I got some father-son time with my oldest (9 yo) this past weekend. We both had a good time! Friday afternoon we arrived and I had barely gotten my tarp up when it started raining. It's a Hennessy Hex so the coverage is good and we were able to sit under it and talk while the rain came down. After the rain finished, I was able to set up my hammock (Yukon double w/ENO bugnet) and his, a Hennessy Explorer Asym that I had traded for with a coworker. This was our first experience with hammocking in the rain as well as our first time outside of our backyard.
The explorer I didn't hang quite right at first - it needs to be pretty close to the asym tarp to get good coverage. I've got a much better idea of how it needs to be hung now.
We had supper cooked with the Trangia 27 kit - the more I use that kit, the more I like it. It's not ultralight by any stretch, but it works really well. The firewood I purchased from the park was damp so getting a fire started was difficult, but finally success and with that, smores!
Friday night was mostly uneventful but I got a bit chilly on the underside as I didn't use any insulation there.
Saturday we hiked the Stone Mountain Loop trail plus the lower and middle falls spur - which I thought was 5.5 miles but apparently is more like 7 when everything is accounted for (see http://www.everytrail.com/fullscreen...rip_id=1328837 for a detail of the hike we did NOTE this is NOT our hike, it is someone else's - we went the opposite direction). Temperatures hit the mid 80s with close to 100% humidity.
We saw two small crayfish, one large salamander, and one medium black snake.
The upper falls were spectacular, probably due to the rain both the day before and during part of our hike. The lower and middle falls were not as impressive and required several stream crossings (very cold water) that were also probably harder than normal due to the increased flow/rain.
I'm really proud of my son for sticking with me through the whole hike (9:30-3:30 or so).
After the hike we changed clothes - I was completely soaked with sweat - and headed out to Stone Mountain Country Store for some ice cream. While there, the skies turned threatening again so we headed out to the campsite. Unfortunately they broke open just as we got back so we stayed in the car for a while playing games on my phone.
After the rain lightened up a bit I decided that we should go under the tarp for a while. However, my son slammed his thumb in the car door, so we had to take care of that. He calmed down after a while and we were able to go under the tarp again. Due to the rain we ate under the tarp (his first taste of SPAM!).
One of the other campsites:
The rain ended around 8:30 and I was able to get a fire going using the alcohol fuel for the trangia - we roasted marshmallows and watched the fire until 10:30. Time for bed, except that the sleeping bag, pad, and bottom of the Hennessy are damp. I switched it out for the yukon netted version and we finally got to bed around 11.
I was quite toasty Saturday night, having added my diy PLUQ with dollar store sunshade insulation (I ended up with a poncho liner that has bands of insulation inside - most of the stitching to keep the batting in place is gone. That's what I get for trying to find the cheapest one...)
My son liked the zipper enclosure over the bottom velcro entry of the Hennessy but didn't give much more feedback other than that he slept well both nights. I will be adding drip strings to the Hennessy because I think that is where the water came from (the bugnet wasn't wet and the overall wetness was on the bottom). I may have had some problem with how I set up the tarp - there was a bit of wetness on one side of the hammock. I'll see what happens in an extended downpour when I have drip strings installed.
Sunday morning we got up at 8:45 and lazily spent the morning breaking camp and working on a walking stick. The hex tarp and my whoopie setup worked wonderfully, though the whoopies were still wet when I packed up. Since most of the stuff was at least damp from the dew/humidity I dried it out in the sun once we got home. We had it a lot better than our neighbors who decided to call it quits when their tent started flooding!
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