So where do I begin on this one. I don’t even know? I could start off by saying that Hammock Gear makes amazing gear, how nice they are as people, how good of friends I have become with them as well as many other vendors here on HF simply cause I have been ordering several quilts a year from them for a little over three years now, how they always seem to have the newest, softest, lightest weight fabrics, how Adam is constantly striving on improving his UQ’s design, how excellent the craftsmanship is, how awesome their customer service is, how it has been a pleasure being one of the first to order from Hammock Gear a little over three years ago and still ordering multiple quilts and tarps from them today and seeing their small cottage business grow into a very prominent supplier of quilts and tarps on Hammock Forums and expanding out into the hiking community, or how great their two big’s are and how much fun it is to hang out with Hallow Leg (stormcrows eldest son who always has a big smile on his face that is yes even bigger then stromcrow’s), or how much pride they take in their work and how excited they get for me and the rest of their customers when we open our new quilts or tarps for the first time and start drooling over it, or how willing they are to work with their customers to customize quilts to the dimensions specifically needed for a person who is wanting to do some tweaking in the size shorter longer, wider narrower heavy material or lighter material basically anything a customer could think of Adam is at least willing to try and whip it up (within practical reasoning of course) …… ok you all get the point, but I won’t talk about any of that, we’ve all heard this before and all know that Hammock Gear makes great gear. But this time they have really out done themselves and yet again dazzled and wowed me with their quilts.
So I’ll start off with a bit of a back story. When I first started Hammock Camping I did not know left from right about hammock let alone what quilts were. Yeah, I read up a lot on HF but as all of us know starting off can be a little intimidating. I picked out a pack pretty easily (ula catalyst) and a Hammock pretty fast (WBBB) but was very torn over which TQ and UQ to purchase. I kind of had my mind made up about a full length but also really like the idea of the fractional length. But the dimensions that were being offered by the vendors well just were not striking my fancy and neither size was really what I was looking for.
And that’s when stormcrow swooped in to save the day. Through speaking with him over a few PM’s which finally lead up to a very length phone conversation he informed me that I could have the best of both worlds, a ¾ UQ in length and one cut a bit wider than the ones currently on the market back then and even today (currently the phoenix is 45” wide). Being a bigger guy and a first time hammocker this sounded great to me. I liked the full length for warmth and the fractional for weight savings and saw a 2/3 as a perfect in between. I understood the concept of a pad underneath your/my feet and liked how a pad served several purposes. Also being a broad shoulder guy I also liked the width and not having to worry about the shoulder slip that I had read about. So I went ahead and ordered my first Winter Phoenix (know back then as the Winter Ptarmigan) and immediately fell in love with my first quilt. Over the next three years I bought and sold Hammock Gear quilts changing the fabric of the material, temp range/down fill, draft collars and overall a continual effort to lighten up all my quilts however always leaving the dimensions the same.
Which brings me to today (well actually this weekend but for all intensive purposes today). As I became more and more comfortable with Hammock Camping and using a pad underneath my feet I soon began to realize that I could go even lighter with my UQ’s and get away with an UQ with smaller dimensions. However I did not want to compromise the width but could compromise on the length. Leaving me with the same shoulder coverage and simply having my CCF pad overlap less of my UQ. I talked to Adam and wanted to get a length of 46 instead of 52. This saved me a half foot of material both inner and outer shell, saved some down weight and material that would have been used for the extra length in the baffles. However I left the width the same. Having tried a Yeti at previous hangs as well as other UQ that were the Yeti size for me, personally I found them way to snug around my shoulders and slipped out easier than the wider Phoenix. I have also found that it’s easier to slip a pad underneath your legs then it is to slip a pad or insulation up and around you shoulders if they were to hit a cold spot.
So this is what me and Adam come up with.
