Small Victories in New Endeavors

[sargevining]

When you're my age, that's what you hope for. Yesterday, I figured out how to hang my own tarp. Probly not the best way, but its my hang dammit, and I did it all by myself. With oodles and ooldles of help from HF and all the posters and videographers here.

I had gotten a Crazy Creek Crib and Tarp off Ebay for $30. It didn't take long for me to find out that there was a better way to hang than this.

But the good news is that I like the tarp, and I'm able to cannibalize the crib to use the straps and buckles for my hammock. Right now I'm waiting on some descender rings to come from REI to have a complete set up for the hammock.

Here's the tarp laid out on the floor:


It pretty robust an definetly not Ultra Light, but its my first Tarp Love, so try to understand.

Ridge tie outs pretty well reinforced.

[sargevining]

I was a bit concerned that those reinforcements would be too big for the mesh snake skins from Wilderness Logics, but they fit OK. I took the rig down to the local future riot site and set it up. I've opted to go with ring buckles for both the hammock and tarp.







The main reason I like the tarp (except the price) was the mini-beaks at each end. I'm enough of a noob not to trust some of the high speed low drag lookin' tarps some of you young pups are sportin'-----and rains in Southeast Texas can be realistically described as a whole herd of cows pee-peeing on a bunch of flat rocks at the same time.





I'm using NiteIze Figure9 Reflective Tent Line kit for the guy lines. I've never used Figure 9s before, but they looked like they made sense. I onlhy guyed out the four corners and did not try porch mode. After the descender rings show up, I'll head down to Brazos Bend to do a full set up and try porch mode with all guys out and a couple of trekking poles.

[Dos]

What an awesome set up!!
Good luck with those niners....

Expecting more pics

[sargevining]

I also got the shelter arrangement organized. With both the tarp and hammock in snake skins, I noticed that a Paladin Go Bag I had laying around seemed to be just the ticket.

[sargevining]

What an awesome set up!!
Good luck with those niners....

Expecting more pics

Thanks, but it pales in comparison to some of the others I've seen here. I was a bit worried that those mini-beaks would force me to put the hammock too low, but it seems to be OK. I'll be better able to judge once I get the hammock underneath. Descender rings getting here on Tuesday, so by Thursday I should have the whole thing up.

[sargevining]

Went to the mail box and the descender rings were there! The Express riders must have fed their ponies extra oats last week. Won't have much time between now and Tuesday to mess with them, but iof this nice weather holds I'll have the hammock hung on Tuesday.

[gunner76]

what counts is, does it work for you.

[sargevining]

what counts is, does it work for you.

Well,

So far it works well for 15 minutes in a Public Park. We'll see in a coupla weeks how it does overnight in the woods.

[jayf124]

Looks great. Look forward onto hearing how it works out for you on an overnight and when those cows rain down on it. Big fan of niners here..recently started using them and wish I would have given them a try a long time ago.

Also.....must be nice to have a Paladin Go Bag "laying around"

[sandykayak]

I found the Crazy Creek tarp somewhere for a good price and love the beaks.

Problem is that it's very short and has loops - ie you can't pull the ridgeline through the top of the beak.

Since I want it to provide shade on the deck (using a Vario stand), I bought a yard or so of a similar frabric (from JoAnn's) and plan to insert it in the middle, thus extending the length.

It means cutting the tarp in half and sewing two seam lines. I may or may not bother to seal the seams since it's for shade not rain.