Boredom.. Randomly searching around the web, Saw a deal on a tent hammock...
Had money to waste.. Never looked back..
Wish it was more exciting than that but... It works
Boredom.. Randomly searching around the web, Saw a deal on a tent hammock...
Had money to waste.. Never looked back..
Wish it was more exciting than that but... It works
I was at the National Jamboree at Ft. A.P. Hill, VA and Hennssey had a great display of Hammock Camping beside the LNT event.
I got in one and my son and I bought them when we got home.
Then I found HF and the rest they say is history.. and I won't go back. I love it!
Jerry
WWW
"I too have kept the Vigil"
“Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday.”
― John Wayne
www.thescoutmasterminute.net
http://www.youtube.com/user/scoutmasterjerry
I had been in Israel for a few months on a trip that was largely centered on hiking, but I was still in the phase where I hated camping. Somebody on bikeforums.net mentioned that while on bike tours, they slept in a hammock and it was incredibly comfortable, which caught my interest. They also mentioned this place and pretty soon I was convinced I had to try it.
So I ordered a Grand Trunk UL Skeeter Beeter and pretty soon I was enjoying my first hang on Mt. Precipice outside Nazareth, overlooking the Jezreel Valley, Mt. Tabor, and Mt. Moreh. Not bad! My first overnight hang was in an olive orchard in a wadi near the village of Kabul. Then I started doing longer hikes with the hammock and eventually completed the Israel National Trail, hammocking for almost all of the non-desert sections (maybe 3 times I couldn't find proper trees - one of those times, if I'd had my current whoopie sling suspension, I would have been fine).
Well I'm still pretty new to hammock camping and have not officially spent a whole night sleeping in one, just several naps in my yard so far.
But my journey to hammocks was a kind of evolution from backpacking to ul backpacking to ul hammock backpacking. A few months ago it seemed like everyone who posted on backpacking light and several of my blog reads were all going nuts over hammocks, a shelter I had written off as too heavy. I got involved with the disscussion and some BPL hammockers set me straight and sent me here where Shug's videos won me over for comfort and ease of use and SgtRock's sticky threads got me seeing the UL side. The DIY'ers showed me how easy it was to make my own and I've no intention of ever going back to the ground any more than I have any intention of carrying a pack with a base weight over 15lbs.
Over the last few months I have begun to realize that my body probably would not have lasted much longer on the ground or with a 20lb base weight and it's by the grace of God that I found the wonderful people of BPL and HF.
I wanted a comfortable coffee and breakfast in the morning without my limbs falling asleep and going numb. In my tarp tents I was always leaning up on a dead arm in the morn.
Hammocks opened my woods-world up the glory.
Shug
Whooooo Buddy)))) All Secure in Sector Seven
Sleeping on the ground had gotten the better of me, wakeing up and having to take a couple of Advil or something because my entire body was hurting, I had given up camping altogether, I was wandering through Youtube awhile back and ran across some hammock videos I started off with a rope hammock and it wasn't to bad, sure beat the ground then I stumbled across this site and then Shugs videos.... well the rest is history because I have had breakfast from the hammock, And have neither intent nor desire to go back to sleeping on the ground.
"Think Outside the Tent"
I was in my peak U.L. days of a sub 5 pound pack and sleeping under a cuben tarp. One of my hiking buddies was a hammocker and I always was giving him crap for carrying all that extra weight (his systems was pretty heavy at the time.)
Well on one of my solo epic hikes, every night was logistical nightmare. The ground was either soaking wet, or too sloped to be able to set up my sleep system. So I was forced to sleep between downed trees so I would not roll down the hill.
Plus I was getting to the point (I had been noticing it for about a year or so now) that I would take me about 2 hours to get to sleep, and then I would wake up about every 45minutes with some sort of my body in pain, and would have to turn over again. I was like a rotisserie chicken at a deli all night long. I knew that my little 1in thick torso pad was no longer going to cut the mustard for me. Plus the whole entire trip I was saying to myself man if I only had a hammock, I could have set up any where I wanted to.
So I realized that the hammock was going to simplify my hiking style even more. But I did not want to take a huge weight penalty, however I did realize that I was going to take a bit of a hit, but the sleep, comfort, and versatility was going to be well worth the weight gain.
When I got back from the trip I contacted BearPaw (I knew he was a hammocker from LWB forums) and asked him what was the name of the hammocking forum he was on, he directed me to here.
So I started doing my research and, tried to figure out ways to swap gear one for one...Then I watched Shugs videos marathon style at like 2 in the morning, and the next day I ordered a WBBB, OES tarp.since then it has been a matter of dialing in my gear, buying more hammocks, and other gear. I have even gone so far as to build a U.L. system, so on and so forth...But the reality is I am happy being LW I am OK with a 7 pound base and a bigger hammock and a few other nice things that I take along....and I guess the rest his history...I just continue to experiment, and play around and have converted 4 other people to hammocks as well.
And that about covers it for me...My hammock stand is calling me, so I am going to go out into my back yard and hang for a bit
I miss my 4.8Lb base weight as a ground dweller...But I sure DON'T MISS the ground.
My heart swells knowing some of you got into this due to my fun in the piney woods in my hammock)))))))
Touched am I.
Shug
Whooooo Buddy)))) All Secure in Sector Seven
I just hurt too much in the morning to keep calling it fun. Then I saw one of Shug's videos...(insert comments from above posts)
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