]

Tomorrow I'll be driving down to the Ozarks for a little camping/backpacking. I'm going to camp along an 18 mile stretch from Bell Mountain down to near Counsel Bluff Lake. This will be my first serious outing with my Clark and I'm excited to see how this goes. It is nice to know that campsite selection will be much easier than it has in past trips.

I was originally planning to do a 2-1/2 day trip but now it appears the weather will be pretty sloppy and nasty on Friday so I will likely be staying put on the "mountain" (mountains are kinda sad here in Missouri) an extra night till it clears up . Hiking in the rain is no fun and unless I have to; I don't. It will be a nice test for the JRB 11x10 tarp I just bought for exactly this kind of weather and situation.

After Friday things clear up so I should have a nicer hike after that. I take trails slow since I enjoy the camping and taking photos more than just the walking through.

Wish me luck.

[slowhike]

enjoy what you get... including the mountains.
some people from out west make fun of our mountains here in the east, but hey, i think there are beautiful!!!
see the beauty in what you have... including the rain too.

and we'll look forward to hearing about your trip.

[photomankc]

Oh I agree. It's within a day's drive and I have enjoyed various sections of the Ozark Trail immensely. It doesn't have the same vistas as the west or the east but it has a flavor of it's own. The rolling landscape of southeast Missouri is quite pretty in it's own way. Darn near any day in the woods beats a day at work!

[photomankc]

It went badly. I'll post the detail later but I'm real close to ditching the hammock idea. I'll not be backpacking with it again until I feel much more confident in it.

[RAW]

I'm very curious to hear what the problems were.

[Shug]

It went badly. I'll post the detail later but I'm real close to ditching the hammock idea. I'll not be backpacking with it again until I feel much more confident in it.

I'm very curious to hear what the problems were.

I want to hear as well!
Shug

[slowhike]

yes, please tell us what happen when you can.
most hammock problems are easy enough to solve if you'll give it a chance. we're glad to help if we can.

[photomankc]

Sorry guys, I went to the movies with the spouse unit to put the last 36 hours out of my head.

Thursday was great. Wonderful temps, great views from the mountain but one problem, the only good camping spot past the peak was on the side that would be getting wind over the next two days. Strike one, and I knew that was not ideal. I tried to setup the JRB tarp first but the thing was a sail and I couldn't both hang it and control the ends and there was enough busted cedar branches about to make it swiss cheese if I let it flap. I switched to the Clark XL and it was easier to control but would not provide much room given how I had to pitch it with the wind.

Friday came and instead of the passing showers predicted I got a bucket poured on me for hours. Things were going well until I noticed some water on the foot end of the tarp. I looked and there in the seam at the foot was a nice tear in the fabric with a steady drip since it was now a funnel point. I'm not sure if it was a flaw I never noticed or if I did it somehow but that didn't matter much now (In thinking back it's possible I screwed that up when I was trying to adjust the sag Thursday night and ended up with too much tension on the attachment). There was no way to repair it so I busted out the JRB tarp again and with a lucky lull in the rain I was able to get it strung above the stock tarp and take it down.

I figured crises averted. Nope. It started to pour again and when I reached up towards the handle in the head end I noticed water. @#%$@! So back out I go and sure enough, there is water soaking into both ends from the ropes. I cut loose with a stream of profanity which always helps things go better . I tried to hastily lower the angle of the ropes from the trees and and in the process got pretty wet and cold. I tied off some line on each end to act as a drip line and that seemed to help but the damage was done. It got my clothes in the pockets wet and some other gear as well. The rain also slacked off about then too so I wasn't sure if that was a solution or not. I never could get really comfortable after that either. I know Clark dropped the drip rings, but I want a set and I won't be going back out without them.

By Saturday I just wanted out. It was still misting to drizzling and with no way to dry anything and very little incentive to stay since there would be no picture taking in this I decided to bail out at the next trailhead, drop my pack and try to follow the highway out to my car. At least that way even if night closed in on me I could keep walking and trying for a lift. The trail was mud, running water, and snot-slick rocks and I didn't want to end up wet, cold and injured with two days to go before alarms went off at home.

I was fortunate to find a group there that was just getting ready to start and they offered me a lift to my car. What a relief to not have a 15 mile trudge through the rain to get back to the car.

