Second Camping Hang -- On a Steep Ridge

[Shug]

Terrific .... I love a steep hang.
Ultimate stealth.
Shug

[Poppabear]

Excellent trip report! You made good choices, planned wisely and adapted as the situation dictated. I would say that was a very successful second hang. You can be justifiably proud of yourself. I would second the suggestion that has already been made. Get a pair of hiking poles they are great for maintaining balance in dicey situations. They also help easy the pressure exerted on your knees. Not to mention their usefulness for expanding the possibilities for pitching your tarp.

[WV]

Excellent trip report! You made good choices, planned wisely and adapted as the situation dictated. I would say that was a very successful second hang. You can be justifiably proud of yourself. I would second the suggestion that has already been made. Get a pair of hiking poles they are great for maintaining balance in dicey situations. They also help easy the pressure exerted on your knees. Not to mention their usefulness for expanding the possibilities for pitching your tarp.

And you'll need all those advantages when you're 80, so develop your skills now. (That's my plan.)

[MAD777]

Loved reading the report!

One thing I have learned about hanging on a slope is to make my tie-outs on one side of my tarp twice as long as the other side. I use the long tie-outs on the downhill side. Of course, this requires marking the D-ring on the end of the ridgeline so that I know which side is which before I deploy the tarp!

[E.A.Y.]

Do any of you have experience hanging on steep/slippery slopes like that?

One thing I have learned about hanging on a slope is to make my tie-outs on one side of my tarp twice as long as the other side. I use the long tie-outs on the downhill side. Of course, this requires marking the D-ring on the end of the ridgeline so that I know which side is which before I deploy the tarp!

I seem to almost always camp on a slope. Sometimes they are slippery and muddy as well. I use trekking poles, and one will be parked near the hammock so I can creak around the slippery slope like an arthritic 80 year old with out falling on my behind.

I have accidentally set up my tarp the way Mad777 mentions. I have switched to an over-the-tarp ridgeline so I can just flip the tarp over so the short lines are uphill. I suppose I should fuss about the outside of the tarp being on the top but I'm just not that fussy.

And congrats for handling your extra-exciting 2nd trip with such success!

[JayS]

A great second trip! Thanks for posting.

I often tie the tarp tie-outs to vegetation. Last month my kids and I were in a campground near Acadia National Park where there weren't three sets of optimal trees. We tied one of my son's tarp's tie-outs to a picnic table leg! It worked fine.

[coldsalmon]

Wow, thanks for all the encouraging replies. The problem with the tarp wasn't so much that the downhill side was pitched too steeply -- it was that the uphill side was not pitched steeply enough. I made the guy-line on the uphill side about 1 inch long, so that corner was pretty much as close to the ground as it could get, and it was still almost flat and level. I was afraid that water would pool in the middle of the uphill side if it started to rain again. I guess I could have folded the corner over and used two grommets on the sides of that corner, but as I said, I only had two stakes. I didn't want to raise my hammock up too high either, as I was over a big rock.

[E.A.Y.]

I made the guy-line on the uphill side about 1 inch long, so that corner was pretty much as close to the ground as it could get, and it was still almost flat and level. I was afraid that water would pool in the middle of the uphill side if it started to rain again. I guess I could have folded the corner over and used two grommets on the sides of that corner, but as I said, I only had two stakes.

Disclaimer: I'm sitting here at my computer avoiding housework so I make no claims to the validity of the following!

I would have tried this: found a stick just longer than the folded edge between the two grommets. Tied one end of a piece of line to one grommet, and the other end to the other grommet. Attached the stick to the line with clove hitches, so the stick is paralleling the folded edge of the tarp. Stuck a stake in the middle of the line.
Gosh, we need a picture.
Anyway - the stick keeps the grommets a fixed distance apart, the line goes from grommet #1 to stick end #1 to stake to stick end #2 and then grommet #2.

Picture!