I have been trying to get my fiance ready for backpacking trips for a while now, I Figured that the Western Washington hang was the best chance to introduce her to not having amenities and being careful about what you choose to bring or leave behind. As last minute additions I threw in a couple things I would not normally take on trips to share with the group.
We arrived on site around 6ish and chatted with the other folks a bit before setting up our hammocks and tarp.
Our Gear:
- DiY ~11.5' Argon Hammock w/ diy whoopies & straps using Dutch Buckles
- DiY Fronkey style net
- DiY Poncho-Liner-Under-Quilt
- Sierra Designs Zissou sleeping bag
- ENO Doublenest w/ diy whoopies & straps using toggles
- Walmart Pad
- ENO Bugnet
- Coleman backpacking sleeping bag
- 11' Superfly style Argon Sil tarp made by Boston
The plan was to set up on opposite sides of one tree. The trees here were a little smaller than I was used to and it took some rearranging but it eventually worked out fine. We really should have practiced a bit more before hand, it took entirely too long to set up and I will admit to getting frustrated because A) my brand new dutch buckles were slipping (I solved it by using slippery half hitches to hold and plan to do testing at home); and B) it was harder than expected to set everything up under the tarp initially. the fact that I made ASR for my hammock is what really made it all possible, having the slightly off-center hammock in a tarp built perfectly to the tarp meant things were a lot closer than planned.
Eventually we got everything set up, had dinner near the fire and went to bed, in the morning I took a few photos, here is my fiance's side
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My side, notice the gear? it IS under the tarp, but will come into play shortly:
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Here is how we managed to hang together; we hung on separate sides, but I raised and lowered our hammocks to also get a bunk bed style thing going on.
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The Tarp was very roomy, we each had plenty of room on our sides to move about.
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Speaking of the tarp, I want to show off some of the quality stitching that Boston did.
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And here is a pic of my hammock set-up, I really though I took a better pic, but it was hard to see. I used the underquilt because I had just made it a couple days ago and hadn't tested it. I made sure she had the same set-up that I used in 30* weather (expected tempts were 50-60*) to ensure that she stayed warm and had only tried and tested gear:
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On the second day we hung around camp, played catchphrase, talked hammocks, and went to the nearby beach. No photos because I don't take them when I'm actually doing stuff. I will say this, everyone I met was friendly and generous and I look forward to seeing them again.
We had to leave early Sunday morning for father's day and other family events so we went to bed.
It rained during the last night, and while my fiance and I stayed dry, I woke up to a gentle pitter-patter on the tarp, looked over and saw my stuff getting went, I dragged them under me without any comprehension why and fell back asleep for another hour.
When I finally got up I took stock and realized what happened; I forgot to factor in the stretch of silnylon and didn't put any auto-tensioners in my system, thankfully both hammocks and everything in them stayed dry, and all my fiance's stuff was bone dry, not only had her side not stretched, she was smart enough to put everything under her hammock. I normally use a gear hammock, but couldn't figure out how to set it up to work this trip without slamming into one or both of us and kind of forgot to do something so basic.
Gary_R said that it actually rained really hard the previous night and might have even been a thunderstorm. given that info, the only stuff that was REALLY wet, were my wool socks, which I only had out due to a decision to wear my sleep pair to the car I the morning, everything else merely got a little damp.
post-rain pics You can see the stretch on my side. I'm not sure why her's didn't stretch, but I'm not questioning it:
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She went into the trip hesitant but willing to try, and after the first night was really having fun. By the time we drove home, she was talking about wanting an under quilt, getting her brothers out camping and hanging, trying to sleep together in one of my giant hammocks, and looking forward to another trip
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