Hello all, new guy here. Sat in my friends ENO hammock he brought along camping the other week and nearly fell asleep! (ok, the several beers may have helped with that, but it was still very comfy
So after never being comfortable sleeping on the ground while camping, I started to do a ton of research on hammock camping and bought my first setup (still in transit to me). Of course I went completely overboard like I normally do, but hope I made some good choices. Please let me know what you think of my setup:
-WarBonnet Blackbird XLC with whoopies (and I’m going to girth hitch the whoopie to the loop on the tree strap, and use a Dutch Clip to attach the tree strap to itself)
-WarBonnet SuperFly (wanted a tarp where I can close the ends completely for the same rain/wind protection I get in my tent).
-KAQ Jarbidge River 3/4?-length 25º underquilt, and added a partial length foot pad to insulate my legs.
-I’ll be using my regular 15º down sleeping bag as an overquilt of sorts.
I’m a big guy so I needed a tent that would hold me (290lbs), be roomy, and give complete protection from the elements like my tent does (i.e. no mini-tarps which leave the sides completely open for the rain to blow in).
I do still have one question nobody seems to be able to answer: everybody I’ve talked to, or read articles from, seems to say a hammock is lighter than a comparable tent setup, but I’m finding that to be completely false, and in a big way.
I know I added some extra weight with picking a larger hammock (both in size and weight capacity), and the Jarbidge under quilt isn’t the lightest, but I’m nearly at DOUBLE the weight of my tent setup. Not counting sleeping bag and camp pillow (which I’ll use on both setups), I’m at 80 ounces for the hammock setup, and 47 for my tent setup (that’s for the tent with rainfly, footprint, poles, stakes, and sleeping pad). That’s a HUGE difference – the hammock weighs 170% of my tent setup.
…even if I weighed less than 200 pounds and went with the regular Blackbird (not XLC model), and got a $300 1-pound down under quilt, the hammock setup would still weigh 30% more than the tent. Was I misinformed?
Bookmarks