- Joined
- Feb 28, 2007
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Hi folks,
I received my Hennesey Async-expedition hammock from MEC on Friday and had the opportunity to set it up and play a couple of times in the backyard and get some perspectives and thoughts on the system.
So this review is really a hammock newbie's initial perspectives on the Hennesey and not necessarily those of the seasoned users. However, for other newbies interested in getting into Hammocks, sometimes it is good to hear from other beginners.
Decisions, decisions, decisions
First, I was attracted to Hennesey for several reasons. The hammock gets very good reviews from a wide variety of sources. Seasoned hammock folks don't always recommend Hennesey as the top brand, but they usually consider them good hammocks at good prices. It is one of the systems that come with most everything you need for a shelter system out of the box. I.e. it has the integrated bug mesh and separate, but included silnylong tarp. It is widely distributed, with one of the distributers being a favorite of mine (MEC) for outdoor gear. Finally, its a Canadian company, and its not all that often that I get to support industry that is truly a domestic enterprise.
Prior to deciding to go the hammock route, I considered a variety of options. Light weight tents. I have good 3-season and 4-season tents (3-4 man), but don't have a good ultralight tent. I strongly considered the 1-man Big Agnes semedhouse tent which weighs about the same asthe Hennesey hamock (1.2 kg). This is an attractive system, but costs about twice the price of the hammock. Still this tent is definitely a contender. I might get it one day, but having used tents pretty much all my life, I was ready to try something new.
I also considered going the tarp route. Well, actually, inadvertently I have gone the tarp route anyhow, as we will see. The tarps are cheaper, but like anything, its the get what you pay for. A good quality silnylon type with lots of room for different configurations will run you about 70-80% of the cost of the Hammock. A tarp doesn't provide protection against the bugs. However, I'm still interested in tarps also and haven't ruled them out yet, particularly for winter camping.
Finally, having tried out Brian Andrew's Hennessey that he set up earlier this year, I got to feel just how comfortable these things are. So, basically I was ready to take the hammock plunge.
Set-up
So, I get the hammock and it comes in a nice little stuff sak. The package included the hammock with integrated no-seeum mesh netting and pre-tied 1600 lb ropes. The package also had a silnylon tarp (about the size of a military poncho, but longer in length) and the 2x48" tree hugger straps which look like pieces of seatbelt with a loop on each end. The weight of the package is 1.2 kg. It can be wrapped together and compressed under the straps of my maxpedition falcon, along with a bedroll, blanket. The lack of poles for the system also means it takes up a lot less room in a pack.
Setting up the hammock is unbelievably easy. You wrap a tree hugger strap around the tree a little higher than your head and tie one of the hammock lines through the two loops of the tree hugger strap and tie your knot. Do the same on the other side pulling the hammock taunt. You don't need to pull hard, just taunt enough to keep the ridgeline of the hammock approximately level by its own weight. The other trick mentioned in the instructions is to have the hammock approximately centered between the two trees.
There are two elastic shock cords coming out the sides of the hammock that you can stake down. I noticed that the hammock didn't come with any tent pegs. You can just make them out of some wood, or if you like pack in 4 aluminum stakes. Thats it, your hammock is set up!
You can use a variety of knots in tying the hammock lines to the tree hugger straps, but simple half hitches work fine and don't cause too much binding. I'm sure there is a perfect knot for this set-up and I'll look for that later, but I think the thing to tell the newbies out there is that anybody can set this thing up. You don't have to have 15 knots under your belt, a boy scout patch and ability to tie each knot with your feet while blind folded to set up your hammock. It is very simple, so simple, that if you are like me, you are probably assuming it is much more complicated than it actually is.
The tarp is also a breeze to set up. You clip two corners of the tarp to hooks pre-attached to the hammock lines and slid the attachment to tighten up the tarp. The sides of the tarp have a couple of lines that trail out and you stake to the ground to keep the wings of the tarp spread out. Pretty easy stuff!
The package says set up in 2 minutes. I thought I was going to call bull$hit on that claim, but by my second set up trial, it proved to be correct!
Usage
The in's and outs. The Hennesey is remarked as the difficult hammock getting in and out of because of the integrated mesh. You don't get into it by crawling on top of it like a normal hammock. You have to crawl through a hole in the bottom and once you are laying correctly, the hole just velcro's itself back up. The trick is to stand up with your head poking through the hole into the shelter. You then sit down on one edge of the hammock and swing your legs through the hole. Now you find yourself on one side of the tarp and you scooch over to the diagnal, so your legs are on one side and body on the other. This nicely aligns your body and makes for an incredibly comfortable ride. The asynch design offers a lot of stability during this process of getting your position right. You really can't flip yourself out of the hammock, which is a nice, if not assumed feature of the system.
