ENO Doublenest/singlenest

I'll post a more complete review of hammocks in the weeks to come, but here is a small teaser... I went to webelo camp last month and wanted a hammock to kick back and relax.  Now I want to first say I'm not a huge fan of hammocks.  My ideal of lounging on a campout is my foldable papasan from Bass Pro Shops.  That's a product desrving of its own review, but for today I'll stay on the hammocks. 

Anyway, I wanted something easier to pack and more lightweight than the bulky chair that has been so comfortable.  I figured a hammock was a viable solution so i started doing some searching and discovered the Eagle Nest Outfitters (ENO) series of hammocks and their favorable reviews.  I went to REI in search of the ENO Doublenest.  Without paying attention to the tags, i actually picked up the ENO singlenest first.  I realized my mistake when I got home and started to set it up.  Since I had it and REI was a 30 mile drive to return it, I decided to try it.  I quickly discovered why other reviewers had advocated the doublenest over the singlenest.  At 6'1", 260 lbs, the singlenest was just really tight.

I packed up the singlenest and headed back to REI to get the doublenest like I had originally planned... and my pursuit was not unrewarded.  I was significantly impressed with the space and build quality of the ENO doublenest.  I discovered that if you stretch the hammock tight between two trees, it wraps around you like a cocoon making it singnificantly difficuly to fall out of.  In fact, their is so much room in the hammock, I found I could double the fabric when tightly stretched between two trees and lie on it as a single hammock although it was much less stable using in in this unintended fashion. 

I was sufficiently pleased with my initial test that I decided to keep the hammock and take it to webelo camp and test it as I had planned.  When I arrived at camp, I quickly found two trees and setup the hammock.  Unfortunately, I discovered that the parachute fabric is so tightly woven it let little air through and the hammock was uncomfortably hot (it was 96 degrees outside anyway), but getting inside the hammock just trapped heat and stopped any breeze that happened to be blowing.  This significantly reduced my planned usage of the hammock unless I doubled it over and previously described and balanced myself on half the fabric- an awkward act at best.  At this point, I was beginning to doubt the hammock and planned to return it when I got back from the trip- but then came the 'storm'

During that night, a STRONG wind storm came through that night about 2:00 AM... no rain but wind gusts of 25~35 MPH.  I was in one of the old army tents provided by the camp and my tent kept swaying singnificantly- so much so I was concerned in would come down in the wind.  I decided as the leader of the boys, I didn't need to be bonked on the head if a tent came down- particularly mine, so I evacuated the tent and headed to my 'windproof' hammock.  I crawled up and let the hammock wrap itself around me and went quickly and confidently to sleep- oh how I slept!  In the tent, I had an army cot with a Thermarest Basecamp XL self inflating mattress.  This is arguably a comfortable sleeping arrangement but the hammock crushed it!  I like to sleep on my side and found the doublenest hammock large enough I could sleep on my side and still be comfortable. 

I slept *so good* in the doublenest hammock that I've started to reconsider how I want to camp in the future.  I am giving serious consideration to abandoning the tent when I am not family camping in favor of hammock camping.  The doublenest has some definate issues with heat entrapment (e.g. - Don't use this thing for summer camping in June-August in Texas) but this could work in my favor as the temperatures are cooler.  A second negative is cost- the entire setup (straps, rainfly, bug net, hammock) will cost nearly $200- pretty expensive for a one man sleeping arrangement.  I suppose it is inline with the cost for a small 1~2 man tent and the thermarest mattress- but like I said much more comfortable.  I remained a little concerned at the absence of privacy in a hammock or the idea of changing clothes in a hammock so time will have to tell if I continue down this path.

I'm also investigating other recommended hammock sleeping solutions and am giving considerable consideration to the hennessy deluxe explorer hammock.  I was introduced to the Hennessy by a guy in Ft Worth at rock climbing class but I didn't give it a second thought at the time.  Looking back, I think I can see why he advocated it.  Alternately, I may go ahead and just bite the bullet and buy the remaining bug net and tarp to go with the ENO.  In fact, Hennessy sells their tarp which is the same size as the ENO for $20 less ($59 vs $79).  It's made out of polyester instead of nylon but that isn't a problem to me- in fact most rainflys are made of polyester as I understand.

I will be the first to admit there are times that hammock camping doesn't make sense (desert, beach, anywhere trees are scarce), but for those destinations that have plentiful trees, I am going to give significant thought to this hammock idea.

p.s. - I have setup the hammock at my house a few times since camp and since discovered that loosely hanging it between two trees gives more room to the sides of the hammock and is more comfortable for simply lounging.  It doesn't try to wrap around as much and so it doesn't have the uncomfortable heat issues I first experienced.

Admit your mistakes. Share so others learn.

So this week we just returned from Robber's Cave State Park in Oklahoma. We were there Sunday through Wednesday to do some hiking, climbing and rappelling. Unfortunately, much of our activities were displaced due to a poor setup on my part. You see, I implemented a poorly designed rigging for a rappel and my wife fell. More details will be revealed as the blog continues.

We were on a short cliff (only 15') so i could introduce Lori to the basics of rappelling before we went to the larger cliffs up by the cave.  I rigged a fireman's belay with redundant nylon webbing to a single 'bomb-proof' anchor.  As my story will reveal, it proved to be a near fatal rigging.



So to hook-up, I had two straps individually wrapped around a large healthy oak tree.  This thing was massive- it must have had an 8 foot circumference at least because I couldn't wrap both my arms around it.  Anyway, I wrapped double in case a strap or knot failed- not likely but I wanted to be careful and make everything redundant.  Unfortunately, the unforeseen happened- and it almost ended tragically.
  I'm sharing my negative experience here so others may learn.

So Lori had her feet too close together and started to twist to the right.  Doing so caused the rope to slip into the crevice.   Even though I pulled on the double rope locking her in immediately, she continued to fall- not because she was slipping on the rope, but because the rope itself was falling into the crevice.  The horizontal slide of the rope and vertical drop combined for a 4' vertical fall and 8' horizontal swing into the granite wall on her right.  

[ASIDE: Making matters even worse- she wasn't wearing a helmet.  I had waived off the safety of a helmet thinking this cliff was so elementary and no loose rocks were to be found, we didn't need it.  How terribly wrong I was!  We always wear our helmets now no matter how rudimentary the cliff!]

She hit the wall HARD with her back, elbow and back of her head.  It knocked the wind out of her and even caused her to momentarily black out.  Her elbow was severely scraped and bruised and her back is black in several places.  She also received a significant knot on her head.  Fortunately, the window of time indicating a concussion has passed and x-rays showed nothing broken so we consider ourselves fortunate and blessed by God's mercy!

So my conclusion is I should have rigged my webbing to different anchor points.  Even though my second anchor point was smaller and further away, it would have provided the necessary connection point that would have stopped the rope from falling into the crevice when Lori slipped.

Conclusion: when connecting your rigging, consider the strength of your anchors but also consider how the choosing of your anchor points will allow your rope to swing/move.