TN, if you don't have something helpful to add please get off my thread.
ummmmmmmmmmm.................
i did provide information.............
Last summer I was ridgerunning the Smokies and one thing I hated to do is tell those who hang, and are just traveling thru the park on a thru hiker permit, they are not allowed, even though they had no ground pad. I did note that in IIRC two or three of my ridgerunner reports, stating that backpacking is changing with new innovations and can we come up with a way to accommodate this to meet the hikers where they are. Perhaps put places to hang inside the shelters to preserve the natural surroundings. I never got a reply on that but I really feel that some who got those reports were not happy with that suggestion (it goes to many people in clubs and agencies) - this made me sad, as I did get much positive feedback for other stuff, this went silently ignored.
I did have some hangers ask me if there was any problem with them taking an all night hike and returning in the morning taking their gear with them for that night hike just in case. Technically that is allowed although everyone knew what they were going to do. And yes showed up in the AM nice and rested to continue from their refreshing all night hike.
Last edited by Starchild; 02-06-2015 at 12:10.
Hi, Starchild! You're the perfect resource! Can I confirm, you were only telling them they couldn't hang by the shelter if the shelter wasn't full, right? It is my understanding, from the GSMNP rules, that you CAN hang at (not in, of course) the shelter if the shelter is full.Originally Posted by Starchild
I understand not wanting people to create new camps and I personally wouldn't do that, but I would like to see them allow hammockers on a thru permit to hang at the shelter areas regardless of whether there is room in the shelter or not. Hammock camping is very much LNT! The only concern I could see would be possible tree damage, and for that stipulate straps must be used and not ropes.
"Your comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there."
If you are passing through during April or may you can pretty reliably depend on the shelters to be full. That was the case during my AT hike. I hung with no problem every night.
I know some consider this crazy, but when I liked through GSMNP I had my pad mailed to me, then I followed the rules and slept in the shelters. After the park I mailed the pad back home and went back to hanging every night.
~~
Allen "Monkeywrench" Freeman
NOBO 3-18-09 - 9-27-09
blog.allenf.com
[email protected]
www.allenf.com
Been said before elsewhere, but good advice, I think. Bring a pad AND your hammock through the smokies. That way you can sleep on a platform if required to, or hang if you can. I brought a neo air, and was always able to hang with it, and you may also be that lucky. That pad is now the least used piece of equipment I own. the only way I could do that section without worrying was to have a pad with me in case.
Lazarus
Sorry for the delay I just found this.
You can hang if both you have a thru hiker's permit and the shelter if full.
This cause some 'lovely' paradoxes, like the shelter if full with a combination of thru's and in-park backpackers. Everyone is tucked in for the night then a reservation holder comes in after dark wanting to hang and not having a pad. No dice. A thru must get out of their warm bag which is on top of their cushy theromrest and leave to tent and you must sleep on the hard wood floor.
And yes if you hang it can not be attached to the leantoo structure in any way. (this is actually good as the forces that a hammock can place on the supports is in far excess of the weight of the person)
LNT is part of it but more of a inertia issue, we do it this way because we have done it this way in the past. The park simply classifies hammocks as tents and is slow to consider the LNT impacts of hammocks given the popularity at least as far as policy changes that I have seen.
Didn't study Physics did you? The weight of a person is equally divided between the two supports. The problem is the walls are not designed to support a weight pulling in from the side. The walls and posts are designed to support a weight pushing straight down from above. Therefore, it could be possible that a hammock could pull the wall in from the side.
Actually, that's not very likely to happen, given the overall ruggedness of a Smoky Mt shelter, but still it's not the place to put a hammock. Those shelters are crowded enough already, you don't want to have a hammock in the way too. People would have to crawl under you to get out and take a wizz.
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I've hung in the Smokies at a shelter before. I did it in good conscience based on the "Official App of the Great Smokey Mountains National Park". I later read the online rules and they are worded differently. Here is a screenshot of the rules as shown in the android app.
I should clarify, I hung at a shelter, not in a shelter.....
I just started a thread about a hammock thru hikers gear review, and here's an excerpt regarding use in the Smokies...
