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

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

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   8-)