Winterizing the Hammock for the Common Man

Description

http://www.thepathfinderschoolllc.com

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Pathfinder-School-LLC/167050689997806?ref=hl

Tags: Pathfinder,Survival,Bushcraft,Hammock

Video Transcription

even good

back in the woods morning guys Dave Canterbury the Pathfinder school out here on the Pathfinder school property and I thought what we do today is have a quick discussion about winterizing your hammock there are common man ways that you can winterize your hammock or sleep in your hammock in the winter and not have issues with convection which is the problem with hammocks hammocks are very advantageous in that they get you off the ground they keep you out of any wetness and things like that but at the same time convection becomes your enemy with a hammock because you have that cold air blowing underneath your body all night and if you compress the insulation of a sleeping bag or a wool blanket or the case maybe you have inside that sleeping bag then you don't combat the problem of convection so I'm going to show you how to combat that a little bit today with very common man means very cheaply you can go out and buy expensive under quilts I've got videos on my channel of under quilts made by people like jacks or better that 100% down under quilts but they're to 300 dollars I'm going to show you how to winterize your hammock today okay guys real quick before we go over this insulating this hammock from cold weather I want to show you one of the things that I do that makes setup on my hand looks pretty simple and easy and pretty versatile as far as just Minh the hammock goes and it also gives me I'm all about multi-functionality so I don't like carrying straps for my hammock I like to carry rope and I carry like a nine millimeter climbing grade rope this is rappelling grade rope and I carry two ten foot pieces of it so if I had to put a blood knot in it I'd have 20 feet of it that you can actually climb off of if you had to it makes it multifunctional now what I generally do with this is I will just turn a knot where I turn the rope on itself I turn it over and I've got a loop and then I'll pull a knot through there just like this what that does that creates a slip knot because now as I pull on this side it shortens that loop okay then what I'll do is I'll grab my hammock which is already secured with exactly the same type knot at the other end and put my hook in it at that point I can't pull this tight to get that hammock exactly where I want it whether it is really taught or whatever the case may be I generally make them pretty tight and I sit in them stretch them out a little bit and then I'll either loosen it up or tighten it up again depending on my preference some people like them two-by-four tight my buddy Steve Davis likes this board tight I like mine to have a little bit of slack in it I feel like it cradles me better that way once you get your hammock to where you want it all you have to do at that point is come around and put one half fish behind that knot just like this and make sure it's behind the knot and then this can no longer pull through so you have something that's not going to slip on you whatsoever but because it's pulling on this to try to loosen itself it's not going to bind us not it's not never going to be in a bind so when you get ready to undo this all you have to do is push this rope through pull it out when you disconnect your hammock all you have to do is pull that out and it's a slip knot so everything comes undone just like that so it takes literally just seconds almost to set that up once you get used to doing it and you've got that knot in your head you know what you're doing with it you can put that knot in on the tree very quickly just like that grab your hammock up stick it in there lift it to the height you want it and then draw it down to where you want it just like that you're good to go put the half-inch in it like we talked about just like that and it's not going to come loose on you at that point so that's just a really quick tip on how to set up your hammock fast up and down with a piece of good quality rope that will give you that ability to have something multifunctional other than just having that strap material because like I said this is rappelling grade rope you could actually hang off the stuff you needed to or use it to assist you in a climb or descent so once you've got your hammock hung now you're going to probably put your sleeping bag your wool blanket inside of it and the issue that you have with the wintertime is convection you have a problem with the breeze or the cold air underneath this hammock now if you've got your tarp over the top of it you're blocking some of that side your side but you still get that through way where you get cold air and that's where you get cold in a hammock because you've compressed the insulation of your sleeping bag

or your wool blanket and your clothing and now you've got that tight space on the bottom that saying exposed to that cold air so like I said you can either put it under quilt under there which is expensive unless you make your own under quilt you can put a whoopee or something like that in there a poncho liner and it'll help but what I found to be the best is to carry a couple things with me and I carry these a lot of times even if I'm sleeping on the ground you know padding is not something that should be taken lightly especially in winter camping because it's protection okay this is a ten dollar exercise pad from Walmart Gold's Gym $10 exercise pad it's pretty thick it's made out of a phone so it's very flexible unlike the military-style ones they don't it doesn't get stiff in cold weather and unlike air mattress types like the thermal rest and things like that

