NJ State Police National Guard Camporee

[mychal]

First post, first hang outside of my yard, and first time using my new SLD Tree Runner DL with the Handy Hammock. With 10,000 scouts, this is the largest gathering of scouts on the US this year. My 12 footer hammock, while just barely hanging of the ground, managed to knock me out for a 40 minute test run this afternoon. Awesomeness! Yeah, I'm using a 12 foot hammock with the HH. Sorry, Jason, but I had to try it. And Jared is outstanding! I L-O-V-E this thing! Can't wait for this Saturday night show to end, so I can curl up in the air, if just slightly.

BTW, I'm 6'6", 230, and couldn't wait to ignore the suggested limitations of the Handy Hammock. So far, so good.

Pics to prove:

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[Zilla]

Yeah, those wieght limits warnings are just like road signs, they are really just suggestions..,, no really, welcome to the world of hammocking and congrats on finding a hammock you like so fast. enjoy those long comfy naps ! and welcome to the forum.

[mychal]

Some more updates: I think it passed this weekend's tests with flying colors. Here are some notes:

- Open field camping, no trees.
- I used a 12' hammock (SLD Tree Runner DL).
- Thermarest Basecamp pad. Used the semi-famous (More Than Famous?) $80 Wal-Mart Ozark Trail 32* down mummy bag as TQ. Felt good all night, so long as I stayed on the pad. Low of ~53*.
- Pad didn't seem to move too much in between layers overnight, but I'll be looking into ways to keep it in place a little better (maybe that rubbery shelf-liner stuff).
- Kelty Noah 12 tarp, simply stretched over the hammock RL, in an A-frame configuration.
- Since I had to pull the hammock nearly fully taut to keep it from touching the ground with me in it, the normal ridgeline was too short, so I removed it. Instead, I connected the two whoopie slings I normally use for tree suspension in the middle with a carabiner, to make a slightly longer RL.
- The tarp went over that RL.
- Very narrow place to pitch, so much of the tarp near the bottom dangled, and I tied it all up at bedtime as much as I could to reduce flapping, since it was breezy. In a picture above, you can see how I pulled up part of the tarp during the day. I had it hung down to the ground at night.
- Friday was pouring rain and windy, and we had to get up a bunch of tents and get several dozen scouts into those tents, helping them with flooding issues and getting them to bed as dry/warm as possible (it was impossible), so I just stayed in my tent that night. Many tents were just plain flooded. It was awful.
- When I first set it up Saturday afternoon, I took a nap in it for a little over half an hour.
- The tarp, in an A-frame configuration, just covered the ends of the hammock. I was less than a foot off the ground when I started to fall asleep. When I woke up 40 minutes later, I was less than a couple inches off the ground.
- So before bed that night, I took down one strut, and moved that whole end of the Handy Hammock back almost another foot.
- Then, when re-hanging the hammock, and re-hanging the tarp, since the hammock was pulled even tighter, the tarp no longer quite covered both ends of the hammock, let alone covering up to the carabiners that I used to connect the gathered end continuous loops to the struts. Since the weather report was outstanding for that night, I didn't fear water coming down my suspension.
- When I went to bed, the hammock was a little higher off the ground than the start of my afternoon nap.
- Whenever I woke up throughout the night, the first thing I did was reach down under the hammock to see how low I was. I never got closer than 5 or 6 inches, I think, and never touched the mostly empty 70L backpack that was underneath me the whole night on a plastic sheet.
- Since most of the camping area was flooded Friday night, and was still pretty muddy when we packed up Sunday, the ground remained very soft, and I was worried about the stakes. I checked them many times, including in the middle of the night, pushing some back in a few times, so the red balls were nearly flush with the red disks, but they held.
- Entry and exit under a tarp which basically hugs the sides of the hammock, and is only a couple feet off the ground, is, needless to say, not so comfortable. But it was doable. Probably helped that I couldn't guy out the tarp very far in my narrow space, so I could just lift the side of the tarp, squat all the way down to the ground, and shift my weight toward the hammock and under the tarp, then let the tarp back down. Non-trivial for a 6'6"-ish dude.
- All in all, the HH was sufficient in these circumstances. In the future, I'd probably use the no-sew exterior tent pole mod (like on the SF's), and maybe even put the tarp up with it's own poles/RL at each strut, instead of using the hammock RL. Then I'd have all kinds of additional space in there.
- Bottom line: very, very comfortable hammock from Jared and the Handy Hammock works, even for a large guy and a loooooong hammock.

[Ratdog]

Welcome.
And that is an impressive test of the Handy Hammock stand. Appreciate the feedback.
Would not have expected it to hold up as well as it did.

[brazilianguy]

Good report!! Makes me extra excited to try my stand, it's on its way

[camoxjeep]

I've also got one and have used a few different hammocks with the HH stand. Also did the modifications from Derek Hanson (the ultimate hang) and def helps a great deal setting up a lot faster. http://theultimatehang.com/2012/12/h...ecommendations

Good luck

[Jason Andrews]

Wow, am impressed that you managed to hang a 12 foot hammock from our Handy Hammock stand. At 230lbs you're well inside the upper limit of 275lbs so that's probably why you got away with it. Flattening the hang does increase the stress on the stuts a lot so that's why we ask folks to stick to a 10.5-11 foot maximum.

[Hawk i]

Great read......and welcome welcome.....welcome