For about three hours it let up on Friday night and it was quite a site on my rocky location. There were waterfalls everywhere and the sound of flowing water was nice to listen to. A ray of sun broke through and teased me for about 15 minutes and then vanished. My location was really quite incredible and some place a tent could not have used at all. That is probably the main reason I'm not burning the hammock tonight. I was a very unhappy dude by Saturday morning and not too fond of the contraption at that point.

The weather here has been awful and I'm pretty well done trying to backpack for the spring. It's nothing but mud and swamp everywhere and there have only been about 20 dry days in the last 60. I'll need more practice with the hammock in bad weather where I can bail if needs be before I'm ready to trust it where I'm stuck for a few days if it goes south. Had the rain lasted longer and kept soaking the hammock or I not happened to have two tarps this could have well gotten dangerous given the nighttime temps.

Oh, and there was an earthquake in IL. that shook St. Louis pretty good. I woke up at the time only because there were a lot of animals making noise at around 4:30am Saturday. I thought that was odd for that hour but thought nothing more of it. My wife said that even here in Kansas City the dog started whining and jumped up into the bed and she just thought she was hearing thunder. I guess there is another advantage of a hammock! Sleep through earthquakes!

[slowhike]

sorry to hear about that kind of trip.
a few ideas come to mind concerning the two major problem areas you talked about... hanging the tarp in wind & rain finding it's way to the ends of your hammock.

several times in order to find a suitable site to hang the tarp, i would have to continue hiking, or leave the trail, or even back track.
but i'm sure you considered those options. every once in a while it's just hard to find the kind of spot you'd like to have because of the extremely rough terrain w/ it's under growth & every thing else.

but the times i have found myself having to hang a tarp in hard or even moderate wind, i was glad to have it in a snake skin.

i would start by securing the ridge lines, which were hanging out of the skinned tarp.
then i would pull one end of the skin back, exposing one end of the tarp, being careful to control it.
i would find one corner guy line & temporally attach it to whatever was handy & in the general direction that i wanted it to go, but not letting the other corner go... other wise it would flap wildly in the wind, possibly catching on a limb or something.

then take the other guy line on that end & do the same.

before unloosing the other end of the tarp, i would look to see if there was any slack in the temporally attached guy lines that could be tightened a little more.

then un-skin the other end of the tarp, controlling it by keeping it grasped in my hand as i pulled the skin back.

find one corner & secure it, but not letting go of the other corner in order to control & protect it.

after securing the last guy line, go around to each guy line putting it at the correct angle & securing it hopefully to trees, limbs, roots, or rocks.
if i use a stake in very windy conditions, i go to extra lengths to make sure it's got what it takes to stay put.

because the temporary attachments of the lines may be quite a bit off from where they need to end up, it may take several trips around the tarp to get the four corners positioned correctly & tight.

if the wind is bad, other tie outs on the tarp may need to be used as well.

of course blowing rain will force the need to hang the tarp lower & closer to the tarp.
this may mean readjusting the tarp (including lowering the ridge line) after the hammock is hung.
only one line (ridge or corner) is taken loose at a time.

this can take a while & but sometimes it's just necessary in order to take care of yourself & your gear.
just keep your rain gear on, take a deep breath, & except the fact that it needs to be done & go about getting your set up right<G>.

i'm assuming from your report that the wet hammock ends came from water wicking/running down the support straps rather than blowing rain finding it's way onto the hammock.
is that correct?

[photomankc]

I did consider backtracking but the woods for the previous 2 miles was pretty dense and brushy and It was already getting a bit late considering I would then have to get water after getting setup. Going further probably would have been the best call but I didn't know that at the moment and didn't want to get caught on the steep terrain of the decent to the creek. There was a better area about 1/2 mile on down.

I was thinking about snake skins actually. Anything that could allow me to keep the whole tarp from unfurling into a spinnaker would have been helpful. With the amount of steady breeze that afternoon it was just impossible to keep control of that sucker. I'll have to look at snakeskins as that does seem an attractive option.

As for the water on the ends that was definitely from water following the ropes. I have emailed Clark to ask for the drip rings that they have discontinued. I'm sure they have reasons for doing that but with that experience I'm not going to trust the rope's shedding ability on it's own again. Perhaps there are other things that I can do to help with that and I'll keep an open mind on that too.

I think I was a little foolish to run out and take a new toy on a trip where my car was 18 miles away. I was excited to try it though and rolled the dice that the weather would be a little better rather than a little worse than expected. I should know better by now.