Getting out is the opposite problem. You invariably slide towards the center while laying there getting comfortable, so to get out, you need to pull your body back upward towards the top/front of the hammock. Scootch over to the one side again, open the hole and swing your legs through the hole. If you've done it right, you are back to a sitting position with your feet hanging over where you left your shoes. If you didn't do it right, you look like a calf being birthed by a cow. Okay, its not quite as bad as it sounds, and after you've done this a few times, you will get the hang of it pretty quickly.
Once you are comfortably laying down, you can roll over onto your side and engage in quite a bit of movement in the hammock without really disrupting things. I was impressed at how much freedom I had to move in there. Also, the mesh netting stays well above your face. About 12-14" or so above your face, so you do not in the least feel claustrophibic like some of the bivvy sac's make you feel. Also the bugs (at least from the top) are kept well at bay from your head. The hammock even has a little hanging pocket off the ridge line suspended from the mesh. Nice touch - and a perfect little spot for things like a wallet, eyeglasses and a flashlight.
Now that you've gotten to do this a few times, the next practice steps are getting in and out with your sleeping accessories - namely your camp pad and sleeping bag. Hennesey sells an optional sleeping pad/cover that fits the bottom of the hammock directly. I'll probably look into this later as right off the bat I can see the practical importance of a sleeping mat. First, the nylon material that represents the bottom half of the hammock is thin and I've been told allows mosquitoes to bite through, so you need a layer of protection against the big nosed blood suckers. If its warm, this might simply be your cloths or a blanket to lay on. However, if it is cold, the hammock system also suffers from high heat loss due to air convection. Air moving under you quickly saps away body heat. You need to insulate against convection under cold conditions. Laying in my hammock this weekend, the loss of heat from my back side was noticeable. (yes I know I've set myself up with that one)...
Getting into the Henessey with a thermorest and sleeping bag is a little more tricky than getting into the hammock without sleeping gear. You use the same process, but you put your gear in there first and then you have to do a whole lot more scooting around, shifting your body weight and trying to align the mattress pad under you then finally getting into your sleeping bag. Making matters worse are that my thermarest is rather anti-slip making the whole scooting process more difficult. Its not the end of the world, but let me say, getting in with my sleeping gear and adjusting everything right until it was comfy took me longer to do than setting up the hammock in the first place!
Yet I will say this. I thought the hammock was comfortable as it was. Putting a thermarest under you makes this better than our $2k latex mattress in our bedroom. It is fantastic! Sleeping bag was a bit of a pain to get into. Its easier to unzip it almost entirely and then get into it. I also used it with my poncho liner - and that was much easier to do! A wool blanket would also be just the ticket.
Woulda, coulda, done betters
One of the things that make this system so great is the included silnylon tarp. This is the good stuff and the one that comes with the expedition is great, albeit just the size to do the job. I like the fact that you can use this thing on its own as an emergency tarp shelter and thus get you into the world of tarp camping also.
As a shelter for the hammock the enclosed tarp it seems to provide minimum coverage, but frankly, I have my doubts that it will provide protection in really nasty stuff e.g. with angled rain driven by high winds. I can see room for improvement here. One of the upgrade options to the Hennesey is a 11' x 10' tarp that will undoubtedly provide much more generous coverage. Also, the area under your hammock is the spot where you will be storing your back pack and other gear. Having more room under the hammock, provided by a bigger tarp will help matters further by providing a nice sitting area for waiting things out in bad weather. I can see the immediate benefits of having the larger tarp. If I were to order from Hennesey directly, I'd recommend pulling for the tarp upgrade right off the bat.
In the end, I think the tarp does an adequate job of protecting the hammock from light rain, but I'm not convinced it will be fully protective of heavy, wind driven rain. This is something to consider on the model and/or options you buy with. Other than that, and the failure to include 4 little tent pegs, I can't really find any faults with this hammock system. It is very easy to use, simple to set up and very comfortable.
It also seems like Hennesey has thought about the faults and offers some work around solutions to most issues via accessories and options. E.g. the fitted pad and pad cover, rain stopper plugs for the end lines, snakeskins, larger tree hugger straps etc.
Oh yeah, the expedition model is rated at 250 lbs. I weigh 210 lbs and it doesn't feel like I'm at all pushing the limits of the thing.
So for those of you out there interested in the Hennesey hammock system, I will say it is worth while to consider it. The learning curve is fast, but like any piece of kit, you should try to familiarize yourself with its set up before hiking out into the middle of the bush and trying to set it up sans-light.
At this stage, I'll post my thumbs up. Of course, now there is a matter of using it out in the real world to get my user feedback. There so many reviews on the Hennesey by the experts that I doubt my thoughts will contribute to this body of literature further.
