Checking The Gear Before Heading Out
Kevin Felts 04.26.18
Checking the gear before heading out should be common sense. However, a recent event made me realize how easy it is to forget.
Sometime in the next couple of months, before the summer heat sets in, I want to go on a multi-day backpacking trip. While in the process of checking the gear, some of it was taken out to the backyard and set up. Guess what, the hammock was missing the ropes used to tie it to a tree.
Why is this a big deal?
Several years ago my kids and I went on a hammock camping trip. All of the hammocks were rigged up with a carabiner and 10 feet of 3/8 nylon rope on each end. When I went to set the hammock up, the ropes and carabiners were gone.
Someway, somehow, between the last hammock camping trip, the ropes and carabiners were removed. Maybe the ropes were taken off and used on the boat? I do not remember what happened to them.
Wouldn’t it be something to start out on a three day hiking trip, set the hammock up, and the ropes which tie around the trees were missing. That would of been a major Debbie Downer. Just another good reason to carry some good strong cord in the backpack. If nothing else, maybe some 550 cord could be doubled and used to string the hammock up?
In the early spring of 2008 two of my children and I were on a camping trip, when we found out we needed some strong cord. All we hard was lightweight trotline string. What did we do? We took three pieces of trotline string and braided it into cord. The cord was strong enough to do what we needed. So if a single piece of 550 cord were not strong enough, then braid it into cord.
Taking a few minutes and going through the gear before heading out could possibly save a lot of frustration later on.
