sweeper
I thought that was the standard alarm clock that came with military life.
Magicpaddler

solotripper wrote on Aug 21^st, 2007 at 6:22pm:


As a young trooper in the Army, I spent one night driving the Bn Cmdr all over the manuver area and had set up my hammock at about 0300. About 0600 some Jet Jockie dove in on the hill we were on. I was about 2' above the hammock when I woke up looking down and knew I wasn't going to get any points for the landing.

MM
My huggers don’t have a big enough loop in the end to get the rope through more than once easily.  I have used your technique tying to tree limbs buy rapping around one then tying to another.
MagicPaddler

I've rationalized my fears of lightning hitting the trees my tent is hung from by thinking the ropes would sizzle and vaporize, dropping me on the ground  but diverting the charge into thin air  .  I realize this is probably unscientific wishfull thinking  .  I also try to hang from average or smaller trees, not the largest and tallest on the site.

Quote:


I was trying for a double back flip with a twist , BUT either I'm way to old (the likely culprit) or the hammock wasn't high enough, (what I want to believe) adding a JOLT might of provided some must needed spin

An alternative to your pretty knot is to just wrap the rope through your webbing loop 2 or 3 times, rather than just passing the end through once - all the tension comes onto the wraps, and any simple knot like a half hitch backed up with a second slip-knotted half hitch or whatever
you like will hold just fine, and be easy to untie.

I do that all the time when I am hanging food packs or tarps or whatever - just hung my hunting camp up Saturday, hoisting the heavy pack up into a tree using 1/8" diam nylon cord - end of cord gets wrapped 3 or 4 times around the attachment point, then finished off with a couple of half-hitches.  Never have any trouble untying the knot because there is never any tension on the knot itself.

cedarstripper wrote on Aug 20^th, 2007 at 10:15pm:


CS -

Beware tent sleeping, too!

At least ONE QJ'er has had some up-close-&-personal experience with a lightning event occurring while he was sleeping in his tent (I think).  I was hoping he would speak up here.  Maybe the mush that bolt made of his medulla oblongata has inhibited him.

In any case, as I recall, his equipment didn't fare much better than his brains and is STILL on display somewhere in northern Minnesota... what's left of it, anyway (I'm talking equipment, not brains).  Most of it got vaporized (I think I'm STILL talking equipment).

Root systems of trees are pretty good conductors of electricity.  Tent sleepers camped anywhere near trees shouldn't feel immune from the big ZAP (though I suppose they would be even MORE exposed & vulnerable camped out in the open somewhere).

I've had my own electrifying experience in the park but that was out on the water (& I swear I wasn't sleeping at the time).

All that being said, I can't say your notion hasn't crossed my mind a time or two while I have been strung out between trees in my Clark Jungle Hammock during a thunderstorm.  I've even thought about stringing up a kite to some other guy's hammock or tent in the hopes  that it might divert any atmospheric ill-intent elsewhere.

Wishing you "storm-free" camping,

Jimbo  

ST Makes it hard to stick the landing.

Just VISUALIZE it as a ELECTRIC sleeping bag warmer

I like the idea of the hammock as a sleeping shelter but I just can't get past the visual of lightning hitting a tree my bed was tied to with a rope that just got wet in the rain.  Any thoughts?

C