I received my Hennesey Async-expedition hammock from MEC on Friday and had the opportunity to set it up and play a couple of times in the backyard and get some perspectives and thoughts on the system.
So this review is really a hammock newbie's initial perspectives on the Hennesey and not necessarily those of the seasoned users. However, for other newbies interested in getting into Hammocks, sometimes it is good to hear from other beginners.
Decisions, decisions, decisions
First, I was attracted to Hennesey for several reasons. The hammock gets very good reviews from a wide variety of sources. Seasoned hammock folks don't always recommend Hennesey as the top brand, but they usually consider them good hammocks at good prices. It is one of the systems that come with most everything you need for a shelter system out of the box. I.e. it has the integrated bug mesh and separate, but included silnylong tarp. It is widely distributed, with one of the distributers being a favorite of mine (MEC) for outdoor gear. Finally, its a Canadian company, and its not all that often that I get to support industry that is truly a domestic enterprise.
Prior to deciding to go the hammock route, I considered a variety of options. Light weight tents. I have good 3-season and 4-season tents (3-4 man), but don't have a good ultralight tent. I strongly considered the 1-man Big Agnes semedhouse tent which weighs about the same asthe Hennesey hamock (1.2 kg). This is an attractive system, but costs about twice the price of the hammock. Still this tent is definitely a contender. I might get it one day, but having used tents pretty much all my life, I was ready to try something new.
I also considered going the tarp route. Well, actually, inadvertently I have gone the tarp route anyhow, as we will see. The tarps are cheaper, but like anything, its the get what you pay for. A good quality silnylon type with lots of room for different configurations will run you about 70-80% of the cost of the Hammock. A tarp doesn't provide protection against the bugs. However, I'm still interested in tarps also and haven't ruled them out yet, particularly for winter camping.
Finally, having tried out Brian Andrew's Hennessey that he set up earlier this year, I got to feel just how comfortable these things are. So, basically I was ready to take the hammock plunge.
Set-up
So, I get the hammock and it comes in a nice little stuff sak. The package included the hammock with integrated no-seeum mesh netting and pre-tied 1600 lb ropes. The package also had a silnylon tarp (about the size of a military poncho, but longer in length) and the 2x48" tree hugger straps which look like pieces of seatbelt with a loop on each end. The weight of the package is 1.2 kg. It can be wrapped together and compressed under the straps of my maxpedition falcon, along with a bedroll, blanket. The lack of poles for the system also means it takes up a lot less room in a pack.
Setting up the hammock is unbelievably easy. You wrap a tree hugger strap around the tree a little higher than your head and tie one of the hammock lines through the two loops of the tree hugger strap and tie your knot. Do the same on the other side pulling the hammock taunt. You don't need to pull hard, just taunt enough to keep the ridgeline of the hammock approximately level by its own weight. The other trick mentioned in the instructions is to have the hammock approximately centered between the two trees.
There are two elastic shock cords coming out the sides of the hammock that you can stake down. I noticed that the hammock didn't come with any tent pegs. You can just make them out of some wood, or if you like pack in 4 aluminum stakes. Thats it, your hammock is set up!
You can use a variety of knots in tying the hammock lines to the tree hugger straps, but simple half hitches work fine and don't cause too much binding. I'm sure there is a perfect knot for this set-up and I'll look for that later, but I think the thing to tell the newbies out there is that anybody can set this thing up. You don't have to have 15 knots under your belt, a boy scout patch and ability to tie each knot with your feet while blind folded to set up your hammock. It is very simple, so simple, that if you are like me, you are probably assuming it is much more complicated than it actually is.
The tarp is also a breeze to set up. You clip two corners of the tarp to hooks pre-attached to the hammock lines and slid the attachment to tighten up the tarp. The sides of the tarp have a couple of lines that trail out and you stake to the ground to keep the wings of the tarp spread out. Pretty easy stuff!
The package says set up in 2 minutes. I thought I was going to call bull$hit on that claim, but by my second set up trial, it proved to be correct!
Usage
The in's and outs. The Hennesey is remarked as the difficult hammock getting in and out of because of the integrated mesh. You don't get into it by crawling on top of it like a normal hammock. You have to crawl through a hole in the bottom and once you are laying correctly, the hole just velcro's itself back up. The trick is to stand up with your head poking through the hole into the shelter. You then sit down on one edge of the hammock and swing your legs through the hole. Now you find yourself on one side of the tarp and you scooch over to the diagnal, so your legs are on one side and body on the other. This nicely aligns your body and makes for an incredibly comfortable ride. The asynch design offers a lot of stability during this process of getting your position right. You really can't flip yourself out of the hammock, which is a nice, if not assumed feature of the system.