What about the Smokies?
I was worried that it would be a problem going through the Smokies, as I understood the rules were along the lines of "if there is room in the shelter, you must sleep in the shelter." This seemed like it was pretty widely disregarded, even in the presence of ridgerunners. Everyday I saw tents and hammocks go up outside the shelters before they were full. And even if you did feel bad about setting up outside, you only needed to wait until 4 or 5pm for the shelters to fill up, and then you could set up outside within the constraints of the rules. Maybe this would be slightly different if you don't go through the Smokies with a large bubble of hikers, but there were easily 50 thruhikers at the Fontana Hilton the night before I entered the Smokies. If you start anywhere near April 1st, this is likely to be the case. And I never saw a ranger in the Smokies. they are kind of a rare breed, as only a handfull of them cover the whole park. I saw 4 ridgerunners and 1 park management employee who was carting around a news reporter doing a story on graffiti in the shelters. The ridgerunners were always polite. I had a permit, but they never even ask to see it. Only asked me if I had it.
That being said, I did spend one night in a shelter in the Smokies. My friends were staying inside. It was raining outside, and close to freezing. Some other thruhikers had zero'd at the shelter and collected a massive pile of firewood. It was a pretty easy decision. I did happen to find a Klymit X-frame torso length sleeping pad in a hiker box in Franklin, NC. Like the one in the link below. It only weighed a few ounces, and I carried this as my insurance policy through the Smokies. It helped me sleep through the night in the shelter, through I can't personally recommend it for frequent use. If I were to go through again, I wouldn't worry about a mattress.
"I wonder if anyone else has an ear so tuned and sharpened as I have, to detect the music, not of the spheres, but of earth, subtleties of major and minor chord that the wind strikes upon the tree branches. Have you ever heard the earth breathe... ?"
- Kate Chopin
Thank you, Scope! I'm feeling less apprehensive about the whole thing now. I also figured I can check the shelter reservations before I go and see if they are full of vacation/section hikers. That might help me gauge whether to take a pad.
"Your comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there."
When I was there couple of years ago during hiker season, my registration was 'looked at' by both ridgerunners and ranger. They also were telling folks who tried to put up a tent before the shelter was full to wait til 8pm or so to see if shelter would fill. Just never know.
This is why we don't allow hammocks attached to shelters as some hikers do not know physics but think do.
Here is a site where you can see how much force can be applied to each support in a hammock. http://theultimatehang.com/hammock-hang-calculator/
To go to a extreme change the hammock angle from 30 to 5 and you will see that a 200 lb person would exert a 1143.01 lbs force on each post towards each other to support a 200 lb hiker this does not include the additional force of 200 lbs (100 per support) to support the downward force.
Last edited by Starchild; 03-10-2015 at 07:58.
Apparently you did not either...
Starchild's statement is correct.
First of all, the weight will only be equally divided between the two supports if the center of mass of the person in the hammock is located exactly at the mid-point between the two supports.
Second of all, depending upon the angle of the hammock straps at the supports, the total force on even just one support can exceed the weight of the person.
As an example, if a person weights 150 lbs, his center of mass is at the mid point between the two supports, and the angle of both hammock ropes are 45º, the supports have 75 lbs of vertical force applied and 75 lbs of horizontal force applied, for a total of 106 lbs of force applied in the direction of the hammock ropes (that's each support).
Change the angle to 30º and the total force applied in the direction of the hammock ropes increases to 150 lbs - on EACH support.
So if the angle of the hammock rope is less than 30º, the forces on EACH support begin to exceed the total weight of the person.
I didn't study physics either but it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to read the rules and realize that hammocks are not to be hung in shelters in the Park......
Also just to add to all that physics talk is the dynamic loading of the hammock, getting in and moving around with off centered weight can cause momentary spikes and vibrational patterns in the force on the supports.
Last edited by Starchild; 03-10-2015 at 09:29.
And that, my friends, is how a train derails!
"Your comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there."
I thought the train reached its station about a month ago when the original question was basically answered... now we're just making extra stops as the train continues past the station...
By attaching a hammock to one side of it?And that, my friends, is how a train derails!
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