Car camping at the beach

[slbear]

Slbear Jr. and I went to Carlsbad State Beach Friday for some hang time. His scout patrol was coming Saturday, but we decided to go a day early.

Although we have steel stands at home (turtle lady?) there was rain predicted Saturday and our car was jammed, so finding only One worthy tree, I positioned the car to hang to the tree in one and from a fence in the other direction.



I had my Hammeck Netty with a Zpacks asym tarp. I'm also sportn' a pretty new 2QZQ camo UQP and an Incubator 20 underneath.



My son has his HH Expedition with the standard HH asym tarp. He also has a KAQ Jarbidge UQ. Both of us have boogie boards for mats. Multi use gear ya know.



Lessons learned. When positioning a car to hang from, make more room. We were too close to the tree and fence when I switched over to bigger tarps.

Also start out with the biggest tarp you have when an El Nino storm is bearing down. I made the switch before the rain started, but the car was in the way for staking it out properly. I switched over to an HG standard tarp with doors. It was whipping in the wind Saturday night, but still AWESOME!. My son had a Superfly, which is even bigger than I recall.

Here is the calm before the storm.





Sunday am was rain and wind. There were little rivers in the sand around and under the hammocks and tents. I didn't want to get up, but not all the scouts were as dry as us, and it was time to make pancakes under the leaky EZ-Up. Taking photos was not on my mind.

I've been working on my backpack gear lately for the usually dry San Diego county, but I brought all my hammock gear in the car and was glad for it. Atlas straps and biners were better than muletape for the fence and car. The UQP kept my new incubator dry. I needed lots of little biners and extra cord for the tarp tie outs.

Another scout trip next weekend to the desert. Backpacking this time and very little chance to hang, so I'll be sleeping in the dirt, but at least it should be dry.

Thanks for reading,
Slbear

[hanggirl]

Thanks for sharing, I enjoyed reading your report.

[Brewbud]

Nice report. I have been thinking about going there. Been quite a few years since I camped there, Did the park rangers make any comments?

Cheers,
Tab

[BigE94]

beautiful place there. Is that two hammocks on a luggage rack? Brave!

[MomMeck]

I am sooooo jealous. Looks like a great time! Spring fever in full force now.

[slbear]

beautiful place there. Is that two hammocks on a luggage rack? Brave!

Brave or ignorant?

I've done this a few times, without perceiving any danger. I'm not sure if I want to hear any. It means we can find one tree in the desert and still hang.

We got one of our winter storms Saturday night. Mid 50s and rain. That's about as bad as it gets in SoCal.

Rangers were cool. They have an 8pm curfew during spring break. The rain chased away any troublemakers except us.

[TNhunter]

I've read it on here before that when using a car you should use a long strap and go over the car and loop around the axle or the wheel. Lucky the roof rack held the load/stress.

[djbillylee]

Looks awesome! Great pics and cool report. Thanks for sharing.

[slbear]

I've read it on here before that when using a car you should use a long strap and go over the car and loop around the axle or the wheel. Lucky the roof rack held the load/stress.

Fuddy-duddys!

I'll report honestly any future damage. Maybe they didn't have a Toyota.

I'm always looking for two trees, but sometimes just not possible. I've done this at least 5 times, but only twice with two hammocks.

Of course for you youngsters out there, don't do this at home. "We're what you call experts."

[gunner76]

Nice pictures. Used to live there back in '77.

Strongly recommend that you do not hang from that roof rack. It is installed using very small screws and designed to take that kind of load,