Campus Hikes Map

This is my test campus map:


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Setting Up a Hennessy Hammock as a Tent

I love my Hennessey Hammock Ultralite Backpacker (Asym Zip).  When strung up between two trees it makes a very comfortable place to sleep and it sets up quickly and easily. 
However, when trees are not present (think: mountain bald, beach, desert, above the treeline) the hammock can still be erected on the ground.  In this blog, I show you how.



[Note you will not be sleeping in the hammock suspended above the ground! Rather, the hammock will lie flat on the ground -- the hiking poles will just keep the rainfly and mosquito netting off your face.]


Although heavier than the small rainfly that is bundled with the hammock, I prefer to use their large Hex Rainfly (30D Sylnylon) to cover my hammock. My reasons are numerous.   Primarially, the Hex Fly provides large coverage for myself and all my gear underneath.  And because the Hex Fly can be hung up independently from the hammock, we can erect the system on the ground like a small tent using my Black Diamond hiking poles and six lightweight MSR tent stakes.

Below, you may follow my step-by-step method. Or if you prefer, you can view the video tutorial below:

1. Extend the Black Diamond hiking poles to a height of 130cm. (Click on images below to enlarge them.)
   
   
2. I have removed the wrist straps from my hiking poles by pushing out the little metal pin holding the strap, but have kept the little metal pins that held the straps in place.  I'm not sure if other manufacturers' poles will work with my method, but it seems likely.
   Keeping the Hex Fly in its Snakeskin sleeve, thread the two loose cable ends (that you'd normally tie to a tree) around the little metal pins inside the handle of the Black Diamond hiking poles.  (If you have poles of a different manufacturer, or prefer to keep your wrist straps in place, thread the line through the wrist straps or secure the line to the pole with a clove hitch or similar knot.) 
   
   
3. The pole should be positioned such that its handle is about 6-8 inches from the edge of the fly. Lay the poles flat on the ground; we'll stand them up in a moment.
4. With the rainfly stretched out like a long snake, drive a tent stake in the ground about 5 feet from one end of the fly.  Secure the cable to the tent stake with a Prussik Knot (or similar "slip knot"), but leave quite a bit of slack in the line.  Repeat for the opposite end of the fly.
   
   
   
5. Remove the Hex Fly from its Snakeskins in the usual way by sliding them off. Then stretch the fly out along the ground like a bear rug by pulling on and extending the four tie-down lines.    Drive four tent stakes into the ground about five feet from each corner and along the guylines.  Using Prussik Knots, secure the guylines to the tent stakes.  You can make these fairly taunt, but still leave a little slack in the line.
   
   
6. Now comes the difficult part.  Lift one of the hiking poles into place and tighten the Prussik Knots on each of the three lines on that end of the fly.  This is easy to do if you can jab the pole into the ground so it is free-standing or have someone who can hold the hiking pole for you.  Repeat for the opposite end of the tarp.  Make sure all lines are tight and both poles are vertical.  The rain fly should be very stable at this point.
7. You are now ready to "hang" the hammock.  This is the easy part.  Keeping the hammock in its Snakeskin, suspend each end of the hammock from the rainfly's ridge line using the little dongle hooks on the hammock's ridge line. 
   
   
8. Adjust the tension on the hammock's ridge line so the hammock is suspended above the ground.  This will make it easier to remove the Snakeskins.  Slide the Snakeskins off now.
   
   
9. Readjust the tension so the hammock lies flat on the ground.  (Recall that you will not sleep in the hammock while it suspended above the ground.   Rather, the ground will fully support the occupant!)  Spread out the sides of the hammock by clipping the elastic cords onto the stays of the Hex Fly, just as you would if the hammock were suspended between two trees.  You want the extreme ends of the hammock to be elevated off the ground a small amount, otherwise the mosquito netting will drape over your face when you climb in.  However, you must ensure that 100% of your body will be supported by the ground, not by the hiking poles!  Also, protect the hamock fabric by ensuring the ground under the hammock is free of rocks, sticks, and other debris!
   
   
   
10. If you encounter high winds or a horizontal rain storm, it is easy to stay protected. Simply lower the hiking poles and re-tighten the guy-wires. This will mean you'll be required to duck down low, but it is a small price to pay for staying dry!
    
    
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When packing up the following morning, I find it best to once again suspend the empty hammock from the hiking poles, which makes it easy to slide the Snakeskins over rolled up the hammock.