you're not going to punch a hole in it so you'll have to worry about that it's also multifunctional I can use this thing to wrap my leg up with duct tape if I get a sprain or strain I can use this for a lot of things I can use it for a ground pad whatever the case may be it will get wet but it dries very very quickly so is this going to be enough if I put this in the hammock probably not all by itself no so generally what I'll do is I'll put this in the hammer if you roll that out in the hammock and you've got that it gives you like a shell in there okay here's the kicker right here okay this weighs absolutely nothing it folds up very very small it doesn't even really have to be this wide I tend to like this stuff about the width of my bed roll this is five feet long because it doesn't really need to be the length of your body and needs to cover you know from basically your knees to your shoulders in your head okay it rolls up this small I can roll this up inside my wool blanket inside this other pad if I want to and it compresses down to this size about a little bit bigger than a pop can maybe like a coffee can size and what this is is this is called reflex and what it is basically if you want the truth of the matter its bubble wrap that has mylar on both sides of it and what it's used for is insulation around duct work so you buy this at the hardware store it comes in three foot widths five foot with one foot widths this is a three foot wide I think is what this is probably two foot wide it's probably more like it I apologize probably two foot wide but it comes in a width about this big and then it comes in something like this as well dollar twenty nine foot so a five foot piece of this was about seven bucks now now I'm taking advantage of the mylar and the heat transfer so now I've got that bubble wrap for his extra insulation I've already got the pad in there to protect the bottom and now I'm going to reflect my own heat back up on myself by putting this inside on top of the pad just like that once I have that in there now I can put my sleeping bag in there or my wool blanket and I don't have to worry about that convection anymore

I'm not going to crush this insulation so much by laying my weight on it that it's not going to battle that convection this will sleep very warm especially with like the black bag from a from an MMS sleep system just the black bag you don't need the green you don't need the gore-tex just this in the black bag will keep you warm well below freezing okay well below freezing if you're using a wool blanket in here you can go down a little below freezing and you're still going to be okay you might get a little chilly in the feet because you don't have that enclosed trapped air space like you in a sleeping bag but we'll do a separate video on wool blankets versus sleeping bags for winter camping and all for season camping in another video what I wanted to do today was I want to show you a very common man way you're talking 17 bucks right here to insulate this hammock and know that I can sleep in this thing with a sleeping bag a good quality sleeping bag like an MMS system like a blind gonna be okay in the morning when I wake up I don't have to worry about building a big reflective fire sleeping on the ground building up four inches of compressed insulation we're making some kind of a cold bed this gets me up off the ground so I don't have to worry about that conduction problem from the snowy ground or the hard cold ground and it also battles the convection issues from underneath by putting these two articles inside there and it doesn't weigh hardly anything both of those pads together I guarantee you weigh less than a pound or write out a pound so you're not adding a lot of weight you're just adding a little bit of bulk to your seats to your whatever you're sheltering system is but if you keep it the length of your bedroll on the bottom your backpack where the case may be or the width I should say you're going to be okay so that's it right there

good winter camp set up for hammock okay guys so here's both of those material mats rolled up with each other so we've got a tube here that's probably not quite as wide as my hand probably four and a half five inches across maybe six at the most and the length of a bed roll that I can put on the bottom of pack back on my horse back of my ATV whatever the case may be you can also take this and put it down inside of a thirty liter dry bag let it open up inside that dry bag and stuff your sleeping bag down in the middle and then put your hammock on top of that ropes on top of that and you've got a sheltering kit right there if you get your tarp in there that's great if you can't just carry it separate but you've got a really good sleeping kit in a thirty liter dry bag if you do it that way and it's going to be waterproof and bomb-proof so I wanted to show you guys that today okay guys while I'm dave cameron pathfinder school i appreciate you joining me for this quick video on winter rising your hammock setup basically on the cheap i appreciate your views I appreciate your support I appreciate everything you do for me for my school after my family and I'll be back to another video as soon as I can thanks guys you