Why the cold shoulder?

Long pause on update, I was caught up in other preparations.  I did manage to spend the night in my hammock, and man! I can see it being very comfortable for my trek  I am very happy with the hammock choice for a shelter at the moment, though I can see where some of my early gear purchases (when I was planning on tenting...) will require a bit of jimmy rigging to get them to perform properly.  Let's start from the beginning, shall we?

As you saw in the previous post I managed to hang the hammock despite the blizzard... o.k., so maybe that's an exaggeration,  snow.  Expecting to slog my way through the wet nasty weather through the swampy wet lands between my house and the chosen camp spot, I had decided to don my muck boots and leave the Merrel light hikers at home.  This turned out to be an excellent choice, upon arriving at my hang site, I found the soggy mess had accumulated into a four to six inch pond beneath my hammock.  Lucky me I had everything set up earlier so this set me back very little. 


Once settled into the hammock I found myself quite warm and surprised by the abundance of room the hammock provided me with.  It wasn't for sometime the first of a few snags presented itself.  Though it kept me dry, the rain fly being assaulted by the elements was extremely loud!  I felt as though I were trying to sleep inside a drum.   This coupled with first night jitters made falling asleep take an inordinate amount of time.  Once the sand man had found me and accomplished his mission, I only awoke a few times.  These lapses in N/REM were caused by a sudden freezing shoulder or hip.  I discovered the cause to be my pad shifting or me rolling just off the edge of it.  Being a larger guy with broad shoulders I barely fit on the pad as it is.  The hammock didn't help this matter at all and so a cold shoulder effect, as I dubbed it, occurred.  By morning I discovered the pond beneath me had caused moisture to build up under and a bit inside my hammock.  Despite these drawbacks, I overall had a decent night of rest, and it gave me a few things to work out. 

The following days I spent a good amount of time browsing both Hammock Forums and White Blaze for solutions.
A) Sleeping pad issues:  I will be making a SPE (Segmented Pad Extender.)  basically sewing a sleeve for my pad to slip into, with wings filled with blue CCF (closed cell foam) to give my shoulders and thighs that bit of extra room I require to keep insulated.
B) LOUD NOISES!  this will be a two fold solution, 1: I will get a pair of earplugs to use on nights where the sounds just keep me alert and unable to sleep and 2: Through the daily hiking and extended hours of exercise I will be so exhausted I imagine that falling asleep will be a breeze.
C) Moisture: Pay more attention to the ground contours during stormy wet nights so I don't hang over basins that are likely to fill with water.

Hind sight being 20/20 as always I find myself wishing I had made a few gear purchases differently.  I should have decided on a shelter to use before purchasing both my ground pad (a Therm-a-rest pro-lite) and sleeping bag (Mountain Hardware Flip).  Both would be great if I were tenting and may still come in nice when I am sleeping in a shelter for the night, though coupled with my blackbird they fall a bit short compared to the ideal.  If I weren't so limited on time in this aspect I would look into selling both and picking up an under quilt and a top quilt which would serve my needs a lot better.  For now it's DIY fixes which will take place this weekend. Test night 2 coming soon, I have a small hike/camp weekend plan with my father for further shake down testing.  I will keep you posted on how it goes.

Still to come: final gear check and reviews, and in one week, take off.  I can't believe how fast time is flying!

Nested down for the night