Grand Trunk Nano-7 hammock - mini review.

OK, so I just returned from another trip down West Coast Trail, pics and report to follow soon, but Thought I'd write a little bit about what I took for shelter.

I had been eyeing SGT rock's ultralight hammock setup for a while over the winter, and took the opportunity to aquire a grand trunk nano-7 hammock, and some whoopie slings withe a whoopie sling ridgeline. I made a couple of west coast trail size tree straps out of some old tiedown straps.

So pondering where to take this, WCT is perfect - no bugs, and lots of beach camping. What place does a hammock have in this you ask? well, nothing! and that's exactly it. About half the sites I stay at I want to stay on the beach. I didn't want to take my full on wbb blackbird for a walk down the trail and only use it half the time - so this looked like a great place to try the nano. I paired it with an integral designs silwing tarp, with good lines and tighteners. I also had my ID silponcho that I use as a "garington insulator" type underhammock "taco" for windblock/insulation. and had a blue pad (wide, 27") in the hammock.

So I ended up taking it relatively easy with my newbies in tow - I camped at Thrasher, Walbran, Cribs, Tsusiat, Tscowais, and Michigan - Of those I hammocked at Thrasher, Walbran, and Michigan - I could have hammocked at cribs but chose not to.

The nano performed like a champ. it is a much *smaller* hammock than my others (speer, hennesy, blackbird) and while you can sleep a bit diagonally in it, expect a bit of a bend - This is not a problem for me, because I *like* a bit of a bend when sleeping, but flat sleepers may prefer something larger. As a small hammock- it fit under the silwing, which is also not a very big tarp - and handled a couple of WCT rainspews just fine. The nice part about this was - really, I was going to take the silwing anyway - that was intended to be my "primary" shelter - adding the nano added a mere 300 grams or so of weight and let me hammock in comfort where it was possible or desirable

All in all I was pretty happy with it for this trip.

I've never seen a nano-7 in person. Have you weighed it with all the accoutrements...slings, ridgeline, biners, fly, and bugnet? It looks suspiciously like my first homemade jobbie.
They sure have a good retail distribution going...the things are available everywhere.

Great! Sounds like a good time hanging! So when you weren't using the hammock what did you use as the shelter? Just the silnylon tarp?

Yeah, when I added whoopies and straps and toggles (two mini-biners) it was a little over 300 grams all in. Mind you that includes some sizable "west coast" sized tree straps that I made to deal with large west coast size trees.. the hammock by itself weighs about 150 grams with nothing on it. it seems fairly well made. it has a sewn end gather that as it comes goes through two climbing quality caribiners - nice but heavy. I replaced these with two little black diamond spectra "dogbones" and hung my whoopie slings on those. Worked well.

It goes into a sewn-onto-it stuff pocket, which I throught would be annoying but I actually love - it's the right size to fit everything, and yet when the hammock is strung, it's hanging off the side and works great to tuck my iphone into when I'm done reading on it - it's not the shelf in my blackbird - but it does the job

Has anyone tried the prussic knots that don't need a carabiner? They are all spectra I believe...seems like a nice way to further reduce weight.

From my climbing years, I recall that you cannot tie knots in spectra webbing- that is why spectra climbing slings are pre-sewn in loops.

That's definitely taking it easy on the newbs. Should have pushed them from Gordon to Camper to Cribs to Pachena just to up the complaining (kidding).

Actually, We did Thrasher to Walbran, which will kick your butt. - we had lunch at camper.

Didn't do trailhead to camper because we started at 2 pm, (we didn't indent to start on the 10th - but hopped on early. ) and couldn't get around owen point then - I've done trailhead to camper in a day before (it's a grunt) and thrasher around owen point through camper and on to walbran is a pretty tiring 18 km that feels like about 30

I was just pulling your leg. Own Point is always good for a few hard spills for the uninitiated. Was it busy this year? Patiently awaiting your TR.

I went last year - May 2010 and would love to go again this year but it looks like maybe May 2012. 5 times and it is a different experience for me each time. Love it.