Cold weather test (3S crowsnest) - 19°

[lazy river road]

I think we met at MAHHA. If I'm not mistaken my wife Marlana and I camped out behind you. My wife was in the green tent.

That's Tendertoe that has the Incubator, I've only got 3 season quilts so I will probably either double up or add a pad to supplement for the deep winter hangs.

-Jay

Yes we did, after looking at your avatar I totally recognize you, and remember meeting you and your wife espically because I remember my wife mentioning how glad she was to have another tenter close by. Made her feel not as lonely . Im glad to see that your well on your way to beeing snug as a bug in a hammock and looks like you have been working hard at aquireing some great gear since the MAHA Well then looking forward to hanging out for another weekend.

[jloden]

Yes we did, after looking at your avatar I totally recognize you, and remember meeting you and your wife espically because I remember my wife mentioning how glad she was to have another tenter close by. Made her feel not as lonely

Same here, my wife was pretty happy to see another tent

See you at the Jersey hang!

[Jsaults]

I have not used my 3/4-3S Crowsnest below 40F yet, but I have made two minor changes that I think improve the "UnderSnuggness" and therefor the warmth:

1. I replaced the stock shockcord with some that was a wee bit heavier. It seems to support the UQ's weight better.

2. I installed a cordlock to allow tightening of the shock cord suspension. Stormcrow had to make his cord length long enough for the longest hammock, so being able to shorten the overall system is important.

I am lucky in that I can position the shockcord over the tabs that hold the FG hoops on my Clark NX-250 - This allows the cord to seek the shortest distance from end-to-end. In use it seems to pull up to the top edges of the hammock quite nicely.

Jim

[jloden]

2. I installed a cordlock to allow tightening of the shock cord suspension. Stormcrow had to make his cord length long enough for the longest hammock, so being able to shorten the overall system is important.

Thanks Jim, how did you install the cordlock to make the suspension length adjustable? I have some spare cordlocks and I like the idea of it being easily adjusted for different hammocks.

[Jsaults]

I will try to get some tomorrow. But all I did was untie the knot in the shockcord, install a good cordlock, and re-tie the knot. I still use the plactic S-biners that came with the CrowsNest.

Jim

[jloden]

Ok, I couldn't wait until Friday and it got down to around 29-30° tonight so I went out to spend a couple hours in the hammock and see if I could tweak things.

I adjusted the hammock suspension about a zillion times, shortened the shock cord suspension for the Crowsnest, and tightened/loosened the ends of the UQ. I kept getting fleeting moments where I could feel the warmth radiating back at me and then it would get drafty again.

It took quite a while and one trip back inside to warm up and make some coffee, but I finally got the hammock and the UQ adjusted so I could stay in it for about an hour or so with that nice toasty feeling the whole time. I attribute the eventual success to three factors:

1) Shortening the UQ suspension as Tendertoe suggested
2) Adjusting the hammock sag to put my butt down into the quilt
3) hot coffee to raise my body temp enough to create some heat to trap in the first place

Take-aways for me are that I probably need to add a ridgeline to make this repeatable, and shortening the Crowsnest suspension was key. I also think I will order a set of Triangle Thingies and try those, just for kicks.

[BillyBob58]

Glad you are "hanging" in there, I think you will get it where you can go well past these temps, and or just be toasty at these temps without a need for hot coffee breaks!

But it just goes to show yet once again: It is not only a HHSS that can require some individual tweaking to make sure all is right for it to work as expected. I know that when I use my WB Climashield torso quilt, I have to pay strict attention to the suspension and the positioning of the quilt relative to my shoulders. Not a problem once I learned what was needed and to pay attention, then it always works like a champ. And I either need it pretty darn tight or at least the shock cord going up to a steeper angle towards the RL rather than just straight to the end knots.

[Tendertoe]

Glad to hear all is shaping up with the UQ.

I did neglect to mention that I am a rather large guy at 6'2'' 250lbs. The nest just didn't offer the kind of coverage that I felt I needed when nearing even the high 20's without adding a more substantial footpad (I currently only use the Thermarest sit pad and there was a gap that started just below my knee where the nest stops and stretched to just above my ankle where the footpad starts). So, if you continue to experience coldness issues, add a larger footpad or do like me and order a winter Incubator .

As Animal Control mentioned, clothing is crucial to warmth as is caloric intake.

Layer up, load up on the chips and candy and keep on tweaking!

[Cranky Bear]

Jloden,
Just read the posts and congrats on the 3s Crowsnest!!
I love mine(when I get to use it, as my better half has claimed dibs on it)and I am a warm sleeper and I have taken my quilts well below the rating, when the temp gets close to the rating usually I am in just my skivvies as if I am wearing my long-johns I will start to sweat!
One thing that I did on both of my UQ's from Stormcrow(summer and 3s CS's) was tighten up the suspension or shorten it if you may, a "GREAT" deal and what I found was this brought the quilt up as the tension from the shock cord was tighter, then while I was in the hammock I would check to see how much of a gap there was between the hammock and the UQ by sliding my hand underneath near my butt, and I found that when I tightened/shortened the SC suspension it brought it up considerably! Another thing to try is the shock cord over the ridgeline trick, which works very well also (I have tried it with mine) but with a net in place can wear a hole in the net, so to combat that you can take a two foot long piece of nylon and sew a long tube and slide this over the SC and this will protect the bugnet from wear! Now I did not cut the SC all I did was tie a knot in it(actually I think there are three knots in it) so I just tied the knot and placed the s-biner there, which shortened the SC!
Stormcrow does add a lengthy amount of SC as so it can fit the longest known hammock!

Hope this helps some!?!?

[jloden]

Thanks Cranky Bear, I'm enjoying it a lot - part of what motivated me to give one a try was seeing your nice summer quilt set at MAHHA In fact, I've got a summer crowsnest order in too - couldn't resist the black friday sale even though I had just gotten my 3S!

I'm glad you chimed in with your experiences, since we use the same hammocks it's a good bet what works for you will work well for me also. Semi-related topic... did you add a ridgeline to your Nano 7 and if so what kind did you use? I have a couple adjustable ridgelines I bought a while back but never ended up using, was going to throw one of those on the GT Ultralight. Just curious if you found a specific length that worked well for the Nano or if you're using an adjustable also.