As a newbie I may be in a better position to make some observations about changes in hammocking. In the 70s I bought a polypropylene net hammock with stretchy polypro ropes. If you had about 100 pounds of force across it you could actually lay in it without it stretching to the ground. If you could get a sleeping bag into it, you couldn't get into the sleeping bag.
There was of course a great advertising photo on the net hammock package, of a guy lazing back happy go lucky and all comfy, not a care in the world. Well I get the idea that to hammockers the image of lazing back comfortably without a care in your simple hammock is still in your minds, while at the same time you have specially made hammocks, tarps, tarp doors quilts, under quilts, bug sleeves, whoopie cords, tree huggers, ridge lines etc.
There is also a one upmanship disdain for "tent" camping meaning sleeping on the ground, and yet many of the setups I have seen are nothing more than a hammock in a tent, the hammock basically becoming the "sleeping pad". I suspect that many hammockers switched because they were the ones who slept on 3/4 length single blue pads and found the ground to be rather hard.
When I talk about my hanging hammock tent, I get some obvious "we don't like tents and that won't work" attitudes, and yet look at the new tarp tents with doors that you guys are adapting, then look at over and under quilts. Remember when quilts were the new lighter simpler way to go? Your over and under quilts cost more and weigh more than my sleeping bag.
I still like to sleep on my 3" thick down filled air mattress on the ground inside a sleeping bag, and for winter, and rainy weather with wind driven rain, the tent is dryer, blows around less and is a snugger pace to dig into.
I want to keep my hummocking simple. I only use it because the ground is covered with lava rock here. I have a new Hammock tent design that is a full on tent that hangs up in the air around my hammock. Its 100% bug proof. I think it keeps hammocking simple and care free, but for bad weather I'm taking a 4 season tent.
Jim S
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