When taking down the rainfly, lay the two hiking poles on the ground and remove the four lines on the sides of the fly.  If find it useful to tighten up the ridge lines so the rainfly can be easily rolled up and the Snakeskins slid into place.

Thanks for reading; I hope this helps!

Backpacking on the Appalachian and Long Trails (VT, 2006)

From my journal August 3-5, 2006: Kathleen, Archer (7 yrs), Josie (5 yrs), and I spent three days hiking on the Appalachian Trail (AT) and Long Trail (LT) in southern Vermont. We limited our mileage per day because the kids were young and we wanted their first backpacking experience to be an enjoyable one. Day 1. We spent our first night in the Peru Shelter after a three mile hike. The kids did great and the hike was nice! The scenery was beautiful, the creeks abundant, and the terrain was easy to traverse. (Our elevation changed only a few hundred feet.) The weather was hot so we all swam in beautiful Griffith Lake on the way up. Surprisingly, the mosquitoes were not bad. We all had fun at the shelter. There was a fantastic creek below the shelter and the kids had a blast playing in the brook and climbing on its rock-lined walls. We met lots of thru-hikers, including "Pi" and "K'ACHE", and another hiker who smelled like my high school basketball locker room. (In my mind, I named him "Ripe".) Kathleen and I have wanted to thru hike the AT since we were kids so we made a general nuisance of ourselves by asking a jillion questions. (OK, OK, I made a general nuisance of myself.) "Pi" and "K'ACHE" carried a small computer (a PDA, really) and entered a daily log that they would upload as soon as they made it to the next town. (We were mentioned in their blog as the 'family from PA".) We slept in the shelter (our first time to do so) and, of course, I had the ill fortune to bunk next to my buddy "Ripe". We were all tired and well-fed and with the fresh night air and the gurgling of the nearby creek we all dropped off to sleep in an instant. That night Archer awoke with the "jimmy legs", so he and I laid out on the wooden tent platform and watched stars, identified planets, and counted satellites zooming by. It didn't take long and we were both asleep once again. Day 2. The next day, we hiked 0.5 miles back to the campground at Lake Griffith to spend night #2. The kids and I had another swim in the cool lake. Unfortunately, the water was too murky for our SCUBA masks to be of any use, so the kids entertained themselves by climbing all over me and swimming through my legs. While we were eating an early supper we met another couple hiking the trail. (The fellow had thru-hiked the AT in 2006.) They both said the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) is "awesome". That night, the four of us went to bed in my two-man tent after a few card games, of course. It rained for seven hours straight. Poor Kathleen. She became claustrophobic in the small, cramped tent and spent the evening with her head hanging out of the tent, gasping for air through the pouring rain. I, of course, slept through the whole thing. What a devoted husband I am. Day 3. With packs a little lighter because our food had been consumed, the 2.5-mile hike back to the trail head was fun and enjoyable. The rain-filled creeks were really cascading down the mountainsides and Kathleen found an orange newt (just like the one the kids and I found three days earlier in Rocky Gap State Park). This was a great trip! The first family backpacking experience was a resounding success! I am very excited that the kids want to backpack now (not just car-camp or camp out on rivers) and I can't wait to get back into it and train for our own thru hike years from now.

Click to enlarge.

Thoughts about the Island Reef Job

I recently applied for the position of Caretaker of Hamilton Island, which is located in the southern tip of the Greater Barrier Reef, Australia. The job is better known as the “Best Job in the World” thanks to the brilliant marketing strategy of Tourism Queensland. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? It was all over the news (in this country at least), and if you peruse their site (http://www.islandreefjob.com/) you’ll find thousands of applicants, young and old, inexperienced and over qualified, from all over the world. (See my video application and my reef job blog.)

For my family and me, following the applicant pool has been a great distraction from the poor economy and long cold winter in the northern US. It’s not hard to imagine living and working in the many island paradises that make up the Whitsundays, doing what you love to do: spending time with friends and family SCUBA diving, hiking, kayaking, sailing, exploring, creating adventures, and then telling the world about it! In my mind I was already there.

This came as somewhat of a surprise to my wife, Kathleen, for while I love having adventures I also love teaching at George School. I suppose Kathleen thought I wouldn’t want to leave even for a year.

