Reviews > Shelters > Hammocks > Lawson Blue Ridge Camping Hammock > Thomas Vickers > Field Report

Lawson Blue Ridge Camping Hammock Field Test Report

August 15, 2006

Tester Background:
I grew up in the piney woods of southeast Texas. Camping was a quick trip into the mosquito-infested woods behind the house. My style has evolved and over the last 4 or 5 years, I have begun to take a lighter weight approach to hiking gear (I still use sleeping bags and tents, just lighter versions). While I have flirted with lightweight hiking, I feel that I am more of a mid-weight hiker now. My philosophy is one of comfort, while carrying the lightest load possible.

Hanging the Hammock:
It was a big disappointment for me to open the box on the Lawson Hammock and discover that it was not hangable right out of the box.  My first delemina was to figure out just what to use to hang the hammock.  I finally settled on a 79 inch (201 cm) length of 0.43 inch (11 mm) static rope, and two tree huggers (1.5 x 72 inch ( 4 x 183 cm) pieces of webbing with loops sewn into each end).   I would tie one end of the rope to the hammock hang loop, wrap the tree hugger around the tree, then thread the loose end of the rope through the loops on both ends of the tree hugger.  

Next I would loop the loose end of the rope around itself and the tree hugger. Once I had the hammock at the correct height, I would tighten the ropes on both sides and tie the loose ends off.  Not the perfect set up, but it works pretty well and only adds a total of 9 oz (255 g) to the hammock weight.

The other issue I have encountered with hanging the hammock is the fact that the ropes attached to the hammock and spreader bar seem to have a great deal of stretch to them.   In order to keep from dragging the ground, I have to hang the ends of the hammock at least 6 feet (1.83 m) off the ground. The higher the better in most cases.  This problem confounded me for quite a while till I realized that it was not the hanging rig that was causing my problems, but it was the hammock ropes.  I am not sure how much give they have in them, but having to stand on my tippie toes to get the hammock hung so my butt won't drag the ground is not something I want to do every night before I go to bed on the trail.  

 Packing the Hammock:
After figuring out how to get the hammock hanging in a manner that made it safe for me to sleep in, I had to figure out how it was going into my pack.  My summer pack tends to be a GoLite Contiuum, which is mainly constructed of silnylon.  My other shelters get shoved into the bottom of the pack without any stuff sack and then everything else is squished down on top of it.  The spreader bars on the Lawson hammock created a concern for me.  My biggest fear was that I would shove it down in the pack and one of the spreader bars would tear through the silnylon of the pack body.  Rather than risk my pack, I went ahead and stuffed the hammock into the stuff sack provided by Lawson and strapped the stuff sack onto the top of the pack body, under the top lid. 

This was not my favorite way to carry a shelter, but it was what I had to settle on. I just didn’t feel safe (and still don’t) about stuffing the hammock in my pack without a stuff sack. I could have put it in a stuff sack and then packed it inside my pack, but I don’t normally do that either. I just don’t like stuff sacks.

Sleeping:
I spent ten nights in the hammock and they were all pretty interesting.  I am used to a hammock being a tight fitting cocoon that is shaped something like a banana.  If I bring anything into my hammock and it isn’t secured, it tends to wind up underneath me at some point.  The Lawson hammock wasn’t this way.  The bottom is rectangualrly shaped and it creates a large amount of extra space for one person.  I was able to spread out and keep quite a few items in the hammock with me at night without the fear that I was going to wake up on top of them. 

Sleeping was comfortable for me.  I either slept on my back (I don’t like this much) or on my side (my preferred position).  Either way, I usually slept diagonally across the bottom of the hammock. My head went in/near one corner and my feet went into the opposite corner on the other end of the hammock. This provided me the stability that I needed to keep the hammock from rocking too much. If I attemped to sleep straight down the centerline of the hammock, I felt that it swayed and rocked too much for my liking.  A little sway is good, but too much is not as fun as it might seem. 

