My Favorite Tarp Set Up for a Hammock - Set up tips

Description

People ask me what my favorite way to set up a tarp and hammock is, so here it is, check it out. Our ponchos can be made into a hammock, then over top the PSTL large tarp, 10' x 10', is placed in a way to to give good shelter and still have a nice view. I go step by step on how I set everything up. Check out our gear at wildernessinnovation.com

Tags: Poncho,hammock,tarp,shelter,camping,how to,bushcraft,outdoorsman,winter camp

Video Transcription

parry peacock careth wilderness innovation I'm uh I get I get a lot of questions people want to know what's my favorite camp set up with the tarp or my favorite tarp setup and we do make targets and make thousand of them and I I like the open so much I only use them on I have two but so I thought well I'll set up a tarp setup it's really my favorite way of doing it I'm gonna use my olive yellow poncho here which is really bright I'm gonna use that as my hammock setup so for contrast and I think I'll use a woodland pstl the large 10 by 10 tarp and I'm going to set it up over it as a shelter and show you what you can do

well I'll I'm about a probably 18 feet apart here between trees and normally if I'm about this distance 15 to 20 feet away or so well getting closer to 20 feet away I usually uh I usually put my lazy string up about head higher so that seems to work pretty good for me so now I just clipped my hammock in I'll be ready I'm just using the 24-inch Dyneema slings and you see where it's sewn right here

all those bar tacks it makes it pretty stiff so what I do is I just fold over an end like that and that becomes my stiff parts that I shoved that in the tube in the I think I showed this on a couple videos but basically I get that down in there I put my little finger do there to hold it so it doesn't pull all the way in and you see em I'm already a third of the way over so all I do now is I just bunch up Sounders bunching up a bunch of stuff here now pull on it there we are so there's my there's my two Dyneema ends and all I do is make I get this part right here

that's my center tab on my poncho I just get that straight down I know I'm on here even alright so I've got my two ends of my runner put that put those through there I take my Dyneema slide the little bead back I shove my Dyneema cord up through the middle of there now at this point you could use you could either use a carabiner which is really simple if you want to go a little more lightweight you can either cut a stick up or you're camping or you can use this is one of our East and aluminum tent pegs this is a six-inch one so I do there they put shove up through there and I stretch my shot cord over the tip and you see shock cord just kind of holds it on there all right I'm gonna put my little spreader in here but I really like it when I'm using these tiny more runners that little bit of spread right there makes a ton of difference in my comfort level sleeping in this thing I chose to use this woodland harpists a pstl 10-foot by 10-foot

it's our large um tarp all right this cords made up in a figure eight same way that we supply it when you get cord from us and for this tarp setup I want to be about five feet off the ground or so cuz my tarp to ten by ten in the back side I want to let hang down and so I don't want to go too high I didn't I didn't mean to walk on it cuz really shouldn't walk over you can damage him you know but we're in the snow so the way we do it is just girls kind of like it's basically like the trucker's not that I've showed some years ago so I'm just gonna go like this and pinch together a little loop okay I'm gonna it's gonna twist it once twice let's say three times two or three times then I take this loop right here with my fingers and I straddle the mainline here and I pull a loop up through that other loop okay you see that makes a little like a figure eight right there so then I just slide that up there and tighten it so I put my free end through here there's my situation right there so now as I pull on this I tighten this hopefully you can see this okay so I get attention to however much I want I can pinch this right there and because partly because of the compounding effect of going through that pulley type deal it's not that difficult for me to hold this thing now all i gotta do to hold it as i just throw it end up over here and basically i just pulling the loop through here okay so now i have a basically a slippery half hitch on there that right there will hold this thing if i need to make an adjustment i just jerk that out of there tension a little bit more do it again to tie it off i'm good it goes alright you see the point where i'm at here here's the end of my hammock right here so i'm out about a foot past that

