A cool thing about the different gear lists

I think the variety of gear lists I see is so cool, there are so many reasons to use different gear, where, when, weather, group size, pack size, weight preferences, time spent in the same camp, comfort needs, the list goes on and on, I think sometimes people do not think about all these factors when they judge a hikers gear, I think it makes this stuff so much more interesting, I would like to try everything, if you have any thoughts please share them

Lately I've ditched my tent and sleeping bag to cut weight so that I can hike and see more, also I'm less committed to one site. I've been favoring my mosquito net hammock and tarp instead. Thanks to some planning ahead it takes roughly 5 minutes to setup and about the same to tear down.

One thing I would recommend to any person planning to pack a hammock rather than a tent that will make set up and tear down so much easier and faster: get 2 pieces of sturdy rope, each roughly 20ft in length. Fold in half and tie a knot about every 8 inches along the length of the rope. Acquire some carabiners (I use 2 on each end for peace of mind), wrap the rope around a tree pulling the the knots through the looped end and clip the hammock in one of the sections created by the multiple knots. This way you can avoid struggling with stubborn knots.

You haven't heard of woopie slings yet, have you.

Tying rope around trees is a great way to encourage The Powers That Be to outlaw hammocks. And rope used for hammocks should be stronger than you think if you don't like sitting on the ground abruptly in the middle of the night...

Amsteel is just about perfect - light and sufficiently strong to withstand the physics of hammock hanging. And it makes excellent no-knot whoopie slings.

Different gear lists are a big reason why talking about backpacking is so fun for me. Four or five years ago when I first started hammock camping, I had gotten a 20$ Travel Hammock from my mom for Christmas. I'd never heard of hammock camping, and spent the next 5-10 overnights fiddling with a hammock setup that didn't take 45 minutes.

I absolutely loved the hours and hours of debate about hammock setup that were a part of this. Plus, I got to end up converting most of my backpacking buddies.

Imagine moments like when we "discovered" you could put a cheap closed cell pad in a hammock and eliminate the draft - or we learned online that there was such a thing as an underquilt.

We never did bring climbing equipment and try to set up a multi-day tree camp 40' in the air though.....