Hammock Camping Setup

everybody it's Jason without door ventures and thanks for joining me a couple days ago I fulfilled a request asking if I could show off how I set up my tarp and some of the additions and some of the mods that I made that video actually got a lot more attention and I thought it would and the people were thumbs up in it like crazy and I was also asked to get a similar sort of video with my hammock set up so here's the hammock the war bonnet blackbird we're going to set this up and then I'll go in depth again like I did the other video now I did bring my tarp down as well so I'm going to set that up off-camera and then we'll get into the hammock I'll pull the tarp back so you can actually see what I'm talking about here okay first up here's the tarp all set up over top of the war bonnet blackbird which is my favorite hammock I love sleeping in this thing it just gives me a perfect night's sleep I have since buckles with webbing on here right now the convenience of just having this simple since buckle system and you can actually purchase this system right here I think it's like 20 bucks including the webbing you can put this on any hammock any gathered end hammock that you want and I really like this it's a minimal design it doesn't weigh a lot and it just it works fantastic that's not going anywhere yeah I just I really like this I even put this on some of my Dutch wire hammocks because I already had this and I didn't want to spend the money on the Dutch wear since buckles so this goes up to the tree and up here as you can see that I have a Dutch swear clip a dutch clip now I've seen a couple people actually put this up here wrong now if you look at this I'm on the right side of the tree and if you see this there's really no stress on this buckle now what I've seen some people do and they're wondering why their suspension just gets totally destroyed by the Dutch clip they have it like this okay so you had to switch sides and you can kind of see that angle coming off of that thing that puts an incredible amount of stress on that strap on that webbing so don't do it like that kind of see what I'm talking about here don't do it like that you're putting way too much stress and you're going to end up wearing through this you're going to get ticked off a Dutch it's not his fault he actually gives you a little card showing you how to do this and what not to do but we're going to move this back over to the other side where it's not going to have a lot of tension on it so that's the first thing that I wanted to point out with the hammock set up here second for any hammocks you're going to be camping outside and if you're socially for expecting rain a little tip that you can do is just add a simple continuous loop and like the other video this is just I guess it's called a larks head I'm not really familiar with knots but it just larks headed on there so you can just see what I did here maybe you get the size estimate on how much line that you need should be a little longer but this works perfectly fine for me and then you're just going to take that and just feed that line down in there no I put it on the wrong one but we'll fix that a little bit when I have two hands but what this allows you to do these are called drip lines okay so in theory the water is going to run down the trunk of the tree or run down the length of the suspension that water is going to travel all the way down and possibly not usually but possibly drip through this inch buckle okay and once that happens it's going to find the point of you know lowest resistance which is going to be inside your hammock and you're going to get wet so to combat that to do is you just add the drip line so the water comes down here and then it finds the line it soaks the line and it just drips off and you should put this on both ends of the continuous loop of your suspension I have it on wrong just because I screwed up while I was talking to you guys but this one needs to go up here so I have that exactly the same way on the other side let's take a look at that so I can show you it correctly and I'm going to fix that line before I forget about it see I have lines on separate separate areas of the continuous loop and here I like to have the it's just a double-ended stuff sack so I like to hang that on the end of the hammock making sure that the drip lines are away from that because you don't want to have this pole in the water then a big puddle soak you in the middle of the night so again I have the Dutch clip over here same way make sure you're not going on the side of the tree that's going to put tension on it but make sure it's just kind of run in there and it's just holding it to the tree all right now let's get into the hammock now you can see here's a great shot of what the war bonnet blackbird actually looks like when it's set up top viewed now I'm not going to go too much in depth on the hammock itself this is just setup and stuff that I've added but if you care to see a review check right up here in those cards and you'll be able to find a full review that I did a couple years ago about this thing what I really like about it is the shelf over here I can put some stuff over here socks camera gear whatnot and then there's another pullout over here to keep the bug net away from you kind of giving you a little a symbol a finally down there there's a little extra flap a little triangle piece of mesh sewn on right here you can see that that is your foot box and I really like that because there's not really any tension on your feet with this on your on your ankles another thing I've seen people do is they bring extra tent stakes to guy out both sides of that you can simply just run the same shock corded line from the shelf and the other pull out down to the tent stake you're using for your tarp same exact thing so now that we got all that out of the way let me pull back the tarp and we'll go into a little more