So, we took our scouts out on a last moment camp this weekend. I won't go into the details, but though we intended to camp up in the mountains, we ended up in the desert. Anyways, there weren't many options for hanging a hammock. The juniper in the area are fairly small. I did manage to find a pair that I thought would work, and they did for a few hours. Just after I had started to drift off to sleep I felt something poke my hip. The trees had slowly bent enough for me to touch the ground. Now the rocks in this area are as sharp as broken glass. Something about the way they erode leaves the surface of the stones covered in razor sharp spines and ridges. I immediately began to fear that the rock now pressing into my right cheek was going to abrade through my hammock and ground pad. I carefully exited my hammock to discover that indeed it had abraded a 5 inch hole in the outer layer of my hammock. Now frustrated I kicked the rock out of the way and figured that the hammock should hold the rest of the night and that I could patch it up at home. I raised and tightened the hammock suspension and climbed back in. All seemed well. However, just as I was drifting off to sleep again my hammock split from edge to edge with a pop that sounded like a gunshot and birthed me out on the hill.
I spent the rest of the night under a juniper tree where the duff was thick enough to cover all the rocks and thorns.
Time to order new and heavier fabric for the Bear Taco v2.0. One nice thing about making my own hammock is that at least it wasn't a $350 clark jungle hammock. These rocks would eventually wear through cordura let alone most hammock fabrics.
My buddy, and fellow scout master, slept comfortably in his home made mesh hammock. He didn't miss the opportunity to rub it in.
sorry for the crappy photos, all we had was a cell phone camera.
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