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Reviews > Books > Field Guides > The Ultimate Hang 2 > Test Report by Kurt PapkeThe
Ultimate Hang
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Name: | Kurt Papke |
Age: | 64 |
Gender: | Male |
Height: | 6' 4" (193 cm) |
Weight: | 228 lbs (103 kg) |
Email address: | kwpapke (at) gmail (dot) com |
City, State, Country: | Tucson, Arizona USA |
Product Information |
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Manufacturer |
Hansen Outdoors Publishing |
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Manufacturer website |
http://theultimatehang.com |
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Year manufactured |
2018 |
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Size |
342 pages 8 x 10 in (203 x 254 mm) |
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MSRP |
$19.95 USD |
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Weight |
1 lb, 12 oz (792 g) |
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Material |
Paperback with matte cover |
Encyclopedic. That is the only word I can use to describe
this book. 342 pages of how to sleep in a nylon sheet tied
between two trees. A lot of effort went into this
book. Obviously, the author spent countless hours testing
rigs from pretty much every hammock manufacturer out there,
including many small cottage firms. He has also researched
every knot, connection doodad and technique for achieving bliss in
a hammock. He has spent equally countless hours designing
and drawing the information-dense illustrations that are the heart
of the book, and has even added a touch of humor. It is rare
in our society to have an author with such illustration talents,
that can transform his vision for how to communicate a complex
topic into a simple picture. I am envious of his talent.
Not that there are no flaws with the book. I found several
typos, and even some incorrect information. I sometimes had
trouble connecting illustrations with the explanatory text.
In some sections the author used numbered paragraphs that were
cross-referenced in the illustrations, in other areas he did not.
The Ultimate Hang 2 can be fundamentally divided into three
sections (my taxonomy, not the author's):
1. Introduction: why hammock
and fundamentals (FAQ's) + a getting started guide (basic setup)
2. Advanced hammocking (tips)
including chapters on staying off the ground, dry, warm and
unbitten by critters
3. Do It Yourself (DIY) guide
with example projects
This is a good thing - one of my criticisms of the first edition
was that it jumped right into the thick of things, leaving
beginners wondering where to begin. The DIY section of the
book is brand-new. The number of hammock hangers making
their own gear is small, but growing.
Let's have a look chapter-by-chapter
The chapter starts out with an FAQ section, which might be
paraphrased as "hammock myth busting", a little history, a
taxonomy of hammock designs, and wraps up with a hammock version
of Leave No Trace (LNT).
The FAQ section is very complete - he addresses every issue I have
ever heard when I mention I am a hammock camper. The
taxonomy section (designs, styles) goes over every variation I've
ever heard of. The LNT section brings up some important
points like finding out if hammocks are allowed where you are
going; I hike and camp a lot in the Grand Canyon, and they are not
allowed to be hung from trees there (you can hang from man-made
structures).
This is the Getting Started Guide, and goes over the fundamental
components of a hammock camping solution, then covers how to
select, purchase, set it up, and even how to get in! This
includes numerous tables (I love tables!) that list
examples/alternative products, including prices. There is
always a tradeoff for including transitory information like
prices: good to have, but after a couple of years it can get out
of date. The author does a great job of including solutions
for special needs campers, such as big & tall and children.
This chapter starts out with a number of pages on the geometry
issues: hang angle, etc. Following is a set of tips for each
hammock style, then safety, site selection, etc. While
reading I felt like this chapter was a grab bag of all the
material that did not fit into the following four chapters.
It also contained the first typos I noticed:
pg 135, under canopy stand Modled (sic) after... and galvanied
(sic) fence...
There was also an odd (to me) whole-page illustration on pg 146
that appeared to show how to use a hammock as a sail for a canoe
with no explanatory text. The page appeared to be the title
page for a section on more tips by the numbers, but was not in the
table of contents.
I really liked the author's use of numbered tips that are
cross-referenced to illustrations. In fact, after a while I
got a little frustrated when there was a tip without a numbered
illustration or vice versa.