The Fly:
The printed directions that were provided with the hammock need pictures, especially of how to set up the fly.  After reading the directions several times, I just didn’t get how to attach the fly to the hammock body.  I don’t think that it has ever taken me less than three tries to get the fly installed correctly on the hammock.  There were too many lines to attach and I often was not sure of where each line attached to the hammock body.  I am really glad that I never had to quickly set the hammock up and then install the fly because I doubt I could get it done in a hurry.  There is no other way to put it, but installing the fly on this hammock has been a constant source of aggravation for me.  Even after two months, I still have problems doing this and it bothers me. 

On the good side, I like the way the fly fits once it is attached to the hammock. I especially like the hook and loop fastener squares that allow the fly to wrap under the hammock and connect to it, creating a nice snug cocoon.  If the fly wasn’t so hard to install, it would probably be my favorite part of the hammock.  It doesn’t flap in the breeze and it really appears to make the hammock weather proof.  While I like the snug fit of the fly, I don’t like the fact that there is no way to install it over the hammock without the snug fit.  I am going to see if I can rig it this way, so that the hammock can ventilate itself with a breeze, but that will come in the next part.  

Heat and the hammock:
I spent all of my nights in the hammock without the fly. This allowed me the ventilation that I needed in order to keep from drowning in the heat and humidity.  I did wonder just how much the fly affected the temperature in the hammock, so one afternoon I set it up in a shady part of my back yard so that I could find out. The temperature outside the hammock was 93 F (34 C) as I climbed in with my book to rest and read a bit.  I don't think I lasted more than twenty minutes into this little adventure.  The temperature inside the hammock had risen to 97 F (38 C) and I was roasting alive.  At least I knew that the fly was good at keeping the heat in and this may come in valuable if there is ever any really cool weather during the remainder of the testing period.  

Swinging in the rain:
Despite having a rather wet summer here in Texas, I never had the chance to test the hammock out in the rain.  All of my nights were spent under the stars without the fly attached and this was nice enough, but I really did want to know what it was like hanging in the hammock in the rain.  One night last week I finally got my chance.  There was rain in the forecast, so I bundled the family off to bed, put the hammock up in the backyard, installed the fly, and crawled in.  Within an hour I was rewarded and I am extremely happy that I was able to conduct this little experiment in my backyard and not on the trail.

My troubles started when the water began to accumilate in the center of the fly, about halfway down the hammock.  The issue stemmed from the fact that the Easton support poles are held upright by lengths of shockcord. The fly and hammock were taught when the rain started, but when the water began to pool a bit, the shockcord stretched, allowing the Easton poles to lean toward the middle of the hammocks's length.   Basically, this allowed a big pool of water to build up in the fly as the fly sagged toward the middle as well.  I could shove the fly upward from inside to push the water off, but it also meant that I had to stay awake.  There was no way to get to the shockcord to adjust it while it was raining. 

I stayed much drier than the circumstances warranted, but I was dissappointed about the way the fly responded to the rain. It is a simple matter that will probably be fixable by replacing the shockcord with a cord that has much less stretch to it. Then, as the water hits the fly, the Easton poles will not lean toward the middle/center and create a catch basin out of the fly.  This was a miserable enough night and I eventually bailed after several hours of dumping water out of the fly. If I had been on the trail, this would have made me more than a little unhappy.

Final Thoughts:
I have spent a lot of nights in the Lawson Blueridge Camping Hammock and I have yet to be really impressed.  It is really roomy on the inside and it does challenge my preconcived notion that a camping hammock has to be a bannana shapped coccoon.  The difficulties with hanging the hammock and keeping the fly working in the rain has shaken my faith a bit.  I stick by my earlier statement that the Lawson Blue Ridge Camping Hammock is more like a hanging tent than a hammock.  In the next part of this test I will be setting it up on the ground for at least one night to see how well it works this way, but I think a hammock should be designed to hang first and sit on the ground second.

Things I like:
1. Roomy inside
2. Comfortable
3. Ventilates well without the fly

Things I don't like:
1. Hoop poles are held upright by shockcord
2. Ropes on spreader bars stretch too much and make hanging the hammock difficult
3. The tendency of the hammock to flip upside down when hanging empty with the fly on it

Reviews > Shelters > Hammocks > Lawson Blue Ridge Camping Hammock > Thomas Vickers > Field Report