Ill prepared hammock trip

 Goal: One Trip a Month

This year, my goal is to get out and spend at least one night outdoors every month. But March flew by with lots of building projects around the house and garden. Among other things, I planted 275 new trees.

So the other day—on the last day of the month—I headed out after dinner with the family.

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A Quick and Improvised Trip

Poorly prepared, but a nice little trip. My gear was just in a small shoulder bag or carried under my arm.

I’ve been invited on a hammock trip, but I’ve never really used a hammock before. So that’s what this became—a good opportunity to practice.

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The Shelter

I quickly tied a bowline between two trees and set up my 3x3 meter tarp from Bushcraft Spain over it. It was quite windy, so I used three guy lines on each side.

I don’t have much experience with hammocks, but I do have gear from DD Hammocks—a Frontline hammock, plus their whoopie slings and some carabiners.

It was quick and easy to set up. But… I definitely need to practice. The head end was too high compared to the foot end, so I kept sliding down.

And I need an underquilt. It’s really quite cold sleeping in a hammock with just a small sleeping pad. My sleeping bag was also probably too optimistic—very much a summer bag—considering the night dropped to 2.5°C.

Good practice, good experience—plenty of room for improvement.

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Breakfast Over the Fire

Before leaving, I packed a simple “English breakfast”: baked beans, canned cocktail sausages, and a bread mix.

Everything was cooked in a new cook set—Mil-Tec’s version of the Czech mess kit.

I’ve wanted to try cooking on a Finnish log stove for a while, but never had. So I built three for breakfast. It was fairly hard work, since I only had a small folding saw from Robens—and a tomahawk.

So I had to make smaller wedges to split the logs. It worked, just a bit more time-consuming—but a good learning experience.

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Just Get Out There…

It turned into a really good spontaneous trip. Lots of learning all the way through. It’s always great to try something new and learn something from it.

Yes, it was cold—but fair enough. I’ve learned something from that: an underquilt, or only using this sleeping bag in summer—or just getting a better sleeping bag.

The Finnish log stove is great—fast and efficient. But it’s not ideal for baking bread. That takes more patience.

I’m glad I got out there. It feels good to stick to the plan of one overnight trip a month. Next trip will probably be back to a sleeping bag setup.