alright guys and gals it's been a long time coming talk of tarps today we got.
the 11 foot hammock gear Quest tarp up in the turtle dog stand I don't actually
have trees in my yard that are wide enough to just string my hammock in my
tarp up so I had to build a stand for it so just pretend we're hanging from trees
today because I promise you it does work well like I said today we're talking my
11 foot hammock gear quest hammock gear quest tarp up on the stand today
what kind of Maddie outdoors I am Maddie this is your first time here we took a
ton of hiking and backpacking stuff here obviously we talked hammock camping I'm
Canadian I cat under the Canadian Rockies so that sounds cool to you at
all click on the subscribe button you are gonna enjoy it you're gonna love it
it's probably your favorite channel ever let's get this thing going so to start
off the way that I've got my tarp rigged up is I run a continuous ridge line on
my tarp and then this here is just a mess sleeve it's essentially just a
sleeve of bug netting basically that slides over my entire tarp so for
deployment and stuff obviously the female my tarp is actually out deployed
which makes it a lot easier to manage so that's the system I've got going on here
so how that works I will show you all right you're gonna have to pretend that
we're not on the stand here but what I've got right here is it's a continuous
line and it goes on to this little titanium hook and this will wrap around
my tree I know a carabiner here but let's just pretend that this is a tree
that this wraps around and this just becomes a fixed end and that end runs
all the way down to the other side so down there this is the cordage that
continues all the way up to this guy so what it does is it runs around this tree
and with this kind of cool little titanium contraption called a wasp it
this is essentially just a really cool gimmicky line tensioner basically so it
wraps around the tree and you use this to create your mechanical advantage and
it locks off so this line is taut and then I've got a couple press six knots
here on some I believe this is lash it soft shackles that hook onto my tarp on
either side you can see here same thing on this side
soft shackle the advantage of the prusik knot here is what this does is I can get
my line up around the tree and then I can slide wherever I want that tarp to
go by sliding these products along the way you can slide the tarp up and down
the line to Center it over your hammock and center it over yeah whatever spot
you want to keep dry so that's the advantage of going with the continuous
ridge line as opposed to having just two lines coming off of either end and
hanging up that way I just I much prefer this way I don't know call me lazy
whatever but this is the way I prefer you got your types turned up between
your trees now this is the coolest part and this is my favorite part about this
snakeskin watch this
absolutely love that so yeah they just open it up ball out and deployed
thinking and close enough everybody use for guidelines and tie outs on my tarp
so you've got this little about three-inch loop a shock cord this little
titanium line tensioner and then the line here alright I'll get this thing
staked out and I'll show you how the line tensioners work all right so I got
four of these sides pegged on I'll show you on the last side here Howie pegged
this out so what I do is I basically pull and you'll put a little bit of
tension on that shock cord and I bring my stake down straight to the ground
that gives me my point that I'm gonna put my Marlin spike hitch on my line
here this is the point that I pinched so what you do is you make a loop in the
line so it crosses over top of itself and I'm gonna reach through the loop
with my two fingers and go across and grab the other line and pull it back
through so you end up with this sort of shape here this is probably really out
of focus come on you end up with this shape here and put my stake through and
that locks on my stake and that is a Marlin spike hitch and then I take that
guy to the ground stake it down now to actually tension these lines what you do
is you come down to a little knot here that's tied at this titanium toggle
piece and you pull down on that cordage to get some tension make a little loop
here
put it around the end of that toggle and there you go what that does is what I
like for having this this piece of shock cord here with my tarp is I don't know
if you've seen the dogs running around here but having the dogs around my tarp
kind of my big worry is them catching on the guylines so having this little bit
of reflector shot cord here just kind of gives me that ability to not have my
tarp be under like super tension if the dogs run by and catch it and hopefully
not rip my tarp that's my thought with that so that it is this is it this is
this is life under the tarp I mean obviously normally there would be a
hammock hanging here but just kind of gives you an idea what I deal with for
space underneath here it's a 11 feet long peak to peak four and a half feet
on either side down to the ground pretty minimalistic I have no tiles on this
thing so like I said I only have to carry four stakes you can keep advantage
tons of weight savings like I have this entire tarp set up not with the stakes
just the tarp alone with all the guy lines and the mesh sleeve and everything
down to a pound that's 16 ounces I'm pretty happy with that
it is pretty minimalistic though the coverage on either end for my hammock is
not a ton I'll string my hammock up and I'll show you what I get for covered on
the hammock when I got it all right so what I end up with an either end is they
end up with from the end of my continuous loop here on the hammock to
the end of the tarp I end up with about six and a half inches ish so it's it's
not a ton of coverage I do have to be pretty careful how I do pitch my tarp I
have been caught out in some pretty pretty terrible weather and setting up
taking the wind direction into account is a huge factor with a tarp setup like
this just being this small and this minimalistic you definitely got to be
mindful of that but yeah other than that I mean I have had no issues whatsoever
as long as I pitch my tarp in the sense that the wind is gonna catch me in the
cross breeze I'm generally pretty good to go so yeah so far I have had no
issues with the minimal coverage with only
having an 11 foot tarp going with an 11 foot hammock if you've ever wondered how
I get those awesome shots out of my hand up with the open view this is generally
how I do it this honestly is probably my most common way of pitching my tarp this
is called porch mode essentially what you do is you utilize your trekking
poles and I wrap the shock cord portion of my guideline around the trekking pole
and then drive my guyline down to the ground and stake it out obviously a day
like today where I've caught some wind in my yard this is really not very
conducive for you know setting up my tarp on a day like today I would
definitely have a pitch down with the wind coming across but I just kind of
wanted to put this up here just to kind of show you how I do that so yeah this
is this is my tarp up in porch mode and yeah this is you the most common way
that I throw my tarp up not only does the snakeskin make deployment easy it
makes putting it away easy too so I've got my tarp
completely down this is generally the last thing I take down when I'm leaving
camp it goes in the other side pocket on my pack so I don't mind taking it down
last I can keep it up kind of give myself a dry place to get everything
else packed up so I've got all my snakes I'm done all you do grab the snakeskin
at the end pull it over whole tarp is ready to go
and taken down from the tree that's what you get all rolled up in the mesh stuff
sack I don't carry the actual stuff sack for it on the trail I just carried in
the snakeskin stuff in the outside pocket in my pack makes it super easy
super lightweight super easy to manage yeah
that is my carping setup you guys you got any questions at all let me know in
the comment section down below I would love to help you guys out yeah as always
I am Maddy thank you guys so much for watching and I will see you on the next