I'm lazy. Sad but true. When I go to bed at night in the woods, I'd rather not get up and put up a shelter because it's started raining, though it was nice when I went to sleep.

But I also love to look at the stars/night sky before falling asleep. There's just something wonderful about looking up from my hammock or bug tent/bivy and seeing the dark sky, or a slice of the moon, etc.

Unfortunately, it's not uncommon for the evening to start nice, but then begin raining before the night is through. And, as I said before, I'm lazy. I am not going to get up and set up a tarp when it starts to rain.

So, what to do, what to do?

I know! Give Joe Valesko at zPacks a call and see if he'll mod the hammock tarp I have on order! I'm sure he will, he's a great guy!

And, of course, he did.

So I now have a nice cuben hammock tarp (with the ends for foul weather), with a six-foot swath of netting sewn into the side. The cuben zips and rolls up and out of the way when it's nice, and, without having to get too far out of my hammock or bivy, zips back down if the weather turns foul in the middle of the night. Waterproof zippers. Breezes when it's nice, dryness when it's not. Can't wait to actually try it out on a trip!

Of course, some pics (I know it's a lousy setup, but I had about five minutes before it got dark, and it is a hammock tarp, so leave me alone! ;-)

.

zipped up

.

zipped up other end

.

one side unzipped and rolled up

.

one side unzipped

.

one side unzipped from underneath

.

the midpoint tieouts have a clip, and both the cuben and mesh have a small loop to clip on to this clip to give the tarp some structure both when 'open' and 'closed'.

Doug,

You're BATMAN! Or at least you have as many cool toys!

Todd

I love finding reasons to give him my money.

"You're BATMAN! Or at least you have as many cool toys!"

Question: Is he the Batman with nipples on his suit? Or more Adam West? Discuss . . .

(Btw, Doug, very cool tarp!)

How about making a tarp that you can roll up while the weather is nice, then when you want/need your tarp, you simply pull on a cord while in your hammock, and via a pulley, the tarp comes out over you. I could draw a diagram, but I think you can get what I'm getting at, and besides... I'm lazy too! :)

Edited by lilricky on 07/13/2011 20:59:50 MDT.