20 rated Phoenix, 46 long by 45 wide
a. 20 rated Phoenix approximately 7.25 oz. down (give or take a quarter of an ounce to get me down to 20)
b. 7D inner and outer shell
c. no plastic line locks on the corners original continuous looped suspension
d. silk ribbon loops centered on Phoenix (no plastic)
e. Draft collars
f. Total Weight 12.7 (in cuben stuff sack weighting .2)
2. 40 rated Phoenix, 46 long by 45 wide
a. 40 rated Phoenix approximately 3.25 oz. down (give or take a quarter of an ounce to get me down to 40)
b. 7D inner and outer shell
c. no plastic line locks on the corners original continuous looped suspension
d. attached silk ribbon loops centered on Phoenix
e. No draft collars
f. Total Weight 8.2 (in cuben stuff sack weighting .2)
((DISCLAIMER BY STORMCROW) Adam asked me to mention that 7D is no longer available through Hammock Gear and most likely won’t be for a long time if ever again. Adam has several light weight comparable fabrics in weight and softness such as M50, M90 and a few others I can’t recall. If you are interested in a lighter weight material and do not want to use the stock 1.1 please contact Adam directly and he can let you know what he has in stock.
I received these quilts at trail days and I was floored. These quilts did a great job at really lightening up my pack particularly my summer pack having my 50 rated Burrow and my 40 rated Phoenix together weighing in at 16.6 ounces. I have only got to use my new 40 rated Phoenix for one night in my BMBH UL in my back yard and it is nothing short of perfection. The fill is right on, beautiful loft, stitching is straight as an arrow and it was made exactly to the specifications that were discussed between me and Adam. I have been using Hammock Gear quilts for 3 years now so I have no worries about the temp rating, durability, etc. etc. or any of that pizzazz.
But what I will talk about is the dimensions of the quilt. The width is the normal width of the Phoenix at 45” wide. I wanted to keep this the same because for me any smaller would not cover my shoulders and I don’t like cold shoulders. However I had him cut down the original length of 52” down to 46” and that’s where the weight savings really came in. I also had him attach no plastic on the quilt along with the original looped suspension using a thinner diameter shock cord. The pad I carry is an 8 section Z-Rest which covers from my shoulders down to a the bend in my knees. It is my pack frame, ground pad, sit pad, leg pad for hammock and the pad my dog sleeps on when we hike together. The length of the UQ stops right at the bend in my keen so the combo between the two are a match made in heaven. Also generally speaking in 45 degrees and up I don’t generally even use a pad underneath my feet but still always have one with me on the trial. This quilt for me is truly the best of both worlds. It a short wide quilt. It took me 3 years to be willing to start cutting down on the UQ length but then after much thinking and talking with HF’ers made the switch to a shorter UQ. The 40 packs up to the size in between a baseball and softball and the 20 packs down to the size of a nalgene bottle.
So as I mentioned I did get a chance to sleep using this UQ for one night in my back yard in my BMBH UL. I found it worked perfectly. No shoulder slippage at all, no CBS, I am a huge fan of the channel loop suspension and how easy it is to move the quilt back and forth inside the hammock. It really confirmed that I love the width however could now easily get away with it being shorter. The design is the same so it has a foot shelf which IMHO is awesome because the down is really concentrated in my torso area and even in the high 30’s low 40’s I felt the heat radiating onto my back. I am just in awe how comfy these quilts are and even better how light they are.
So in conclusion Adam and Jenny have done it again. Thank you both for all you do. Now I start waiting yet again (I feel like I am always waiting for a package from Hammock I wonder if I order to much stuff. So point being, if you are shopping for quilts and you are finding that they are all to long or all to short or all to wide or all to narrow or has 8 ounces of down instead of 8.5 or all made from 1.1 and you want M50 or 8D well I know where my business is going. http://www.hammockgear.com/cart/index.php
Stay warm yall,
Peace
LRR
And yes I know pics or it did not happen, I will post pics tomorrow afternoon when I get home from work and get some free time during the day.
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Originally Posted by lazy river road
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