depth here you can see a pretty good view of how I like my hammock set up I don't know if you can tell in the video and you probably can actually my foot end which is that end down there is a little bit higher than the head end right here and the reason I like that so much is because first of all that's what they recommend second of all it just keeps your you know your back in the right spot so you're not up too high you're not down too low your feet stay in the foot box and that just seems to work perfect for me I've never really had an issue as long as I set it up with the foot maybe like six inches higher than the head end and that's just perfect for me okay so when I first get in the hammock what I do when I set up is I test to make sure that I can bend this Ridgeline a little bit now this is a little pipe so I'm going to lower let's see I'll lower my head end just a little bit to show you the bag that I like in the ridgeline okay and that's perfect I can bend that Ridgeline with very little pressure it works out perfect for me I love that that little bit of sag now a couple people of s you know where do you keep your backpack do you ever worry about it getting wet I really haven't had any problems you know sometimes it's wet if the wind's really crazy and the rains pickin up but I'll show you what I do in those situations but first usually on clear nights non you know non rainy nights I'll just leave it on this sheet of Polly crow and this is just really strong plastic it's also window insulation to find it on Amazon pretty easy or really any local hardware store that you want to get it from and this lasts for probably years I'm still on my first one I think I'm in a year and a half with the same sheet so I like to do that I like to put my shoes right on the top of that what do you do that just previs thing this just so anyone that's not aware make sure you open your backpack and open up all the compartments in there that way if a mouse or a rat or whatever squirrel smell something that it wants to get it doesn't eat your backpack it just goes in gets it and gets back out you shouldn't be having any food in your backpack when you go to bed anyway but sometimes that the smells from your snacks and your hip pockets they linger and they will chew your pack I've seen it happen before another place that I will keep my pack if it's if I know it's going to be really rainy or if I can see the mice running on the ground I will simply take one of the straps from the backpack I usually use this top strap that can press the strap to the top of the lid I will just hang it like that on the suspension over here I just took the top compression strap and I just put it in there whenever you get in the hammock it will be raised back up it's not you're not going to be able to tell unless you have a ton of gear in your backpack which I usually don't have any gear my backpack by the time I go to sleep maybe some camera gear if that usually I keep the camera gear on the shelf so I can recharge my batteries and everything does that work very well it keeps it up off the ground it keeps it dry it's under the tarp you're not to worry about rodents or anything getting to your pad so sometimes I do that on top of the me having this shelf where I can put stuff over here socks or shirt or whatnot I also like this hammock gear ridgeline organizer and all it is to attach to your ridgeline instead of taking the ridgeline out of the suspension and feeding you know one of them through the one that hammock gear has is great they actually have these little velcro tabs on it and they just goes over your ridgeline and you can just lock it down right there this doesn't go anywhere there's enough support in here where it's really hard to get that off you know with the weight that you're going to put in it it won't come off sights on it so I'm trying to say now this gives you a big mesh pocket in front to put whatever you want in here you could put a water bottle in this side you can't see what's in this pocket just heads up for you firearm carriers and on the other side you have three smaller pockets that are sewn off alright so now let's get the top quilt and the under quilt on now there's two different adjustments on quilts usually you have your load lifter which brings it kind of up and down on you and kind of fills this around your back and then you have the draft collar and this tension area right here I like to tighten that area down so it's it's pretty tight against my back this is a three-quarter length under quilt and what that means is just simply that it just takes up three-quarters of length your length of your body usually stops right below my knees so with this one I like to tighten up just one side okay and that sides going to be where my feet are going to go now with a full length under quote it's not really going to have to worry about that you just tighten everything up kind of the same really then I'll show you this one that we come back around now the reason for an under quilt similar to what you use in a tent system where you're sleeping on that pad and it's providing you warmth from the conduction of the ground this is basically going to protect you from the convection of the air so same kind of concept now you can use a pad in here it's not really a big deal I just think it a heck of a lot more comfortable to use an under quote topical combo especially if your primary sleep system is going to be a hammock like it is for me here you can see how I tighten up everything so the reason why I tighten this side up more is because this is going to be probably around my knee area and this is going to be this little flap right here this is where my feet are so this shock cord is not getting in the way of my feet if I would loosen this I'd be feeling the shock cord on my ankles and feet the entire time and that's I it took me a couple trips to realize how to do this and what I needed to do to make