Pad/Cold?

[Unmighty]

I am going backpacking the middle of April to the The Schloop in Va. and I have no cold weather gear for my hammock. I do have a yoga mat I can cut down and use as a pad will that help any? I do have a 0 degree sleeping bag. Will I freeze? I don't have much of a budget to get anything...

[dragon360]

Really depends on what weather you come up against. Will a yoga mat help? Absolutely more than having nothing at all. However, it may not be enough. Paired with a walmart CCF pad might go even further to helping with any real cold you come across. Not like having a UQ but most certainly a decent method of staying warm.

[Unmighty]

Walmart CCF pad? is that like the egg crate type of pad?

[HayJay]

It seems to be fairly personal. My recent experience was with an 18*F night atop Mt. Sterling, TN in the Smokies.

I slept in an ENO Singlenest in a Marmot Sawtooth 15* Down bag atop a standard Thermarest Ridgerest CCF (closed cell foam) pad. Used a Nalgene filled with boiling water dropped in a sock and placed between femoral arteries. Stayed fairly comfortable actually. I woke up around 2:30am to snow hitting my face (blowing up under the USGI poncho I used as a tarp). The snow kept me up a good bit, but I believe I would have slept decently without that distraction.

I was wearing all my insulating clothes, btw. And the Marmot Sawtooth is VERY close to being comfortable at its rated temp! I've had it in the teens on the ground as well.

A closed-cell pad inside the hammock is usually thought to be the minimum under-insulation and far from ideal but it's certainly the easiest to make happen. My comfort in this rig in those conditions are probably in the "results not typical" category, like they say in the fine print on weight loss commercials. But thought it might be a useful case study.

[KnotHere]

I started out with a yoga mat. Toss it!! I've experimented a lot over the last few weeks with a 40* bag in 32* nights. My personal cheapo solution is the Walmart blue foam pad topped with the jumbo sunshade. Works amazingly well.

[Moondoggy]

Hello Fellow Va hanger ! You should try using some reflectives with the Walmart blue foam camp pad ! I picked up a roll at Lowes for $15.00 . The stuff is like bubble wrap with a foil like surface on each side. Not sure where you are in Va. But if you are near Radford I will give you some! We are heading up Roan at the end of April I hope this weather holds up for all are sakes!

[FLRider]

Walmart CCF pad? is that like the egg crate type of pad?

It can be. It's the blue pads sold in the camping section of WallyWorld. The general consensus, though, is that the standard 20"-wide pad isn't quite wide enough at the shoulders and hips to keep you warm in those areas in a hammock. Since the hammock wraps those areas (something you don't have to worry about sleeping on the ground), it compresses your sleeping bag in those areas, leading to cold spots.

There are a multitude of solutions, but the two most common with pads are to glue a pair into a "T" formation or to use a Speer Pad Extender (SPE). Unfortunately, SPEs are no longer sold commercially; however, JustJeff has a wonderful tutorial on how to make one located here. If you can sew, this is probably the cheapest way to insulate on the bottom out there.

Hope it helps!

[BlackTalon]

Hello from another Virginian!

I use a reusable space blanket, paired with a good wool blanket and it is really all you need.

I use of of these:

http://stores.thepathfinderschoolllc...ket/Detail.bok

And bring along with me a military surplus wool blanket. Wool insulates when wet, does not compress when laid on like down, is cheap, and multi-functional. I lay the emergency blanket on top of the hammock, with the wool blanket on top of that...followed by me. During the winter I would sleep in the black (Arctic) bag from the Military Sleep system and have been toasty warm down into the teens. All of these items serve many functions while out in the woods, and are not specialty items bought just for hammock camping.

I was so warm with this setup that at 18deg I had to zip part of the sleeping bag down to let some cool air in so I wouldn't start sweating. All of this will not be needed in April. Probably just a wool blanket will suffice, but it is always a good idea to carry the Emergancy tarp/blanket with you anyway...just in case.

Hope this helps!

[PDA]

+1 on the WW camping section blue pad ($7) All you need to low 30s. Check the Just Jeff site for the best way to deploy. I cut mine in half and lay the two pieces side by side, overlapped, to give a torso pad 36" long and about 30-32 inches wide, lace a bit of cord through a couple of holes punched through the pads and they won't separate until you unlace them for packing. That length works especially well with the bottom entry HH.

[ftroop94]

Hey there! I've been temporarily residing in Tennessee for the last 17 years, but in my heart the Commonwealth will always be home. I love it all, from the Tidewater, to tobacco country, the Shenendoah Valley and the mountains!

I saw this ENO Hotspot as a solution on another thread. Of course, if you ever pick up a UQ you will feel like you've just gone from dragging your knuckles to walking erect!

Here's a link on that: http://www.rei.com/product/830279/en...ping-pad-wings