This chapter has an extensive section that pays homage to the
innovations of Tom Hennessy, but is done in a way that users of
any brand of hammock can learn something from.
On pg 162 on sleeping tips there is no mention of use of a pillow
when side sleeping. Pillows are covered elsewhere in the
book, but I find personally that I mostly need a pillow when I
sleep on my side, my shoulders elevate my neck high enough that my
head needs support.
This section covers the myriad methods, devices and techniques to
suspend and adjust the tension of a hammock. It starts out
on pg 181 with a nice overview of the engineering/physics behind
the challenges of hanging.
There were tons of knots, hitches and hardware devices covered in
this chapter. The author did use some number tips towards
the end, but I thought it would have been easier to navigate if
they had been used throughout. On pg 196-197 there was a
profusion of end loop options with little to no explanation of
what they were, nor how and when to use them. A table would
have been helpful here. A couple more issues I saw that
could have been caught with careful editing:
pg 204, Dutchware adutchable (sic) clips -
Freudian slip? Attempt at humor? Typo?
pg 207 is an illustration of the Tree-O Hammock
Frame. This looks like it might belong in the
attachments section maybe?
The Chapter title page is an illustration with a good example of
the author's sense of humor, showing a small person down in a sea
of tents swamped with water while the hammock camper stays nice
and dry up on the hillside. The illustration on the next
page of common hammock tarps is one of those great
information-dense drawings that combines pictorial/geometry info
within an ordered table. I can sit and stare at this diagram
for 10 minutes.
On pg 251 there is a section on picking guyline cordage. I
was a little surprised there was no mention of reflective cords -
I always use guylines that glow in my headlamp so I don't trip
over them in the dark.
The great challenge of staying warm in a hammock is heat loss
from below, but the author provides a complete treatment of
staying warm in cold weather.
pg 278 Insulated Hammock Temp Ratings I was a little
confused with the sort ordering in this table - it starts out
alphabetical, and then is all over the map?!
On the next page tip #139 Keep your neck covered there was
no mention of neck gaiters, which I often use in conjunction with
a top quilt in cold weather.
This chapter was very complete in the topics it addressed, but I
thought it could have used a specific page or two on the topic of
hanging and adjusting an underquilt to avoid leakage. In my
experience, this is the biggest challenge with underquilts, which
have become the standard in hammock camping.
This is a short chapter, almost all of it on bug nets. I
have mostly avoided this topic in the last decade by using jungle
hammocks with integrated bug nets, but there are folks out there
who like a modular approach.
This is basically a compendium of DIY projects, each documented
with a 1-2 page set of step-by-step illustrations with
measurements. I have never been a DIY kind of guy, but it
was fun to flip through these to see how all the gear I've been
using for the last 10 years is actually made. It's all good,
though on pg 307 in the instructions for making a tarp there is no
mention of seam sealing, an absolutely critical step to making a
waterproof piece of gear.
Contains a list of manufacturers, a packing checklist, and a set
of reference tables. I would include a bandanna or two in
the packing checklist, but that's just me.
For the (prospective) hammock camper who wants to know everything
there is to know about the subject and doesn't want to spend
endless hours Googling, looking at product websites, watching
Youtube videos, and pouring over thousands of Hammock Forum posts,
this book is the solution. It's the kind of book I can see
myself going back to from time-to-time when I want to try
something new, i.e. how do I do a continuous ridgeline?
It was also instructive to read the book cover-to-cover: it's
amazing how much creativity, thought and experimentation has gone
into perfecting the art of sleeping on a nylon sheet tied to two
trees. Most of the hammock campers I know really are
pursuing the "ultimate hang", the perfect night's sleep aloft, and
this book is the best resource I know of to achieve it.
There aren't many camping books that are as encyclopedic as this
book is. Nonetheless, as pointed out in my review there were
a few omitted topics that surprised me a bit. I bet the
author is just chomping at the bit to work on rev 3!!