Kelty Noah 9. First time out.
Had my Noah 9 out for the first time this past weekend. Before, I just used the HH with stock fly, which always kept me dry, but didn't leave much room when caught in a rain storm. I knew the weight penalty of the Noah 9, but for the price ($50) I had to give it a shot.
I took my DIY hammock and an ENO Guardian Bug net, and with the Noah still came out a little bit lighter then my HH setup, so not bad.
This thing is huge compared to the HH stock tarp. I had to adjust my eyes when looking for a hanging spot. But I found the perfect spot that was about 2 feet wider than the tarp on both ends. Next thing to adjust my eyes on was trees out to the side of the hanging spot. One side had a small tree about 4 feet from ridgeline and about 1 foot off center, which forced me to use a very steep angle on that side, but wasn't an issue as I was clear on the other side to let air in.
The simplicity is consistent with the stock HH since it is mainly used in a diamond shape. Figure 9's for attaching to trees and mason line whoopies for the tie outs, and this thing was up in a jiffy. Set it a tad over my head standing up and had ample room to spread my stuff out and get my hammock all set up.
Got rained on off and on for the whole weekend, ranging from light mist, to heavy downpour. Tarp held up despite not seam sealing it. The triangles by the tie outs looked to be getting a little soak through by the end, but anything over my head looked great.
I am going to experiment with alternate setups like attaching to the trees with the next attach point from the corners and pulling the corners down as a small door at each end.
Very happy with this tarp. A little bulky and a bit heavy, but not enough to push me toward a more expensive one quite yet. Tons of room, and a simple setup without requiring huge gaps between trees.
