What do you use in treeless sites?

[ShooTa]

im sure actually someone did a mod to one of the more common DIY stands which worked for backpacking ... shame you think that the handyhammock stands is too expensive -
ill have a look tonight as im sure ive seen someone do the same with a bit of wood and some cordage.

[brazilianguy]

I have a handyhammock. That stand is awesome! With the forces that it takes, I find it unlikely to replace the posts with regular poles, the stand is well thought out, and distributes the forces accordingly.

[cougarmeat]

I carry a plastic sheet ground "cloth", some collapsible poles (REI - about $24) and a ¾ length pad (though I use an UQ). If I have to, The poles will guy out and hold the tarp, I use the hammock with bugnet as a bivi bag, an the netting on the hammock is held up, off my face, by attaching it to the poles. One of the downsides to adventure, is you don't know if there will be trees for hanging. And as kayaking in my preferred travel means, there is more sand beaches and/or rock shelves, then when forest hiking.

Hammockastent1.jpg

[novasquid]

I have a handyhammock. That stand is awesome! With the forces that it takes, I find it unlikely to replace the posts with regular poles, the stand is well thought out, and distributes the forces accordingly.

how long is your hammock? their site says they're handyhammock supports hammocks up to 10.5' wondering if a warbonnet xlc at 11' will fit on it.

[brazilianguy]

how long is your hammock? their site says they're handyhammock supports hammocks up to 10.5' wondering if a warbonnet xlc at 11' will fit on it.

It's a 10ft danger bird. i wouldn't put anything longer, mine is around 6" from the ground as is... I did have to put them wider apart. I have seem someone on the forum fit a 11ft hammock to it.

[novasquid]

i'm doing a search now to see if an 11' footer can work, but not finding anything. if you find a link/thread, can you post it here?

[brazilianguy]

I was mistaken, the thread I thought about was a WBBB 10ft https://www.hammockforums.net/forum/...ackbird-(WBBB)

[DanglingModifier]

If there are good rocks where you hike I'd look to inexpensive climbing gear first as an alternate way to hang. Climbing nuts are nice and light weight. Extra rope or webbing to secure an attachment point off of a nearby boulder is cheap, light, and doesn't take up a lot of room in the pack.

Two trees the right distance apart can be tough to find, but can you reliably find ONE tree? If so, a nearby boulder or a single strut might do the trick. One strut means less to carry, and it would be far easier to set up than two struts. I'd double check that Handy Hammock won't sell you a single strut at a price point that works for you before heading down the DIY route.

How successful you'll be with homemade lightweight struts will boil down to how heavy you are, how long your hammock is (shorter is easier), and how talented you are sourcing materials. The Handy Hammock stand is an incredible example of precision engineering. They claim a 275 pound limit for it, assuming it is set up properly (which frankly can be a real challenge). Factor in less appropriate materials and a less efficient design (i.e. loss of tensioners along strut length, less effective stake system) and I'd be wary of trying a really light weight DIY equivalent if I weighed much more than 150 pounds. Now, despite the HH strut being the gold standard for design it still will take you several hours to erect it in a way that will actually suspend your hammock the first time you try using it, especially if you're trying to use it with an 11' hammock. If you learn the right lessons while doing it, you might only take 1-2 hours to set it up properly the second time you erect it. Eventually you'll have customized and modified the lines you pack with it to the point where you can set it up more reliably in under a half hour. Some people have claimed they can erect theirs in about five minutes. I haven't done it often enough to be nearly that good, and an 11' hammock does make it harder to use. Keep in mind that's the experience with the gold standard. Now imagine the extra effort required if you DIY and nothing is already designed or pre-measured for you: Lots of trial and error.

If you want to go the DIY route try it with a single strut and one tree and see if you can build something bomb-proof. Set aside at least a few hours to work on it, because there is a lot of fine tuning required.

For a cheap experiment you might try a sturdy 2" dowel with no obvious imperfections and some 24" rebar stakes. The dowel could easily snap if you pitch it perpendicular to the ground, but if you emulate the HH struts and shoot for a 60 degree angle it'll focus the shear force down the length of the dowel instead. Notch the bottom and top of the dowel with small channels to keep guy lines in place and review the Handy Hammock setup instructions to make a "bottom" set of light guy lines (to hold the dowel foot in place) and a "top" set of strong guy lines (these hold your weight). If you have a solid dowel pitched at the proper angle with the right stakes I'd trust that setup with 200 pounds, maybe more. Start with 8-10 foot "top" guy lines to your stakes, and drive your stakes in at the same 60 degree angle away from the strut. Shortening your guy lines will create more force pulling your stakes out of the ground, so start far away and work your way in closer until you get a happy length for the guy lines. Everything has to be REALLY tight when you set it up. Don't shoot for a 30 degree hang when you are eyeballing the setup. Pitch everything really taut. Loading the hammock will stretch and bend things, and if you're lucky you'll end up close to 30 degrees when things settle. Remember that your safety is entirely your responsibility, and my comfort level and risk tolerance may not be the same as yours. Don't stick yourself or your hammock with a broken dowel or rebar!

