You have to wait some for the weather here in Southeast Texas to get cold enough to brag about. Last night was forecast for in the 30's, so I thought this might be one of those nights where I could pretend it was enough like Minnesota (OK, Minnesota in early spring) to brag about sleeping in a hammock.
My first hang was techincally not a hang, so I got a porch swing hook and screwed it into the jamb of the door on the backyard shed at just above head height and exactly 14 feet from the nearest tree.
I was kinda proud because my hammock looked like all the pictures of all the other hammocks. Sleeping surface is right at chair height, and I got a very flat lay out of it.
I intended on taking more pics, but that right there is where the batteries ran dead. I'll change them out and get some pics of the inside later this afternoon if I get the time.
I'm using Crazy Creek straps with descender rings on the HHDJ line as the suspension. I put a Magellan self inflating pad in with the HH reflectix and then a piece of reflectix I picked up off the side of the road (yes, the addiction is getting that bad) inside. Its about 4 feet wide by 6 feet long, so it covered my shoulders fairly well. No gram weenie here.
I made a field expedient Top Quilt out of my woobie by tying three of the ties together on the narrow end and then one in the center and slipped a fleece Swiss Army surplus fleece mummy liner inside that, then slipped that over a Eureka 30 degree mummy bag, with a zipped up jacket at the foot end. Woobie and fleece on top, mummy on the bottom---theory was that the under insulation and mummy bag would be good enough for the forecast temps, and the "TQ" arrangement would be sufficeint to allow me to leave the top of the mummy bag open to make it easier to get into and out of. I staked the HH tarp close to the mosquito netting to act as a Top Cover. Wore a waffle pattern undershirt with a pair of sleeping pants underneath fleece sweatpants and a fleece hoodie. I think the underinsulation is close enough for gummint work in Texas, but I definetly need a good TQ as the mummy bag is still a PITB to get into, and more restrictive than I'd like. I wasn't toasty, but I wasn't cold either.
The principal problem I had was with the wind. The layout of the back yard is such that I have no real choice as how to orient the hammock in regard to the wind. The foot end is pointed roughly NNE and the wind was coming in from the north. I pulled the woobie and fleece up over my head and that was OK until the wind started picking up. After midnight, it started blowing 10+ MPH and was gusting over 15. One of those gusts lifted the tarp in just the right direction and pulled the guy line off the stake. I'd gone to sleep by that time and was woken up by the sound of one side of the tarp flapping around. I opened my eyes and saw sky. Did my best to pull the tarp back over to the side it belonged on (luckily it had come off the zipper side) and clipped it off to the hammock guy line. I was warm and didn't want to get out in the cold to find the dam stake and tie the line off again. That worked to keep it from flapping around, but it wasn't tight enough to keep it from slapping up against the mosquito netting fairly loudly when the wind gusted, so I was woken up a couple times. Needless to say, I didn't have any condensation issues----with a loose tarp and the narrow end of the hammock pointed into the wind it was kinda breezy under there.
Finally gave up and decided to go back into the house to sleep and was surpised to find that it was 4:37 AM, less than an hour before my normal wake up time, so just decided to have breakfast early and drink an extra cup of coffee. Temp read 35 degrees.
All in all, I'd call it mostly a success. I'm going to put some prusiks on the hammock guy lines to clip the tarp to in situations when I use it as a cold weather TC. I've bought a couple of those thermoflect blankets that were on the group buy and will use one the same way as I used the roadkill reflectix. Should be more comfortable, less slippery, less weight, and less bulk. I'm also gonna try to cut one to the same shape as the HH reflectix for the same reason. I think I've just bought a couple of used North Face mummy bags and will mod one up as a UQ with the woobie and another piece of thermoflect, and the other as a TQ used with the Swiss Army fleece bag. That should take care of most cold situations I'd encounter round here and be modular enough to be adaptable to varying situations.
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Thanks for a good morning laugh.
Originally Posted by Bannerstone
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