Recently, however, as I’ve watched my two children, Archer (10 yrs) and Josie (8 yrs), grow up, I feel driven to expose them to more than our summer/spring break/weekend adventures. Don’t get me wrong – I wouldn’t trade these adventures for anything, and I certainly understand that Kathleen and I are fortunate enough to have more time than most folks to spend with their kids. But wouldn’t it be great to live on and explore the islands of the GBR and discover the national parks and natural beauty of mainland Queensland? When my kids learned that we were applying for the Best Job in the World, they jumped on board in a heartbeat.

And all we had to do was make a 60-second video application for the job. Easy, right?

Kathleen spent one day culling through all our video diaries and photo albums, narrowing it down to about 100 images and 30 minutes of video. Yikes! How were we going to reduce all of this down to a 60-second spot? I played around with themes and ideas, but none of them resonated with me or Kathleen.

I knew we had to get across my qualifications. I can dive and love the water: I am a PADI certified Rescue SCUBA Diver who grew up in the Deep South, so water sports was a way of life. I have writing skills and all the necessary technology skills: I am the author of four books, dozens of research papers, a few magazine articles, and countless web pages and blogs. I love the outdoors: On every vacation and break we’re doing something in nature; our kids slept in a tent before they spent the night in a hotel; and one criterion for my choice of schools and jobs is its proximity to natural wonders and outdoor recreation opportunities. I have stability: I have an unblemished work record and I have a loving and supportive family. Kathleen, Archer and Josie are just as excited about the job as I am, and my friends and family are thrilled by the prospect of visiting us down under. I love learning about new things: I am a scientist with 11-years of formal post-high school education in physics, astronomy, and atmospheric physics. I am driven to communicate and impart my interests to others using creative and innovative methods: I’ve been a teacher for 19 years and have developed many educational programs and curricular materials on physics, robotics, computer programming, and technology. I have many and varied work experiences: I have taught students of all ages (pre-school to graduate school); I am a robotics consultant and baseball umpire; and I am a former rocket-scientist with numerous NASA rocket launches under my belt. I come with a well-traveled and adventurous team: Kathleen, Archer, Josie, and I all have the novelty-seeking gene and we all love to explore. Kathleen, especially, likes to strike out to visit new places (she’s visited every state but Alaska), and the kids and I like to get dirty and investigate what’s right under our noses. Kathleen and I have had the good fortune to work on four continents.

So Kathleen and I sat down and tried to put all of that into our 60-second video, which you can see here.

Making a video, even a 1-minute video, is a time-consuming undertaking. I must have reviewed and tweaked the video a hundred times. As I was watching it one last time before submitting it to Tourism Queensland, I saw something in the video that I hadn’t previously seen, or at least hadn’t fully appreciated.

I didn’t see my family and I having fun exploring some of the world’s natural treasures. Rather in my mind’s eye I saw my aunt and uncle (Gary and Sherrie) providing me with the opportunity to learn how to SCUBA dive in Puerto Rico. I saw my grandmother (Cecil) instilling in me a sense of adventure and a love of travel. I saw my aunts (Judi and Honey) encouraging me to take chances. I saw my grandfather (John) teaching me the value of family and how to find humor in even the darkest of circumstances. I saw my mother (Susan) showing me that the best of times can happen even during the most mundane of activities, and reminding me that even though my girlfriends were tough athletes or rugged backpackers they would always appreciate being treated like a lady. I saw my step-father (Bill) teaching me how to make my way in the outdoors and that if you have a book, a burning desire, and some imagination you can teach yourself anything. I saw my grandfather (Archie) and his entire side of the family having fun on the Black Creek and any other backwood streams deep enough to buoy a canoe. I saw my best friend (Everett) telling me to “just do it” decades before Nike made it fashionable. I saw my brothers (Kyle, William, Gy, Joey, and Douglas) and cousins (Brett, Troy, Robert, and Noel) inspiring me with their own adventures by re-telling their tales with gusto and humor. I saw my father (Rascal) making possible so very many of my adventures, and teaching me, not as much with words as by actions, that with a solid work ethic, dedication of purpose, and optimistic perseverance you can achieve anything.

Of course, none of this would have been possible if Kathleen didn’t also have the same foundation and similar experiences growing up as I did. We’re truly cut from the same cloth.

No matter the outcome of the Island Reef Job search, I have enjoyed the application process immensely, and am grateful to have had this opportunity to take stock of where I’ve been, where I’m going, and who has helped me along the way.