Getting out is the opposite problem. You invariably slide towards the center while laying there getting comfortable, so to get out, you need to pull your body back upward towards the top/front of the hammock. Scootch over to the one side again, open the hole and swing your legs through the hole. If you've done it right, you are back to a sitting position with your feet hanging over where you left your shoes. If you didn't do it right, you look like a calf being birthed by a cow. Okay, its not quite as bad as it sounds, and after you've done this a few times, you will get the hang of it pretty quickly.
Once you are comfortably laying down, you can roll over onto your side and engage in quite a bit of movement in the hammock without really disrupting things. I was impressed at how much freedom I had to move in there. Also, the mesh netting stays well above your face. About 12-14" or so above your face, so you do not in the least feel claustrophibic like some of the bivvy sac's make you feel. Also the bugs (at least from the top) are kept well at bay from your head. The hammock even has a little hanging pocket off the ridge line suspended from the mesh. Nice touch - and a perfect little spot for things like a wallet, eyeglasses and a flashlight.
Now that you've gotten to do this a few times, the next practice steps are getting in and out with your sleeping accessories - namely your camp pad and sleeping bag. Hennesey sells an optional sleeping pad/cover that fits the bottom of the hammock directly. I'll probably look into this later as right off the bat I can see the practical importance of a sleeping mat. First, the nylon material that represents the bottom half of the hammock is thin and I've been told allows mosquitoes to bite through, so you need a layer of protection against the big nosed blood suckers. If its warm, this might simply be your cloths or a blanket to lay on. However, if it is cold, the hammock system also suffers from high heat loss due to air convection. Air moving under you quickly saps away body heat. You need to insulate against convection under cold conditions. Laying in my hammock this weekend, the loss of heat from my back side was noticeable. (yes I know I've set myself up with that one)...
Getting into the Henessey with a thermorest and sleeping bag is a little more tricky than getting into the hammock without sleeping gear. You use the same process, but you put your gear in there first and then you have to do a whole lot more scooting around, shifting your body weight and trying to align the mattress pad under you then finally getting into your sleeping bag. Making matters worse are that my thermarest is rather anti-slip making the whole scooting process more difficult. Its not the end of the world, but let me say, getting in with my sleeping gear and adjusting everything right until it was comfy took me longer to do than setting up the hammock in the first place!
Yet I will say this. I thought the hammock was comfortable as it was. Putting a thermarest under you makes this better than our $2k latex mattress in our bedroom. It is fantastic! Sleeping bag was a bit of a pain to get into. Its easier to unzip it almost entirely and then get into it. I also used it with my poncho liner - and that was much easier to do! A wool blanket would also be just the ticket.
Woulda, coulda, done betters
One of the things that make this system so great is the included silnylon tarp. This is the good stuff and the one that comes with the expedition is great, albeit just the size to do the job. I like the fact that you can use this thing on its own as an emergency tarp shelter and thus get you into the world of tarp camping also.
As a shelter for the hammock the enclosed tarp it seems to provide minimum coverage, but frankly, I have my doubts that it will provide protection in really nasty stuff e.g. with angled rain driven by high winds. I can see room for improvement here. One of the upgrade options to the Hennesey is a 11' x 10' tarp that will undoubtedly provide much more generous coverage. Also, the area under your hammock is the spot where you will be storing your back pack and other gear. Having more room under the hammock, provided by a bigger tarp will help matters further by providing a nice sitting area for waiting things out in bad weather. I can see the immediate benefits of having the larger tarp. If I were to order from Hennesey directly, I'd recommend pulling for the tarp upgrade right off the bat.
In the end, I think the tarp does an adequate job of protecting the hammock from light rain, but I'm not convinced it will be fully protective of heavy, wind driven rain. This is something to consider on the model and/or options you buy with. Other than that, and the failure to include 4 little tent pegs, I can't really find any faults with this hammock system. It is very easy to use, simple to set up and very comfortable.
It also seems like Hennesey has thought about the faults and offers some work around solutions to most issues via accessories and options. E.g. the fitted pad and pad cover, rain stopper plugs for the end lines, snakeskins, larger tree hugger straps etc.
Oh yeah, the expedition model is rated at 250 lbs. I weigh 210 lbs and it doesn't feel like I'm at all pushing the limits of the thing.
So for those of you out there interested in the Hennesey hammock system, I will say it is worth while to consider it. The learning curve is fast, but like any piece of kit, you should try to familiarize yourself with its set up before hiking out into the middle of the bush and trying to set it up sans-light.
At this stage, I'll post my thumbs up. Of course, now there is a matter of using it out in the real world to get my user feedback. There so many reviews on the Hennesey by the experts that I doubt my thoughts will contribute to this body of literature further.