I haven't touched on a good way to attach your hammock to the dowel. That's because I haven't really thought of one yet. Maybe you can sink a small enough lag bolt into the end of the dowel to hook over it without compromising the strength of your dowel. Doing so would also give you a better attachment point for your top guy lines than the notch I described earlier.

If you get everything pitched properly take a piece of string and measure from your one tree to the top of your strut. Cut your string and keep it as a ruler for the next time you need to set up the strut. Now take down your strut and set it up against another tree somewhere else using your string (or hammock) to measure where to put it. The strut being one or two inches out of place, and the pitch of the setup being too loose, can be the different between your hammock being in the dirt, being a few inches off the ground, or being high enough to get an UQ underneath it once it has been loaded.

The goal is to get inexpensive direct experience with the principles involved in setting up a semi-packable strut successfully (hint: it's 99% about getting the stakes and guy lines with the right taut pitch, and about positioning of the strut in the right place to work with your tree or other strut). If the dowel/rebar works and you don't mind strapping that mess to your pack, you're done. If it is heavier than you like (it will be) and you want aluminum or carbon fiber poles or stakes, you'll now have a much better sense of what you're asking of those materials.

Where the stakes are concerned you need to pick at least two of the following attributes for them: long, strong, lots. You can get by with two long and strong stakes (like the rebar described before), or you can experiment with a larger number of somewhat smaller stakes (like the six ~12" ones HH uses per strut). Two big stakes per strut will be easiest to work with if you have the right ground to pound them in, but they are the hardest to carry. Try setting it up with a couple tent stakes and see how little weight on the hammock pulls them out. You'll quickly realize the stakes and the angles they are driven are key to your success.

Which brings me to my second to last point. The ground doesn't always accommodate your plans. Often you need a mallet to sink your stakes. Sometimes you can't get them back out. Sometimes there are too many rocks and roots to sink your stakes very far or at all at the length of your precisely measured guy lines. Sometimes your ground is too wet or soft to hold your stakes in and when you load your hammock you end up on your butt. Even if you've got the setup down cold in your own backyard, struts can be a challenge to use effectively once on the trail. Having a plan B (extra rope to adjust guy lines to circumstances) and a plan C (go to ground) is a good idea until you know your stakes and guy lines will work at your campsite.

Which brings me to my last point. You still need a way to pitch your tarp over your strut(s). Using the strut for an attachment point for your tarp will leave you with either a loose tarp or a ripped tarp. If you hike with poles, then they will come in handy to keep your tarp above your struts. Be sure to test tarp deployment before you hit the trail with your new strut.

Adding a second strut (zero trees) to the mix makes setup much, much harder and more failure prone. A second strut more than doubles the complexity of setup for reasons you'll quickly discover if you try going down that route. Try to stick with a single strut if that is possible.

If you wind up trying this out please let us know how it goes. Especially if I led you down any wrong turns or if anything was particularly helpful. Your feedback will further help future visitors looking to solve the "not enough trees where I hike" problem. It's something I struggled mightily with until I picked up a HH, and even the HH hasn't proved ideal under many scenarios.

TL;DR: Pour yourself a beer. You earned it. Getting DIY lightweight struts working with your hammock in a backpacking scenario was much harder than you imagined.

[DanglingModifier]

how long is your hammock? their site says they're handyhammock supports hammocks up to 10.5' wondering if a warbonnet xlc at 11' will fit on it.

Quite a few people submitted to the thread as I was typing my book-length response to the OP.

Getting an 11' hammock working with the HH struts is a pretty big challenge. I've successfully hung both an 11' XLC and an 11' Dutchware Argon hammock with it, but the absolute best case I think you can get is about 6"-8" off the ground (at the start of the night) with the XLC. If you have wet ground and your struts sink in a bit you might be in the dirt by morning. If you use whoopies you'll be on the ground when you get in. If you use long continuous loops with carabiners connecting to the HH you'll be on the ground when you get in.

When I say best case, I mean you've got the setup nailed down pat, you pitch it taut as a guitar string before loading it (loading it loosens things a little since the struts dig in and flex inward a touch), and you've adjusted your attachment point of your XLC to be right by your gathered end. The advertised 10.5 foot limit is a smart choice, as your average consumer might not be willing to put in the effort and cut it as close as is required to get an 11'er working.

[mountain_man_mike]

I made a DIY stand similar to the turtle dog (I think) thread and added a small eye screw to each leg for the limiters and I used a 10' section of 1 1/4" top rail fencing (cut in half to aid transport) and it is pretty solid. It's a car camping rig only but I made it from scrap 2" x 4" studs I had laying around. I paid for the hinges, T nuts and eye screws only.

For backpacking trips I'll either find some rocks conducive to straps, suffer by going to the ground or hike through the night until I reach trees.