What is the best way to customize the Hammock Gear 4D 4S Cuben Fibre Tarp?

[photohiker]

Hey Pooka,

I have the Z-Packs tarp with doors and I've had to pitch it on the ground once recently, due to lack of trees.

Definitely do-able. It's a bit of a fiddle but much better once you have practiced (I didn't)

I use two trekking poles and have prussiks on all lines - I just inserted the tips of the poles through the ridgeline prussiks and staked it all out. There was a little less headroom in there compared to yours, but I only had to sleep, not a problem.

Biggest issue: Camped in a valley beside a river. The condensation was horrific. Should have lifted it above the ground some to help airflow, the cuben doesn't breathe at all.

I rigged my WB as a bivy bag sitting on my neoair mattress. Not ideal, but do-able. You do need something to sleep on if you go to ground...

[The Pooka MacPhellimey]

Pooka,

It's a 4S with doors.

With cuben, I've migrated away tensioners, shock cord tends to add more weight than I like but I do carry 2 6" ones for tensioning my side pulls. Typically I only set my side pulls for high winds so the tarp is set very low to the ground, the pulls would be too low to step under.

Locally the snowfall varies year to year, somehow we were hanging for the big storms of the last season. I really like how snow slides off cuben.

I can relate to your tarporigami , I am a confessed "over rigger", having pushed a 6.5oz tarp to over 16oz. before I got a handle on it.

Oh, on the subject of attaching your poles in porch mode, I have prusik loops on my D-rings to adjust my guylines, these loops are perfect for setting your poles.

David

Thanks for that.

I'd like to have seen your tarp with 9.5 oz of cord etc!

I shall keep an eye on my cord weight.

However also agree that I should keep my tarp light and simple while developing my rope skills a little. So I shall go with simple d-rings and a little craft with knots.

I'm looking forward to bringing my 5 year old son out into the local rainforest for a few nights soon. I think I will probably have him in the same hammock with me, he will sleep better even if I won't!

I might go search some threads on hanging with kids.

Take care.

Pooka

[The Pooka MacPhellimey]

Hey Pooka,

I have the Z-Packs tarp with doors and I've had to pitch it on the ground once recently, due to lack of trees.

Definitely do-able. It's a bit of a fiddle but much better once you have practiced (I didn't)

I use two trekking poles and have prussiks on all lines - I just inserted the tips of the poles through the ridgeline prussiks and staked it all out. There was a little less headroom in there compared to yours, but I only had to sleep, not a problem.


Biggest issue: Camped in a valley beside a river. The condensation was horrific. Should have lifted it above the ground some to help airflow, the cuben doesn't breathe at all.


I rigged my WB as a bivy bag sitting on my neoair mattress. Not ideal, but do-able. You do need something to sleep on if you go to ground...

That set up with minimal headroom is how I expect I shall be living my life in the gutter! Not so much comfort as when I'm up in the air but I prefer to carry some imagination and forethought rather than a bag full of back-up equipment.

The condensation problem you had is interesting. Perhaps that's another argument for the shallow Cat cut sides. I can always stake a middle tie out down if it's truly awful weather and cope with the consequences.

I would have thought with a two pole set up like that there would have been enough air movement.

I have deliberately spent a night on the ground using my HH BP asym as a bivy. It was passable. I've always found bivys a little restrictive. In fact the HH was pretty goid for room as a bivy. Mine is a Velcro bottom entry so the worst thing was getting out in the middle of the night for the inevitable chat with the foliage.

The insulation is whole other matter.

I'm trying to adapt a Exped multi mat to function as a weather shield/insulation-UQ/sleeping pad/ sit pad.

I don't know if I can really get that kind of multi-purpose use out of it. I've been reading a few interesting threads on hammock insulation options that can double as passable Bottom Dwelling sleeping pads/ground insulation.

It's all good fun.

Take care.

The Pooka

[photohiker]

The condensation problem you had is interesting. Perhaps that's another argument for the shallow Cat cut sides. I can always stake a middle tie out down if it's truly awful weather and cope with the consequences.

I would have thought with a two pole set up like that there would have been enough air movement.

Me too. There was heavy condensation on the inside AND the outside of the tarp, so I'm thinking it was just one of those freak high dew-point, low air movement situations. It's certainly not possible to seal the tarp like a tent.

Cheers and good luck with it

[The Pooka MacPhellimey]

Thanks Photohiker.

I'll try and find some Tarp tent blogs or resources and learn a few of the tricks.

Pooka

[DemostiX]

Two cents worth? Yeah, but worth more than that:

Better be aware of the relationship of your height to the width of the tarp. I rarely see it mentioned here.

At 5'7" I can by with a much narrower tarp and still have overhead height to get into and out of my hammock than if I were a a foot taller. The trig here is simple. Of course it all depends on how the hammock is pitched but if I (or you) were that much taller, I'd need a tarp at least three feet, (1 meter) wider.

For 3 season camping tall folk may not mind pitching with a higher ridgeline and having more exposure and call it a panoramic view from hammock level. But once you talk about winter camping and stopping wind from coming through, you will need more width if you are taller unless you will sacrifice overhead height. Not that all tent-users or any bivy-advocates expect much.

[The Pooka MacPhellimey]

Thanks Demostix.

Im 6 foot 2 so I'll be in the dirt.

While in the muck under one of these Hammock Gear Cuben Tarps I can quote my countryman Oscar Wilde;

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars"

[Wise Old Owl]

Pooka - you don't have to pitch it on the ground just because all the tents are in a middle of a field, unless you want to. If there are nearby trees go for it, I can attest when camping with scouts my son and I had some of the best gear around. Later I overheard "wow Austin's Dad has the best tents around" from a kid who had never seen a HH. I always pitch at a distance for snoring and less noise from the boyz.