What's your best weather story, hammock edition

[Zigerot]

I was having a conversation with a freind the other day about camping and how excited I was about going out during storm season, him being a ground camper thought I was out of my mind. For me a big part of the appeal to hammock camping is that you can sling up just about anywere and brave the elements away from civilization. some of my best memories of camping are when a big snow storm or hurican or thunder storm rolled through. Getting knocked around and surviving is kind of fun. So is my freind right and I'm just weird. Or if there are other people like me out there, what are you best "I survived the elements" stories?

[wiscoman]

I LOVE hanging in thunder and rain!!!

[Bic]

I was just on a fishing trip in northern MN and we had a real nasty storm plow through in the middle of the night. We were camped on a small peninsula and the wind just howled through the area really blowing me around. I stayed mostly dry, but I did have one point when one of my stakes ripped out and my tarp was blowing around nice and good. I had to get up and reinforce my stakes with some close by rocks. Good experience builder for sure!

[rhjanes]

that storm (tornados) that hit Moore Oklahoma last May, then moved east into Arkansas, where me and a buddy were canoeing on the Buffalo National River. We were up in a camp ground, as it was predicted to get REAL bad. I stayed totally dry under my tarp, never even pulled a stake out. I didn't have a good door closure on my Superfly (since changed up), but still stayed dry. the tarp got a lot of condensation under it, so by morning, the 30 MPH winds were knocking mist into my WBBB. I only noticed because it hit my face. I got up. We moved under a pavilion. I had to string up the tarp to dry. My tent buddy, had to dry his fly, the bottom of his tent, his ground sheet. That said, we probably had the same square footage to dry out.

[Brady]

I learned the hard way that hammocking is the way to go out here on the west coast of Canada. Asa former tent-kayaker, there are not a lot of choice flat spots for pitching a tent on some of the little islands I like to paddle through, especially if I know the weather will be stormy. Bring the hammock and I don't care how hard it's coming down. I'll paddle all day through the rain and pick a spot where I can watch it fall while drying out. To me there's not much better.

Pre-hammock I kayaking through the Broken Islands on the west coast of BC and we got hammered with rain like I've never seen out here. We set up the tent as the others on the island called out on their radio for a rescue. They left, we stayed, hoping it would blow over. It didn't. 36 hours of non-stop downpour. The rainfall off the island washed out the sand from the beach so our kayaks were floating. There are five flat camping spots on this island, two of which were under water while we were setting up. By the time the rain stopped, we had used all three since we kept having to move due to rising water levels. Even with that though, my three comrades and I agreed it was one of the best trips we'd ever had.

[K0m4]

My gf is from northern Ontario, so once I brought my gear and her dad scouted a little lake in the middle of nowhere (which there's a lot of right around the corner there). They dropped me off with a canoe, my fishing gear and my hammock, and left me for dead. I had a jolly old time canoeing and fishing in that little lake, with my hammock set up nicely on a plateau just above it.

My gf sent me a sms being worried, as there were storm warnings for the area, and asked me to hunker down. I tried not to be too cocky in reply, but wasn't worrying much. I sped over the lake to the campsite once the thunderbolts started getting up close an personal though.

Later in the evening, enjoying the camp fire with off-and-on showers with a distant roaring thunder, all of a sudden a torrential downpour hit my campsite, the likes of which I've only seen in movies. It was actually putting my fire out, which had been going for a good while already. I dumped the remaining firewood on the fire in a vain hope that it would keep at least slightly warm while I ran for cover under the tarp. Five minutes or so later, it stopped and i poked my nose out to see the fire alive and well. In good spirits I went over and brought out the highlight of the evening: my hotdogs. I had just finished eating #2 when the next skyfall (not the name of the Bond movie - this is what we call it in Swedish) hit me. It was literally like someone took a very large bucket and just turned it up side down over me. This time it was more persistant; I sat on a tripod stool under the tarp for well over 20 minutes. When the water started running in a small river underneath the tarp, I was very pleased with my suspended way of living... I emerged from under the tarp to find the camp site being more of a small lake than flat ground, and my dogs all wet and soggy, but I happily ate them anyway with the flavours of the woods as seasoning.

When I got back my gf and I looked at some website with weather data and satellite recordings. A major storm system had passed a couple of kms to my south, and I thought that it was strange that I had felt it so strongly as I looked to be at the edge only. Until I saw two tiny little break-away storms in the space of about half an hour that could not have been larger than a few hundred metres across, parting from the main system, veering north-east, with that deep, dark red colour of the images of the harshest storm pin-pointing my campsite, and disappearing as quickly as they showed up! It was literally barely larger than the site itself - on the other side of that tiny lake I would have been completely dry! I couldn't believe my eyes. It was like Thor was testing me or something...

[Deadphans]

Lol good story. I love Ontario and Maine (similar ecosystem). I have never been in a hammock in really bad weather that would make a good story. Sure its rained a bunch of times but nothing crazy. Now tent camping yes, but then I would be off topic :-P

I love watching the rain come in from a distance though, like through a valley or in from the shore/bay. you just see that wall of water coming right at you.

[K0m4]

The funny thing is that Ontario is an exact carbon copy of the ecosystem in Scandinavia too. When my gf came up to spend a weekend on my boat in the Stockholm archipelago and said "this looks just like northern Ontario" I said "yeah, I know what you mean, things are really similar over there". I had lived in Calgary before, so I thought that that was what she meant - similarities, but everything was a size bigger there, even the squirrel tails.

Then when I arrived in Ontario, I knew what she meant. Couldn't believe my eyes. Same trees, same bushes, same squirrels, same granite rocks and lakes strewn around. Going from Toronto to her home town was the exact trip of going from Stockholm to mine. Except the lines are yellow, the signs are not in Swedish, and the cars have different plates. Still a lot of volvos and saabs though!

(Sorry, OT..)

[Shug]

Here is my favorite weather night in the hammock.
Shug

[L.D. Cakes]

My best story is not a hammock story but a tent one that I've told for years since we were kids. My Mom took my Brother & I camping in an old army canvas tent that she had bought at a yard sale. You know the ones with big poles, ropes and giant stakes you have to pound in the ground with a hammer. It was a square tent with a bathtub floor but no zippers or netting at the door only a tie to keep the flap closed. We had set up at the bottom of a hill in a flat spot. That proved to be a gully washer! Well it came a big storm in the middle of the night and Mom told us to never touch the sides of the tent or it would make it leak. We were good kids and minded her but we were in to it for the adventure. All of a sudden one of the tent poles fell in because the stake had let loose. We both jumped up & said "We'll get it Mom"! When we stepped out of the tent we stepped into about 6" of water surrounding our tent and guess what...none leaked in! We got the pole back up and went back to sleep then of course the next day moved to higher ground. Those old tents rock and that's probably the only kind I'd ever settle for again, and believe me I tried many before I got turned onto Hammocks.