Hammock Camping (4/1/10)

One of the decisions I made early on when reading up on doing long-ish hikes and the gear you need to do it, was what sort of shelter I would need. I already have a two-person tent, but when hiking for long periods it's important to try to minimize the amount of weight in your backpack as well as make it easier to fit in there. Since my tent was built for two people instead of just me, I needed to find something smaller.

That's when I came across the idea of using hammocks. Prior to researching the AT, I had never even heard of people using hammocks for camping - those are for lounging in your backyard, right? But the more I read about camping hammocks, the more I knew that's what I wanted to do.

The AT has shelters scattered along the trail at pretty convenient intervals. The problem is that sometimes they are full, and also they are notorious for having mice which will run over you during the night and dig into your stuff. No thanks! A lot of people will find a shelter and then set-up their tents or hammocks nearby - so, at least, that way they get to hang out with the rest of the hikers but without all of the aforementioned mice issues.

The hammock that I chose for my hike is a Hennessey brand hammock. I decided on Hennessey b/c I read a lot of recommendations for it. It sounds like a noob version of the camping hammock in that it has everything already there. More experienced hikers a lot of times will build their own hammocks - to save weight, but also I'd imagine it makes the experience cooler when you actually made your shelter.

Hammocks are still a bit of an oddity to most people. Even during my test hike last weekend, the other hikers at the shelter had never seen a hammock before - so, were pretty interested in how it works.

I can describe the hammock all I want, but nothing beats seeing it in action. I was planning on video recording my first experience with my hammock this past weekend, but b/c of all of the spectators, I felt a bit self-conscious. Instead, here's a (somewhat long) video intro/review that some other guy did. It seems pretty comprehensive. To actually see what it's like to get inside the hammock, fast forward to around 4:10.



As far as why I chose to use a hammock instead of a more traditional one-person tent... mostly, it just seemed cooler. In addition to looking awesome, it's also more light-weight than most tents, and because it doesn't use poles, it can more easily fit into a backpack. If, for some reason, I need to camp in an area without a soft, established tenting site, that's not an issue. All you need to set-up a hammock are two trees. You don't have to worry about what the ground is like.

Should be fun!