that happen but that's just how I set it up but the big thing is whenever you set up your underquilt get in it and make sure that it's hitting all the right spots before you go to bed there's nothing like it being dark and you being tired and then realizing you need to adjust your your underquilt so I'm going to show you that when I get in another tip to do before bed after you take your shoes off stand on your polychrome grab your hammock and just get all that little dirt out of your hammock you'll thank me later whenever you're sleeping in your back stretching as far as the sip pad if forgot to say I always put this on my ridgeline and just throw it up by my head this is in case I get any cold spots on my back I can just simply take it off the ridgeline put it on the cold spot and then I'm usually good to go good morning okay now you can see where my body is compared to where the under quota is my head is right above the material and my back is perfectly enveloped that's what you want I also carry this little called a pillow drive bag from v packs and what I usually do is I store my clothes in here because it is a dry bag and when I'm ready to go to sleep I just turn it inside out and inside is a nice fleece lined material I'll put the clothes that I'm using for that day in here usually I just sleep in a pair of shorts and boxers maybe a really really light night shirt you know something that's dry and I'll give that a little fluff and oh I'll just put it right behind my head and that's all I need now I usually I use the pillow for the longest time but you know I'm already carrying a dry bag it may as well serve two purposes and it's you know decreased weight decreased pack space but this is perfect I am super comfortable and I can reach everything that I need just like that lastly I'll bring my quilt in okay this is just my Costco quote starting to love this thing really in my headlamp I always keep my headlamp inside the hammock with me and what I'll do with the hint with the headlamp is I'll take it and again larks head it just like I showed you before on the tarp and the hammock set up videos and I'll just keep it like that that way I can you know turn it on as needed and I always keep this in the same place it's right behind my head right by my sit pad and that's it guys that's really all I do here and let me set the tarp back up and I'll show you just one more thing that I talked about in the last video oh also another reason why I like this say it gets too hot in the middle of the night I can just put my quilts in this shelf right here and just kind of leave it there all night it doesn't get in the way I have plenty of space on out here and I don't have to put it back in my pack I can easily just get it and put it back on me real fast couple seconds you guys remember I said in the last video with the tarp setup sometimes I take my socks or my clothes and I just hang them up to dry on this shot court just like that so you can see you see that yeah so you can see the you know they're easily accessible they're not in my way or you know just grab them put them on in the morning and then that's the end I and usually they're pretty dry by the morning anyway guys let me get out of here and I'll show you how I attacked the hammock up we already saw the tarp so I'll skip that part but here we go now usually each morning I'll take everything out of the hammock and pack everything but tarp up so I'll leave the tarp staked out obviously want to show you guys how I take the hammock down from leaving it up but the reason why I like to do this tarp last well it's actually for obvious reasons this in case there's a downpour you know there's no fun cooking breakfast and or packing up in the rain at all there that's something that I do do not enjoy as I'm sure you don't enjoy that either the packet are Bob laughs keep it up to the last possible second the last thing you should throw in your bag or your tent stakes sometimes these lines just get tangled so this is the this is the pull out for the bug net so what I'll do is I'll put this one inside the hammock and then get that down so right about the middle point and on the other side what I'll do is I'll invert the shelf so I'll just push all this in and create like a little pocket you can see a little pocket and then I'll put the line right in that pocket and whenever you start wrapping this up all the lines will stay out of the way and they won't get tangled I just want to point out on the end of the underquilt I just use a simple little s beaner this one came with hammock gears under quote but it's just an eye ties number two SB here so guys that was my hammock setup again I'm not saying this is the be-all end-all perfect hammock setup you have to do it this way or an idiot the saying this is what I use this is what works for me so if you see any ideas in this video that you want to steal by all means go ahead make your life easier and I want to hear some things that you do some things that you found out some tips or suggestions or advice for me because like I said in the last video I love watching gear videos it's where I get a lot of my ideas from and every time I get an idea it usually makes my hiking life a lot better or a lot easier so guys just want to say thank you for watching I hope this helps somebody and I'll see you on the trail

Channel: Outdoor Adventures

Views: 127,995

Rating: 4.9110193 out of 5

Keywords: camping, enlightened equipment, trail, camp with a hammock, thru hike, katahdin, white blaze, hammock camping, 2019, georgia to maine, through hike, costco quilt, mountain, cuben, hammock, sleep setup, appalachian trail, hiking, adventures, hammockgear, outdoor, blackbird, long distance hiking, tarp, adventure, how to hammock, hammock setup, AT, mt washington, frozen, reviews, warbonnet, gear, backpacking

Id: CVH98QpnbL4

Length: 18min 34sec (1114 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 29 2017