so I can I can secure this end of the of the tarp and this is half way so it's five feet threaten back so I just shove this tie out tab between that V that was made and I just take a stick like this or I could use Marlinspike whatever but the stick right there I worked fine now and that pulls back when I tighten the other side that's going to pull against there and that will that will secure this end of it right here without having to tie anything else off I just made me they don't bring my bin that had my prusik loops in it so I just made me one out of scrap piece of 550 cord and I just tight an overhand knot in it I'm not getting if I had a fines gonna have a really lot of tension I'd make it up with the stop or knots like we do on our on the prusik loops that we sell that here hits not that much so you throw this thing over you bring your knot end up through here twice and it's important how you address this out because you want to come out of the middle and then you want it to extend on out and I could go I could more I could go more times than that if I want to it gives it more holding power you have to tension it up pretty good at first and once you get it you can pull on that all you want it won't move so I'm going to put the end of this press ik up through the loop on this tarp now they're Chev a stick through here like a Marlinspike now I pull on my press ik I can put a pretty darn good bit of tension on there and that won't slide and it's adjustable so I'm gonna do so that I can I don't need to nail this thing down tight so I can put that through there and leave the stretchiness there that's what I want to do so it's more more adjustable I can do more with it you know I've got some stretch in here which actually helps the tent stakes stay in better and it also keeps me tension on my tarp by having the shock cord is much better than trying to anchor down with some solid cord there's three ways I can use this tent stake so I could nail I could nail down just like that

and that would be fine because I'm on a ridge line which is flexible that other tent stake over there shock corded so it's flexible so I can do just like that it would be just fine but I want to get a little more distance because I'm trying to pull this back away from my hammock a little bit so another way I can do this is I can go through here and then I can put the stake through the loop like I did on the other side and pull it out like that okay so that's that's basically one level of shock cording now I can double that so instead of instead of letting that pass all the way over the tent stake like I did I let it hook in that hook right there so now I have four I have four strands of shock cord instead of two so now I have twice they have twice the tension so I can just do that if I want to but like I say I'm gonna I want to get out here a little

but so I can give myself a lot more a lot more flexibility in this thing so let me go out and find a stick here I think I'm gonna just do one shoulder high right now to start with that no work I can cut it off about right here and all there's a better one over there well it's a little higher I might like it may be a little higher like that I think I'd do this right here all right so here's my loop now at the end of my poles a little bit a little bit too big to go through that loop so I need to trim this down a little bit sure you've seen how I do that sure you've seen that just score a little flying all the way around and that's ready now this wood hair is dry enough an onion usually I use my knife or something my Mora knife for flaking that off of there but about 1-2 deep look at that a little work don't need much anyway there we go I just put that over the top of that peg tip on there I'll pull this thing down with a parachute cord tension it down no I'm pretty good shape here so when you get a tarp from us you get three shock cord pieces like this this is the longest one there's one a little shorter and a little shorter than that so they're 30 32 24 and 18 inches this is 32 it's got a cord lock on it slides up and down so I can adjust the tension and this is exactly the reason that we have these I can shove a loop through here okay so I got the loop here I got the cord lock down here so I passed the cord lock in through the loop pull that up okay now you see right here on this tree there's a little stub of a branch well I can take this cord lock I can run that up there now and tied off to the tree the tree will give a little bit this will give a little bit so I'm so I'm secure without being anchored solidly all right so these tent stakes come with the little 9 inch 9 inch loop of shock cord through the eye there well you can pull that out and you can take one of the three longer shock cords that come with the tarp and you can just fold that over to and I shove that through the little hole here so now I have a long loop that I can use and I really want to use it here I think through my loop tension that down now now you see I can come down to the ground I can be under tension here so there's the one of the uses for these little stubs on here hang up whatever you want on it all right so here I am in my shelter for the snow on me or rain or whatever and I'm pretty well pretty well protected in here if I need to of course I can bring these corners down I can bring that senator stick down a little more to give myself more drainage or whatever but you see I've got a slope everywhere you know I've got a I've gotten kind of like a hip roof going out this way an a-frame my back wall going down here and these because they're going down like that gives a slope for drainage that way so I have good drainage and everything which is one of the reasons I like this I got really nice protection and it's really easy to adjust it to button myself in a little tighter I can do in just a few minutes really I've got a lot of space in here I could have I had a little camp chair or a folding chair that I brought with me I could set set that in here easily I've I've dragged a stump over before and put my guest on there and cooked in the rain or something and be out of all that so I'm you know I'm really comfortable in here it's really nice and like I say plenty of space to be in out of the elements to me this is just one of the most effective ways to use especially our pstl tarp pretty cozy what do you nice out here and this is what I like because I can see out I love to be able to be in my hammock whether I'm laying down or sitting in here or whatever I just like to be able to see out and see the world I'm in man I like to be in the outdoors I like to be able to see it that's what I love about tarps and that's why I absolutely love about this setup

it gives me protection with of you and here we are up inside nice and roomy look how much floor space I got in there I'm not touching I'm not touching this tarp anywhere if I wanted to I didn't put any stake in the middle here I could put a stake down there at the middle and pull this out see a little bit more this shelter I've had it in some pretty they've had it in some pretty good winds before and you know it does really nice around I mean this thing will stay up really nice and a good wind you