Hi HF community - I'm a long-time lurker, but I've been having fun upgrading my hammock setup this year and it got me energized enough to finally make some posts :-)
I got my start with hammock camping back in 2017 after finally having enough of sleepless nights on the old inflatable pad. I'm a terrible tosser and turner, and on average I would probably wake up freezing and completely off my pad 5-6 times per night. That together with the back pain and just overall poor sleep quality I was getting on the ground had me desperate for another way. I settled on a Warbonnet BB XLC with a Superfly tarp, and it has served me well for the last 3-4 years. Warbonnet's stuff is totally bulletproof and looks as good as the day I bought it, so if weight is not a concern I definitely recommend it without hesitation. I have a pair of Enlightened Equipment top quilts - a 0 deg. that I use for anything with nighttime temps below 50 and a 30 deg. for anything over that (I'm a VERY cold sleeper), and for my underquilts I have a 0 deg Warbonnet Wooki and an Enlightened Equipment 30 deg. short.
I started the process of lightening up my hammock setup last year with a Hammock Gear DCF Winter Palace (I use this all year round - I have had the experience of a tent failing and being soaking wet and cold all night, and that is something I NEVER want to replicate ever again), and this year I transitioned to a Dutchware netless in Hexon 1.2 (continuous loop susp. with SpiderWeb straps + Becket hitch) and a bottom entry bugnet. Not only is this about half the weight of my BB XLC, but I have found the separate bugnet to be a total revelation. It's just so much easier to adjust the underquilt in the middle of the night this way (again, I'm a terrible tosser and turner, even in a hammock) and I don't have to worry about staking the sides of the hammock out to keep the netting out of my face. I honestly thought that this was just a temporary solution while I wait for my Cloud 71 Poltergeist to show up from TrailHeadz...but I honestly don't even know how much I'm going to use that, I like the netless setup so much. Always good to have gear options though, and even better to have an extra setup in case I can actually manage to convince a friend to hit the trail with me...
Anyway, love the forum, it has helped me as a lurker with research countless times. I bet I saw a few of you out on the Black Forest Trail over 4th of July weekned (I had the Hemlock Mtn. campsite to myself and got to watch the Slate Run fireworks), there were quite a few hangers out there! I only know that because some of you need to start waking up and hitting the trail a little earlier ;-) Looking forward to more conversations to come, and maybe meeting up at one of the group hangs this fall/next year. Cheers!
EDIT - I guess I should have mentioned where I hike. Almost all of my trail miles are solo hikes in Pennsylvania (have all of the major loops multiple times each and probably about half of the linear trails, working on picking off a few of those each year), although I have done the BATONA here in NJ a few times in the winter. My only out of the area trip so far was a solo trip to the Ozark Highlands Trail in Arkansas - which was totally beautiful and VERY challenging. Wound up bailing about 140 miles in due to an old knee injury flaring up that had me feeling very nervous about some high-water river crossings that I was going to have to tackle (again, solo). I will be back to finish that one though...mark my words ;-)
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