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  1. #1
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    A newbs journey, part 1

    First proper post here, let me know if it should be placed somewhere else.

    My intention with this, and hopefully coming posts, is to describe my journey from zero knowledge of hammocking to wherever it will lead me. Hopefully I may inspire others to try out hammocking while at the same time not bore the more experienced ones to death. I´ll keep my related posts in each thread, but will most likely start separate threads for each "major" step on my journey. Since english is not my first language I welcome your feedback on things like equipment I have a hard time translating or finding the english words for.

    First off a bit of a background. I´m Swedish. In Sweden most people think about hiking/trekking as something to be done in mountainous terrain close or above the tree line. We call this general area Fjällen. It looks something like this: A blog in Swedish with some beautiful pictures. Don´t mind the text, just enjoy the scenery.
    As you can see, trees are sort of sparse in this type of terrain. In other words, when swedes go camping/trekking/hiking they use tents. Period. In sweden the word hammock is synonymous to something like this. A suspended sofa. We call this "hängmatta", literally "hanging carpet". It´s something that you hang in your garden, you don´t take it with you on your camping journey. My experience of lying in a hängmatta (english term?) is as a child, getting back aches due to its sagginess.

    Now, Sweden is also blessed with a number of trails that are more or less maintained by volounteers. Lowland trekking lives in the shadow of its more majestic brother fjällvandring, mountain trekking, but it lives a healthy life. Most of these trails have web sites with varying amounts of information which I´d be happy to link to anyone interested. Here is an exampel of one of the, if not the, largest and most well known trails, Sörmlandsleden.

    As for me personally I´m not really a hardcore outdoorsman. My background in the Swedish army way up north gave me a fairly solid knowledge about managing myself in the woods, and on a few occasions mountains, mostly in the winter. Now having children that are growing up, ages soon-to-be-5 and 6,5 respectively, I do strongly feel that taking them, and my wife, into the "wild" will hopefully both teach them a lot of valuable lessons and also bring us as a family even tighter together. Last year my plan of indoctrination began with getting a, in swedish standards, large camping tent. My plan was, and is, that camping must be fun and enjoyable so I start out with a lot of comfort.

    During one of those outings where we had the company of our neighbours I had my first experience with what in these forums is called a hammock. Not the 500 pound wooden construction, but a flimsy little thing. More of that after the break (actually my first meeting at work for the day ).

  2. #2
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    That outing started as usual with us making camp, setting up a table, some chairs and whatnot. Our neighbours set up their small dome tent. The woman was at the time very, very pregnant. I had suggested that we perhaps should book a nearby cabin so that she could lie down comfortably, but she didn´t think that would be necessary.
    Next to their tent they then went on to rig what I then learned was a Warbonnet Blackbird. I didn´t think much about it (remember my childhood memories about uncomfortable sagging hammocks) but she went on to have a very pleasant night lying in it. This peeked my interest and I started surfing the web. Finding videos from Warbonnet Outdoors led to others that showed me about the proper way to lie in them. Soon I hit the motherload! Shug. Not much more to be said, WOOOOO buddy!

    Towards the end of summer I borrowed their WBB and spent a night in it. No tarp, no underquilt, just my olde Thermarest and equally olde sleeping bag from my army days. The temperature crept down to around 8C (about 46F) and I slept like a baby. I was sold. The comfort coupled with the closeness to nature was simply astonishing.
    I still wasn´t convinced that this was an ideal solution. My main issue was the family. Switching to hammocks from tent felt, and still feels, like we´d need a lot more of equipment to house two adults and two kids. The footprint of a camp site also feels like it will be a fair amount bigger. Another issue is that I tend to wake up to check on the kids when we sleep out, especially when the temperatures drop a bit (a normal warm summer night usually sees temperatures around 15-18C (59-64F), something that I reckon is a bit more cumbersome if we all lie in hammocks. Pro tips wanted

    This summer I plan to introduce trekking to my oldest son. Starting with short distances where he gets to set the pace. Again, max fun! The lowland trails that I mentioned usually have open shelters of varying sorts where one can spend the night without the need to bring tents. By now however my craving for the hammock solution has gotten the best of me. I foresee a mix of me getting out in the woods either solo or with my neighbour or one of the kids interspersed with our family going camping.

    So, after some internal debate, I have recently ordered a Hennesy Hex Rainfly from a Swedish retailer and a Woodsman X DL from UK Hammocks. I really enjoyed the WBB but they are not that easy to get a hold of in Sweden/Europe. I also like what I see in the Woodsman, so there we have it.

