Hiking

. . . I’d Hammock In The Morning, The Evening and All Night Long

Camping hammocks do offer a great opportunity to hikers and back packers everywhere, even though many of them might not have even thought about it. I suppose that the major obstacle hammocks have to overcome is the thought of making yourself look silly trying to get in and out of the darned thing . . . especially if it don’t work so well. Come on, where’s your sense of adventure . . . it is a bit tricky to climb into a hammock until you get the hang of it, but then there are thousands of swingers who have mastered the art, it’s not rocket science you know. You just have to do this . . .

. . . mmm, sorry, wrong clip . . . try this!

 Okay, we’ll come back to that later . . . They weren’t the same as the hammocks you can get at the hiking equipment stores these days, these purpose made backpacking hammocks are packed with advantages. The needs of a camper, backpacker or hiker are very different from the needs of those who like to relax in their backyards, reading romantic novels (or the sports pages) and drinking something long and cool! Sounds like a back packer on their weekend off!

Reasons For Hammock Camping

Well, that’s certainly a few very good reasons to go hammock camping . . .  Let’s look at some more:

• Camping hammocks are available in a variety of qualities, shapes and sizes. Make sure that your chosen hiking hammock is strong enough to hold your weight . . . not forgetting the trees that you pitch it to!
• Camping hammocks have at least one great big fat advantage over tent camping (hey, there’s nothing big or fat about hammock camping) and that’s because you can suspend your hammock over just about any type of ground surface, as long as you have the trees, you can swing your hammock in places where you simply wouldn’t have the room to pitch a tent. Big boulders, wet patches, it really doesn’t matter where you swing your hammock (watch out for the water moccasins).
• Camp hammocks can completely replace a tent and a sleeping pad . . . great for ultralight campers and bare minimalists.

Happy days indeed . . . oh happy days!

• Camping hammocks are often (and if they’re not you can get one separately from the backpacking store) supplied with netting to keep the bugs out, and maybe even a waterproof rainfly.
• Camping hammocks are very friendly, well, not that type of friendly (it’s bad enough trying to keep yourself balanced without any midnight acrobatics), I mean environmentally friendly . . . if you are hiking or backpacking through a particularly fragile area you won’t disturb anything by driving in stakes and squishing the ground with your tent and sleeping pad . . . all you need is a couple of trees to tie up your hammock which you can leave in the morning exactly as you found it.

Now, what was I saying about “If I had a hammock . . . .”

Well, it was almost right . . . what’s a couple of letters between friends?