My first overnight in a hammock

**justaguy** · 03-26-2012, 11:54

Overall, it was a success, though I do need to tweak a few things.

Because I don't have any appropriately sized trees in my yard, I hadn't had the chance to spend a night in my WBBB until this weekend's overnight hike.

I had purchased quite a bit of new gear recently, and I was very eager to try everything out. My new gear included an Osprey Exos 58 pack, a WBBB with whoopies and Dutch's whoopie hooks, a Superfly with continuous ridgeline with Dutch's Flyz and hook, and HG's Phoenix and Burrow. I also wanted to try cooking with my new alcohol stove from Tinny.

The weight savings I had with the new pack/hammock/quilts was astounding! Those items alone allowed me to shave 11 pounds from my load. 11 pounds -- sheesh!

Other than my water, my loaded pack including food, fuel and a bit of booze came in at 13.4 pounds. That includes my camp shoes and a silly amount of extra cordage in case I had issues setting everything up.

I can hardly believe how quickly the tarp and hammock went up! My brother was using a two-hooped single tent, and I was easily set up before him, and he didn't even take the rain fly out of his pack. Of course he had a broken tent pole to contend with.... I did nearly slip off one of the toggles, but it was because I had dislodged it as I kept walking back and forth under the straps/slings to tweak the tie outs.

I should interject here that my brother will be purchasing a WBBB before his next hike. He was impressed!

The temp was 81* as we were making camp, and the overnight low was 52*. The quilts were incredible! Both are rated to 40*, so I was quite toasty. Too toasty at times, because I always use a liner. I finally found a happy medium by keeping my feet out of the foot box, and my arms on top of the quilt. I only had my undies and tee shirt on while sleeping, though that's probably too much info for you. My UQ kept getting away from me, so I may rig up something with my Dutch quilt hooks.

I also need to make sure I set the WBBB's guy lines out a bit further to give me more room inside. At one point I woke up with my head against the mesh on the zipper side, completely rendering it useless. Luckily, I had no bites.

The shelf was great for storing my clothes and water bottle.

I did have some pressure on my left calf at one point, even though my foot end was higher than my head end, and my ridgeline was almost at the correct tension. I could flex it to the 90* mark, but I had to muscle it. As a point of reference, I'm 5'9" and weigh in at 165 lbs.

I set the tarp up in porch mode just to try it out. Right before I retired for the night I tucked it all up in to the snake skins so that I could watch the stars.

Taking everything down was super quick and easy.

In short, I was very happy with how everything turned out.

**Bubba** · 03-26-2012, 12:50

Sounds like your a pro already. The calf ridge pressure happens with gathered end hammocks. I've carried a self inflating sitting pad for around camp that I slidunder my leg which really helps. Other times I have tucked a fleece jacket under my leg as well. Others times I set up and its not there at all.

As much as we try to keep things consistent, the environmet wiil always make it harder to keep things exactly the same. Setting up in the dark, on a hill, in the cold all have worked to affect how I have hung my hammock. For the most part I get it consistent but you can't always get it so sometimes you have adjust things.

**SteveJJ** · 03-26-2012, 13:23

Had my first outdoor overnight out in the woods Saturday night. What an enormous amount of sounds to adjust to. Owls, coyote, grouse drumming in the middle of the night, trains in the distance, wind in the trees.... A long series of awakenings. It was great though, quilts were quite warm enough and the mosquito netting blocked more of the breeze than I'd though it could.

I owe the pleasure of the experience to all I've learned here. I'm forever grateful for the generosity of the members of hammock forums!

**dusman** · 03-26-2012, 21:31

My first overnight trip was perrty good although i did here a lot of distant sounds in the night and i mite have woken up about twelve times .I recommend using headphones or something to block out sounds in the night