    The tarp, along with a set of snakeskins, arrived a couple of weeks ago. The Woodsman will take some more weeks. Last saturday the temperatures finally decided to play nice and I went out with the kids to try out the tarp. I was interested in trying out the "one continous ridgeline with two carabiners" method as shown by Derek Hansen here. Prior to leaving the comforts of home I obviously had to do some rigging indoors I had strung up the line, attached the tarp and skins and then packed everything together with the ridgeline still attached. I contacted Derek and was reminded that the idea was to have the ridgeline separate. Not that it´s problem to packing the whole lot together, but if you want to use other methods it´s simpler to have the items stored separately.

    If the forum functions as I suspect I´ll have some pics at the end of the post.

    So, first baby steps with my own equipment was thus to get the tarp set up.

    Pic 1.
    Here we are with the initial hanging of the tarp. As you can see it´s an all in one package at this stage.

    Pic 2.
    Detail of the fixed end of the ridgeline. Both the line and biners are simple, cheap stuff. As I build experience I´ll probably invest in lighter stuff.

    Pic 3.
    Detail of the moving end with the biner larks headed(?) to the prussik loop.

    Pic 4.
    I quickly felt that the skins got a bit squeezed between the tarp and the V of the ridgeline. The tarp comes with a short string attached to the D-rings. I attached this string to the biner which meant the the skins could be gathered over that short piece of line comfortably.

    Pic 5.
    Skins in that position.

    Pic 6.
    The whole thing in place.

    Pic 7.
    The tarp feels rather spacious. I think that it will be comfortable even if one has to angle the sides more steeply due to wind and/or rain.

    Pic 8. Another concern I had was wether the tarp would slip into the skins when packed away. Just to stop this from happening I tied the short pieces of rope from the D-rings to the loops in the narrow ends of the skins.

    Pic 9. Overview of the size of the kit when packed away.

    Thus ended my first foray into the world of hammocking. As the temperatures seem to stay above freezing at night I´m getting really anxious to try out the Woodsman X (nudge nudge Mat ) I hope y´all enjoyed this little summary and that it won´t be long until I get to write a follow-up.

    Cheers from chilly Sweden!
    Attached Images Attached Images
    Last edited by Tord Hoppe; 04-22-2013 at 07:25. Reason: Update with content

  3. #3
    Member Swehanger's Avatar
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    A newbs journey, part 1

    You're not alone!-) in a few years i belive there is going to be a lot more hammockers in Sweden to when all the ground dwellers discovers the comfort of hammock.
    I have coverted a few My self already.
    It would be great to have an official hang somewere in sweden sometime.

  4. #4
    Senior Member
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tord Hoppe View Post
    ...I have recently ordered a...Woodsman X DL from UK Hammocks. I really enjoyed the WBB but they are not that easy to get a hold of in Sweden/Europe.
    Welcome to HF!

    Brandon ships to Europe, so all you have to do is to add the WBBB of your choice to the shopping cart.
    I live in Switzerland, and had no problems at all getting my WBBB shipped to me.
    What might hit you, however, is a customs fee (if your custom officers feel like that the day your WBBB passes their desks), so it might get a little bit more pricey than what you expected.
    Saying that, the Woodsman X DL is a great hammock too, so you'll soon have a great hammock to enjoy underneath your Hennessy Rainfly.
    Maybe you'll get a WBBB as well once "the hammock addiction" has you completely under it's spell...
    Good judgement comes from experience - Experience comes from bad judgement

  5. #5
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    Yeah, in Sweden we get to enjoy a VAT of 25%. Add delivery costs and the customs fee to that and the cost ramps up quite a bit when ordering from the states. I'd like to mention that UK Hammocks also carry some of the WB stuff.

    See you!

  6. #6
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    My neighbours are leaving for a month long trip to the US and were kind enough to lend me their WBBB´s. Om nom nom

  7. #7
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    Welcome to HF from sunny Florida. You came to the right place to get started!

  8. #8
    New Member Darkwing's Avatar
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    Re: A newbs journey, part 1

    I have a WBBB and Superfly arriving any day now.
    Shipping is $45 which I think is all right.
    I did however end up getting caught in customs So 25% extra there.
    Total cost including 200' of guylines, a large assortment of biners plus WBBB and Superfly approx 4000 SEK.
    Kind of scary spending that for something I haven't even tried but considering all the reviews here I'm not overly worried.
    Maybe we can hook up somewhere over the summer if you want to check it out.
    And welcome to the forums. There are actually a few Swedes here.

  9. #9
    New Member Darkwing's Avatar
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    Re: A newbs journey, part 1

    My gear arrived yesterday!
    Haven't had time to play with it for real yet but I am super excited.
    Brandon was nice enough to declare the total value at $90 so duties ended up at 317SEK

    So total cost around 3600 SEK, inc 200' of guy lines, 10 biners and 20 y-stakes.

    Not cheap but quality stuff

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